ABUSE TRACKER

Lakota Schools athletic director Kevin Yeckley’s career in education was derailed years ago after he acknowledged an inappropriate relationship with a student and later failed to abide by licensing restrictions imposed by the state.

A recent petition calling for his resignation and the resignation of Lakota Schools Superintendent Chad Coffman circulated after a student was assaulted last year led to the resurfacing of concerns surrounding Yeckley and his past behavior.

Coffman and Yeckley deny wrongdoing and reject claims that they mishandled the incident.

But Kelly Stevens, the author of the petition whose grandson was assaulted, alleges that they “refused to follow the court order of no contact (between her grandson and the offenders) and refused to believe there were court proceedings going on,” according to the petition.

She said her experience since the assault was reported has revealed deeper issues regarding how the district handles disciplining students and other matters.

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Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne says he handled sexual abuse accusations properly

The once-powerful archbishop of Lima, Peru, and the first-ever cardinal of Opus Dei acknowledged Saturday that the Vatican had imposed sanctions on him in 2019 following an allegation of sexual abuse, but he denied wrongdoing. Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, 81, wrote a response after Spain’s El País newspaper detailed the allegations against him in its latest installment exposing cases of clergy sexual abuse in the Spanish-speaking Catholic Church. Cipriani called the allegations “completely false,” the AP reports. “I haven’t committed any crime, nor have I sexually abused anyone in 1983, neither before nor after,” Cipriani said in the letter provided by Opus Dei’s Rome office.story continues below

The sanctions limited “my priestly ministry” and asked Cipriani to live outside Peru, he said. Cipriani, who led the Peruvian church for two decades before his retirement in 2019, was the first cardinal of…

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In a busy news week, people may have missed the Vatican stating it has concluded the process of gathering information in the case of Father Marko Rupnik, the former Jesuit accused by several women of abusing them when they were adults, from the mid-1980’s until at least the 2010’s.

The case against Rupnik has been taking a long time, especially considering the Vatican had already decided there was a case to answer but declined to prosecute originally, citing the statute of limitations.

Rupnik was expelled from the Jesuit order in 2023 — for “disobedience” rather than for his alleged crimes, which had been declared beyond the statute of limitations — and was subsequently allowed to join a diocese in his native Slovenia and remain a priest in good standing. When people found out about that development there was massive outcry and Francis ordered Rupnik’s case to be reopened and re-examined.

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Eric Dejaeger admits to assaults on 7 victims in addition to previous convictions

A Catholic priest’s sex assaults on Inuit children decades ago in Igloolik, Nvt., transformed a once friendly and trusting hamlet into a place marred by anger and addiction, court heard Thursday.

Wails and shouts could be heard in the Iqaluit courtroom where Eric Dejaeger pleaded guilty to indecent assaults against six girls and one boy between 1978 and 1982. He’d previously been convicted of dozens of offences against children and some adults.

A woman, whose relatives were abused by Dejaeger and was in court to offer support, read a victim impact statement describing the harm done to the tight-knit community.

“I grew up in Igloolik, in a beautiful environment (where) everybody knows everybody, greeting each other with smiles and laughter. There was much respect for each other in that community,” she said.

“Today, that environment is gone…

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The once-powerful archbishop of Lima, Peru and the first-ever cardinal of Opus Dei acknowledged Saturday that the Vatican had imposed sanctions on him in 2019 following an allegation of sexual abuse, but he strongly denied any wrongdoing.

Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, 81, penned a letter of response after Spain’s El País newspaper detailed the allegations against him in its latest installment of exposing cases of clergy sexual abuse in the Spanish-speaking Catholic Church. Cipriani called the allegations “completely false.”

“I haven’t committed any crime, nor have I sexually abused anyone in 1983, neither before nor after,” Cipriani said in the letter provided by Opus Dei’s Rome office.

Cipriani, who led the Peruvian church for two decades, was the first cardinal of Opus Dei, the conservative movement that was founded by the Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá in 1928, and has more than 90,000 members in 70 countries. The lay group,…

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Forty years ago this June, the National Catholic Reporter began publishing stories about U.S. Catholic priests sexually abusing children. The articles in that first edition, on June 7, 1985, ran longer than 10,000 words. 

During our 60th anniversary year, we are republishing stories from our history, including some of those stories about the sex abuse scandal exposed by NCR. They are running alongside our series, The Reckoning, examining the costs of the abuse scandal to the church.

This is an editorial that ran with the original coverage on June 7, 1985.

Pedophilia problem needs tackling

How often an event in society is mirrored in the church. We are accustomed to hearing that the Catholic divorce rate or abortion rate is little different from these rates for the rest of society.

Now, Catholics are faced with a different phenomenon. Sexual abuse of children has become an…

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If passed, law could lead to ‘innocent priests’ in jail, priest warns

A group of Democratic lawmakers in Montana have introduced a bill that would require Catholic priests to disclose confessions related to serious crimes, challenging the church’s long-standing tradition of maintaining the confidentiality of the confessional. 

Senate Bill 139, titled “Eliminate clergy exemption in mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect,” spearheaded by Democratic Sens. Mary Dunwell and Sara Novak, seeks to compel priests to report to authorities if a churchgoer admits to criminal activity, particularly cases of abuse.

Under Montana state law, professionals such as doctors, teachers and law enforcement officials are required to report suspicions of child abuse or neglect to authorities. The proposed legislation would expand this mandate to include clergy, specifically targeting confessions that involve admissions of criminal behavior, with a focus on abuse cases.

SB 139 would eliminate the exemption…

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Despite initial expectations, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno did not file a petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the United States Bankruptcy Court last summer, and no filing date has yet been announced.

The “court-supervised reorganization” was initially announced in an open letter in May 2024, and explained as a response to claims of sexual abuse made against clergy in the diocese.

“After much consultation and careful thought, I have decided that the diocese will file a petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the United States Bankruptcy Court in 2024,” wrote the Most Rev. Joseph V. Brennan, bishop of the diocese, in the open letter. “I expect to file that petition in August.”

Filing for Chapter 11, according to the Brennan, would allow the church to address the “substantial number of claims brought forth by victims collectively.” He went on to say that the total expense required…

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Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said this week that there are “worse but less publicized” abuse cases than that of disgraced former Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik.

Asked about the timeline of the investigation into Rupnik, reopened by Pope Francis in 2023, Fernández responded that the dicastery he heads has finished “gathering information” about the case and is now working to create a tribunal.

The cardinal’s comments came in a Jan. 23 interview with the weekly magazine of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Alfa y Omega.

The interview discussed the DDF’s intention to typify the canonical crime of “spiritual abuse” because, as Cardinal Fernández explained, “many dicasteries continuously received complaints on situations in which spiritual elements were used as an excuse or motivation to have sexual relations (by a priest with a catechist, for example).

In these cases, there is a manipulation…

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A Missouri judge ruled in favor of Kanakuk Kamps Jan. 17, stifling a claim by an abused camper that leaders of the Christian camp for children committed fraud and civil conspiracy against Logan Yandell.

This is a rare win for the embattled organization that still operates today with the same leadership despite multiple lawsuits and a raft of documented cases of abuse.

In the latest action, Christian County Judge Raymond M. Gross dismissed claims of fraud and civil conspiracy in the Yandell v. Kanakuk lawsuit.

Yandell suffered abuse at the hands of serial child sex abuser Peter Newman. The Yandell family previously settled with Kanakuk after Newman’s initial confession in 2009, but Yandell now alleges Kanakuk Kamps and its insurance company intentionally concealed pertinent information about the situation that may have caused the family not to induce a settlement.

In November, attorneys for Kanakuk presented arguments for summary judgment in their client’s favor. Yandell’s attorneys argued…

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Shannon Simendinger, 45, previously testified against one religious leader in a criminal trial 2 years ago. He was found guilty of sexual assault.

While she was growing up in Fort Kent in the late 1980s, the local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses was Shannon Simendinger’s world.

“When that’s all you know, you get close to the people and they become your family,” Simendinger said in a phone interview Thursday. “You get attached to them, and trust them.”

But it wasn’t just tight-knit — Simendinger feels now that she was isolated, discouraged from speaking with people outside her religion. That includes the time that Simendinger said she tried to get help after she was sexually abused by her religious leaders.

“I never put anything that happened behind me. It was always there, I just had to suppress my feelings in order to function,” Simendinger said. “You weren’t allowed to bring it up…

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The justice expects to sentence Eric Dejaeger Thursday

Crown and defence lawyers in the case of a priest who sexually abused children in Nunavut are together recommending he receive a six-year sentence. 

Eric Dejaeger, 77, pleaded guilty earlier this week to six counts of sexually abusing children in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982 — some of them as young as four. 

• ‘You are a monster’: Former Catholic priest pleads guilty to sexually assaulting Nunavut children

Victims and supporters packed the benches behind the Crown lawyers Friday as sentencing submissions were read in court. Crown lawyer Emma Baasch went through each of the charges against Dejaeger, outlining the sentences associated with each one. 

Victims had delivered impact statements on Thursday, detailing the abuse they endured as children and how it continues to affect them. On Friday, Baasch said “no sentence can erase the harm.” However, she said that it “brings…

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Dejaeger pleaded guilty to indecent assaults against six girls and one boy between 1978 and 1982 in Iqaluit Thursday as wails and shouts could be heard in the courtroom.

Warning: This story describes sexual assaults against children. Please read with care.

A defrocked Catholic priest should never be released into society again, says a woman he victimized four decades ago.

Eric Dejaeger, a former Belgium national, has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing Tina (not her real name) at an earlier court hearing.

“I was six, seven, eight years old,” says the First Nations woman of the assaults that occurred from 1975 to 1977.

“The threats he used on me are the same he used on those Inuit children.”

On Thursday, Dejaeger pleaded guilty at a court hearing in Iqaluit to committing indecent assaults against six girls and one boy between 1978 and 1982 in northern Nunavut. Wails and shouts could…

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Victims of Eric Dejaeger read impact statements, sentencing expected Friday

A former Catholic priest who sexually abused children in Nunavut has pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him. 

Eric Dejaeger, 77, entered his guilty pleas in an Iqaluit courtroom Thursday morning before Justice Faiyaz Alibhai. 

Dejaeger originally faced eight historical charges for sexual assaults that happened between 1978 and 1982 in Igloolik. Two of the charges were withdrawn by the Crown, as they pertain to having sex outside marriage, which is no longer part of the Criminal Code.

“I plead guilty,” he said of the remaining six charges. “To all of them.” 

A woman was drumming outside of the courtroom on Thursday as people entered. 

Crown lawyer Emma Baasch read the facts of the charges into the record, detailing each assault. 

Most of Dejaeger’s victims were between six and nine years old, and some were as young as four, the court heard. 

Two of…

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One of the more interesting passages in Pope Francis’s television interview on Sunday was his statement that sins of the flesh are less damaging than “angelic” sins, such as lying or committing fraud.

Speaking to Italian journalist Fabio Fazio on the show Che Tempo Che Fa, Francis said the “most serious sins” are those of which angels are capable.

“Sins of the flesh have less ‘angelicality’. Sins of gluttony, sexual sins have less ‘angelicality’. Instead, not taking care of dad and mum, lies, fraud … these have so much ‘angelicality’. We must be respectful and not put everything in the sins of the flesh,” the pope told Fazio.

“It disgusts me when some people always look for that in confession. Sins of the flesh have less ‘angelicality’, but don’t forget the others. It is so wrong not to take care of dad and mom, so wrong. They have more ‘angelicality’. This…

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A warning, the following video contains content some may find disturbing. Victim impact statements were read today in the trial of Eric Dejaeger. The abuse happened while he was stationed in Iglooik. As TJ Dhir reports it was an emotional day.

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Seton Hall University is vigorously defending its new president after POLITICO reported he was implicated in a secret report on sexual abuse.

The findings about Monsignor Joseph Reilly prompted calls for his resignation in recent weeks from state lawmakers, and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy urged the Catholic university to release its internal report on Reilly.

But in a university-wide email on Thursday, the chair of Seton Hall’s Board of Regents said the university’s governing board “continues to stand by” its president.

“Recent news stories have falsely and unfairly portrayed him,” Board of Regents Chair Hank D’Alessandro said.

Seton Hall did not respond to a message asking what specific news stories were false. It has also not sought a correction to POLITICO’s reporting.

Reilly was not accused of abuse himself. But investigators in 2019 recommended, pursuant to a responsive action plan the school’s governing body…

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Claim alleges physical, psychological and sexual abuse École Notre Dame in 1960s and 1970s

A judge has certified a class-action lawsuit over alleged abuse of Indigenous children sent to a northeast Alberta Catholic school in the 1960s and 1970s.

Representative plaintiff Cynthia Iris Youngchief filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the federal and provincial governments, as well as local religious and school authorities.

Her statement of claim outlines allegations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse against Indigenous students at École Notre Dame in Bonnyville, Alta., about 240 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.

Children from Kehewin Cree Nation, located just south of Bonnyville, were sent to the school as day students after the federal government stopped operating the Indian day school in the community in 1964, according to legal filings in the case.

In a decision this week, Court of King’s Bench Justice James Neilson certified the action against three proposed defendants: the federal government, the Diocese…

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The Vatican has decided to dismiss from clerical state a Polish priest who in April last year was handed an 18-month prison sentence after being found guilty of four charges relating to a drug-fuelled sex party he held with two men in his apartment.

One of the charges against the priest, who can be named only as Tomasz Z. under Polish privacy law, related to “taking advantage of the helplessness of another person and causing them to have sexual intercourse or submit to a sexual act”.

The other charges pertained to failing to provide help to a person whose life and health were in danger, and the supply of psychoactive and psychotropic substances.

Following its own investigation, the local diocese of Sosnowiec initiated proceedings that have now led to the Vatican completing the judicial canonical process and, as a result, removing Tomasz Z. from priesthood.

The incident in question took place…

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The independent sexual abuse reporting service of the diocese of Basel has received 141 reports since the publication of a sweeping study on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church by the University of Zurich in 2023. The diocese has filed five criminal complaints.

Between September 2023, when the University of Zurich published its study, and January 20, 2024, the diocese of Basel received 141 reports of sexual abuse, the diocese said on Tuesday. Of these, 96% were claims made against persons who are now dead, cases of sexual abuse for which the statute of limitations had expired, and reports where the accused and the presumed victims could not be identified.

Of the 141 reports, the law firm Hess, which acts as the independent reporting service, examined 126 files and in 93 cases issued detailed recommendations to Bishop Felix Gmür. Sixty cases are still being processed and 80 have been closed.

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The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John’s is appealing a court decision that determined its insurance policy was void because it didn’t disclose reports of sexual abuse

The St. John’s Roman Catholic archdiocese is continuing its fight to have its insurance company cover some of its settlement with clergy abuse survivors, by appealing a recent court decision that found the insurance policy invalid.

The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John’s (RCECSJ) filed documents with the province’s court of appeal Friday, Jan. 17, asking it to overturn Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Peter Browne’s Dec. 20 decision and find it entitled to indemnity under the Guardian Insurance policy it took out in the 1980s.Article content

Browne ruled after trial that the policy was void due to the RCECSJ’s failure to disclose sexual abuse claims.

The RCECSJ acknowledged it had received information about its priests sexually abusing youth and…

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A former Louisville priest pleaded not guilty Wednesday to child sex abuse charges.

The accusations against Joseph Mouser, 86, are new, but court records allege the incidents happened 35 years ago when the victim was younger than 12 years old.

Mouser was one of two dozen priests named in a class action lawsuit alleging abuse of minors in the 60s and 70s. In that case, Mouser was accused of taking several boys to a drive-in, giving them alcohol and assaulting them.

The alleged incidents happened during his time at St. Francis of Assisi in Louisville and St. Helen in Glasgow, Kentucky. That lawsuit was settled for nearly $26 million the following year.

The former priest was removed from public ministry in 2002.

In 2005, he was directed by the Holy See to lead a life of prayer and penance. After the allegations, Louisville’s archbishop at the time sent him to…

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The Sodality of Christian Life has reported that between May 2016 and December 2024 it provided reparations to 83 people who were victims of sexual, psychological, and power abuse through out-of-court settlements.

According to the report published Tuesday on its website, of the total number of cases given reparations, 15 were for the sexual abuse of minors between ages 11 and 17, 18 were for the sexual abuse of adults, and 50 were for other types of abuse.

The document was initially presented on Jan. 15 to the members of the general assembly of the apostolate held in Aparecida, Brazil.

The text indicates that the greatest number of cases that were given reparations were for abuse committed in the 1990s and 2000s, with 39 cases in the first period and 29 in the second.

The report also indicates that the reparations to which the victims agreed consist…

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Daniel Reece attended church every Sunday as a child growing up in Connecticut, and he went to a Roman Catholic middle school. His parents are still deeply observant — his mother goes to Mass every day at noon, and his father is part of the church choir. Reece, who is now 37, still finds the moral values he learned through Catholicism to be profound. He feels, he explained to me, a sense of “awe of the sheer perfection that God has achieved with this planet.”

Yet he no longer attends church, and he did not have his daughter, who is now 4, baptized.

That’s because he finds the behavior of the Catholic Church, as an institution, to go against its own teachings. “The contradiction of the Catholic Church’s actions and scandals and obsession and reliance on wealth is something that simply confuses me,” he said. He felt dishonest practicing Catholicism…

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Suit alleges Calgary school staff failed to respond properly to abuse allegations

A judge with the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta has certified a class-action lawsuit that alleges school staff knew and “failed to respond properly to the many disclosures of abuse” made by students against two teachers at John Ware Junior High School.

The lawsuit is against the Calgary Board of Education (CBE), the estate of former teacher Michael Gregory and former teacher Fred Archer.

Three representative plaintiffs are listed, each of whom is representing different subclasses of plaintiffs: alleged sexual assault victims of Gregory, alleged physical assault victims of Gregory, and alleged sexual and physical assault victims of Archer.

There are 30 or more people being represented in the class action, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs.

Last week, Justice Michele H. Hollins filed her 11-page decision certifying the class action.

After the plaintiffs considered a mass tort action…

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Eric Dejaeger’s trial adjourned to Thursday; faces 8 charges related to time in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982

Former Roman Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger, who is facing eight historical sex-related charges, will enter a guilty plea later this week, his lawyer Scott Cowan said in court in Iqaluit Tuesday.

Cowan did not specify which charges Dejaeger will plead guilty to when he returns to court on Thursday.

Dejaeger appeared in court Tuesday for only a few minutes before proceedings were adjourned. It was the second adjournment in the trial, which was supposed to begin Monday.

Dejaeger, 78, faces eight historical indecent assault and sexual assault charges involving six victims, according to court documents. The charges relate to his time working as an Oblate priest in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982.

He was charged in June 2023 after being arrested by police in Kingston, Ont., on a Canada-wide warrant.

Dejaeger had previously…

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Hearings scheduled in Iqaluit this week now adjourned to Thursday

A former Catholic priest charged with eight counts of historical sexual assault against children in Nunavut is expected to plead guilty to those charges. 

Eric Dejaeger’s judge-alone trial was scheduled to take place this week, but adjourned on Tuesday. 

Scott Cowan, Dejaeger’s lawyer, told the court he and Crown lawyer Emma Baasch agreed the guilty pleas would be entered on Thursday morning. 

Discussion about those pleas happened before anyone testified in court, meaning there are few public details about the charges against Dejaeger. A publication ban protects the names of the children he’s accused of sexually assaulting. 

Court documents show the charges stem from what is alleged to have happened while Dejaeger, now 77, was working as a priest in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982. The investigations happened between 2011 and 2015.

Dejaeger was previously sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2015 after a court found him  View Cache

An Italian bishop praised by Pope Francis is facing a Vatican investigation and a civil trial for perjury, local media reported Tuesday.

The Vatican reportedly sent an apostolic visitor to Scicily to assess accusations against Bishop Rosario Gisana of Piazza Armerina after a public prosecutor decided he should stand trial for perjury.

According to Rome’s Il Messaggero newspaper, Gisana will be the first Italian bishop to face trial over the handling of an abuse case.

The public prosecutor in Enna, central Sicily, ordered Gisana and the Diocese of Piazza Armerina’s judicial vicar Msgr. Vincenzo Murgano to answer an accusation of giving false testimony in the trial of Fr. Giuseppe Rugolo.

A court in Enna sentenced Rugolo in the first instance on March 5, 2024, to four years and six months for sexual violence and attempted sexual violence against minors.

The court also ruled that Gisana had failed to exercise proper oversight…

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Court battle continues over withholding of documents detailing abuse at Ontario residential school

Federal lawyers are asking a court to dismiss a group of survivors’ fight to hold Canada accountable for withholding evidence of widespread abuse at St. Anne’s Indian Residential School during class-action compensation hearings.

The decade-old legal saga continues this week in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto, where former pupils of the notorious Catholic-run school in Fort Albany are responding to the government.

Faced with mainly technical arguments, Edmund Metatawabin, a former Fort Albany First Nation chief who is leading the fight, said his group is used to such tactics but continues to press for truth.

“All they’re interested in is that truth,” said Metatawabin.

“We don’t really want anybody to suffer, but we don’t want things to be whitewashed, too.”

The case concerns implementation of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement from 2006. The class-action settlement offered former…

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Case with direct ties to Mount Cashel scandal to be heard in October

A case that began with one man’s allegations against a Catholic school teacher surreptitiously shipped across the country has now grown into a behemoth class-action lawsuit with more than 200 claimants.

That class action — involving a pair of British Columbia private schools, the Archdiocese of Vancouver, and four Christian Brothers — is now heading to trial, after attempts to mediate the case outside the courtroom fell through.

A key component of the case will be proving the schools had knowledge that six Christian Brothers sent from Newfoundland to British Columbia were abusive toward children.

“We were, quite frankly, surprised with the number of students who have come forward to provide accounts of physical and sexual abuse at both schools,” said Joe Fiorante, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs.

“What’s shocking to us is that the abuse was able…

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Despite reportedly taking a break from public ministry following sexual abuse allegations, Messianic Jewish apologist Michael Brown has been sharing prayer and weight loss tips and pitching his new memoir in YouTube videos. So, former staff and students of Brown’s ministry have launched a petition, calling for Brown to stop all public ministry until a third-party investigation is finished.

“We do not believe a truly repentant leader would be seeking to maintain his platform while serious allegations remain uninvestigated,” the petition states. “When Dr. Brown releases upbeat podcasts and speaks about his love of preaching while these matters remain under investigation, we feel he demonstrates a chilling disregard for the ongoing suffering of those who carry the scars of both his spiritual and sexual abuse.”

However, The Line of Fire Board Member Jonathan Bernis said Brown is running only reruns to fulfill contracts with stations and networks for…

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The Washington Post has published a 5,300-word story about multiple allegations of sexual abuse against Jeffrey “Jeff” Taylor, a former employee of The Falls Church in northern Virginia. The story said the FBI may be investigating the allegations, but the FBI declined comment.

Taylor served as the parish’s director of youth ministries from May 1990 to August 1999 and director of adult discipleship from September 1999 until February 2002. The Falls Church was an Episcopal congregation then, but joined the Anglican Church in North America when the ACNA was formed.

Like British layman John Smyth, Taylor reportedly showed a frequent interest in how often teenaged boys in his care engaged in masturbation, and the sizes of their penises, according to the story.

The Falls Church affirms the church’s historic doctrine on sexual morality, but the story suggests that even this detail became…

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“We are specifically requesting an apostolic visitation”

A small group of Catholics is calling on Pope Francis to consider removing Buffalo Bishop Michael Fisher, as the diocese faces a critical period of downsizing and ongoing legal battles.

Over the next six months, the diocese will continue closing and merging dozens of churches, while also working to settle more than 900 clergy sexual abuse cases involving minors.

Michael Taheri, one of the individuals behind the letter, explained that the group is seeking an apostolic visitation by the Vatican to assess the bishop’s leadership.

“If Pope Francis sends someone to visit Buffalo, interview Catholic laity, and meet with priests, the decision to remove Bishop Fisher would be up to the Pope,” said Taheri. “But we are specifically requesting an apostolic visitation.”

Taheri’s concerns reflect ongoing frustrations within the community, especially as church closures intensify amid a major priest shortage and declining attendance.

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Pope Francis is taking the highly unusual decision to dissolve an influential Catholic group from Peru which has been plagued by allegations of abuse from within its community, including allegations related to its founder, for more than a decade.

News of the decision to dissolve the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, which at one point had 20,000 members across South America and parts of the United States, was confirmed in a statement by the group, although the Vatican has yet to comment or publish anything official about the move.

The decision to suppress the Sodalitium was first reported by Spanish-language site Infovaticana with the Sodalitum saying the “central information” in that report was true but that “it contained several inaccuracies,” although it did not specify what these were.

A papal decision to dissolve or suppress a Catholic religious community is rare and in the Sodalitium’s case follows attempts by…

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The Rev. Matt Foley, former pastor of St. James Parish in Arlington Heights — and whose name was borrowed for a recurring “Saturday Night Live” character in the 1990s — is the subject of an investigation into an allegation of sexual abuse against a minor about 30 years ago.

The St. James Parish congregation was informed in a letter from Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich over the weekend. The abuse accusations were said to have occurred during an earlier period when Foley was associate pastor of St. Agatha in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood.

“In keeping with our child protection policies, Father Foley has been asked to step away from ministry during the investigation,” Cupich wrote. “While he strenuously denies this allegation, he has agreed to cooperate with this directive.”

The allegations were first made to law enforcement, Cupich wrote. But the Archdiocese of Chicago is offering assistance as well.

When authorities…

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Roman Polanski is a famous movie director and actor, known for directing the films Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown. He left the United States for France in 1978, after he pled guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl, Samantha Geimer. He worried that the judge in that case would give him a 50-year sentence instead of a shorter-term plea bargain.[1]

California opened a three-year window, from 2020-2022, that allowed survivors to file lawsuits starting January 1, 2020.[2] The change in the statute of limitations meant Polanski was sued in 2023 by another victim of child sexual assault in Los Angeles. The victim, Jane Doe, says Polanski gave her tequila and raped her in 1973, when she was 16 years old.[3] At his California home, he gave her tequila shots, and when she woke up he said he was going to have sex with her. She said “no”, but he took off her clothes…

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[See also the full text of the report in German and Italian.]

An inquiry into sexual abuse by priests in one northern Italian diocese Monday reported 60 cases since 1964, in what it called the Catholic-majority country’s first independent study into the problem.

The diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone, covering the northeastern region of South Tyrol, had commissioned a Munich-based law firm to carry out the investigation for the period 1964-2023, whose findings were published Monday.

Westpfahl Spilker Wastl said it was the first study carried out within the Italian Episcopal Conference “to reconstruct and examine in a completely independent manner the episodes of sexual abuse”.

“Every case is one too many,” said the dioese’s Bishop Ivo Muser, adding that the suffering of victims “should fill us with shame and challenge us to look deeply”.

The still-unfolding international scandal of paedophile priests within the Catholic Church has spurred independent inquiries across the United…

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Do you remember Roman Polanski? Polanski, now 91 years old, is a famous movie director and actor, known, especially, for directing the films Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown. He left the United States for France in 1978, after he pled guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl, Samantha Geimer. He was worried that the judge in that case would give him a 50-year sentence instead of following the briefer plea bargain.[1]

Polanski was sued in 2023 for child sexual assault in Los Angeles. The victim, Jane Doe, says Polanski gave her tequila and raped her in 1973, when she was 16 years old.[2] At his California home, he gave her tequila shots, and when she woke up he said he was going to have sex with her. She said no, but he took off her clothes and raped her. [3]

The plaintiff, sometimes known in public as Robin, appeared with her lawyer, Gloria…

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[See also the full text of the report in German and Italian.]

Dozens of sex abuse cases committed by members of the clergy over six decades emerged on Monday from an independent report into a northern Italian diocese that dug deeper into the past than others produced by the Italian Catholic Church.

While Italian bishops have been criticised for issuing reports on abuse limited to the 2020-2022 period, the diocese of Bolzano-Brixen investigated cases from 1964, the year in which it was established, through 2023.

Bolzano-Brixen belongs to the German-speaking province of South Tyrol, on the Austrian border, and has been more active on the issue than other Italian dioceses. In 2010, it was the first to open an office to handle reports of clerical sex abuse.

It commissioned Monday’s report from a German law firm, which produced a 631-page document based on church archives and interviews that found 67 possible…

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[See also the full text of the report in German and Italian.]

Investigators warn of ‘dark field’ beyond cases examined

Italy’s first-ever report on Catholic clerical sexual abuse, from the diocese of Bozen-Brixen in South Tyrol, has revealed at least 67 cases of sexual abuse in the period 1964-2023.

The report, presented on Monday, found at least 59 people were abused in the period of study by 41 abusing clerics, with 16 additional cases of ambiguous or unclear detail.

In one case a priest ordained in the 1960s abused young girls for more than half a century despite a series of complaints.

“He was transferred, transferred, transferred, transferred, transferred until, almost 50 years later, someone in 2010 had the courage to remove him from pastoral work,” said Dr Ulrich Wastl, a Munich-based lawyer and chief investigator in the Bozen-Brixen study.

Despite…

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“The Church opened its archives and Emmäus set up a historical commission, but only the justice system has the necessary means of investigation to allow the full truth to be revealed.”

The president of the French bishops’ conference appealed to the Paris prosecutor to open an official inquiry into the sexual abuse allegations against the late Abbé Pierre, long considered the merciful face of the Church in France.

A third report by his foundations published on 13 January mentioned nine further accusations against Abbé Pierre, who died in 2007, bringing the total against him to 33.

In its initial response, the bishops’ conference said: “The accumulation of facts now known that were perpetrated by this priest, who was so admired, is horrific.”

Four days later, conference president Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort of Reims called for a public inquiry into Abbé Pierre “for non-denunciation of rapes and sexual assaults on vulnerable…

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[See also the full text of the CARA data summary report.]

The United States arm of the Catholic Church paid more than $5 billion over 20 years for costs related to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests and deacons, according to a study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Published this month, the 106-page report tracked and calculated the costs related to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests and deacons reported by “dioceses, eparchies and religious communities of men” annually from 2004 to 2023. 

Researchers found that the Catholic Church paid out just over $5,025,346,893. 

Some 87% of the payments — or more than $4.3 billion — were made by dioceses and eparchies, while other religious communities of men connected to the Catholic Church paid the remaining 13%, which amounted to $641,324,609.

“A…

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Sexual abuse is NOT charitable. Tort law pays victims damages for the harms defendants inflicted on them. Charitable immunity restricts the tort damages that nonprofit institutions like churches have to pay, allegedly because the charities are performing good works. Churches should not be immune from tort liability for their sexual abuse just because they also supposedly do good things.

Churches keep claiming this charitable limitation on their liability to abuse victims. Courts keep debating if they should let the churches go free or hold them liable for their harms to survivors.

The courts need to be clearer that church defendants should not be free from any tort liability for sexual abuse.

Intentional Torts: South Carolina

The South Carolina Supreme Court just ruled unanimously, in Doe v. Bishop of Charleston, that charitable immunity does not free churches from their liability for intentional torts. The state’s lower, circuit, and appeals courts, dismissed John Doe’s lawsuit against…

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Bishops sell churches to pay settlements as insurance companies meet less than one-fifth of the expenses

The U.S. Catholic Church spent over $5 billion on victim compensation and attorneys’ fees in cases of clerical sex abuse of minors between 2004 and 2023, according to a new report by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

Released on January 15, the 106-page study records a total of 16,276 “credible allegations” of abuse of minors by priests, deacons, and religious brothers, which were reported by dioceses, eparchies, and men’s religious communities in the U.S. over the last two decades.

Victims of a ‘Lavender Mafia’

Four in five victims were male and one-fifth of the victims were female, the survey recorded, confirming reports by The Stream and other experts of a “lavender mafia” dominating the Latin-rite Roman Catholic priesthood.

More than half the victims were between ages…

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The Archdiocese of Chicago has removed two priests from active ministry as it investigates sex abuse allegations leveled against both of them.

The archdiocese announced the development on Saturday, writing to 14 different parishes at which the two priests, Father Matthew Foley and Father Henry Kricek, served over a series of years.

The allegation against Foley involved claims of abuse when he was assigned to St. Agatha Parish (now renamed St. Simon of Cyrene Parish) “approximately 30 years ago,” the archdiocese said, while those against Kricek concerned alleged abuse at St. John Bosco Parish “approximately 40 years ago.”

Both allegations involved abuse of a minor, the archdiocese said. Both priests have been removed from ministry while the archdiocese investigates the claims.

The archdiocese has reported the allegations to civil authorities and has offered the accusers access to the diocesan victim assistance ministry.

“After the civil authorities have…

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Pope Francis has taken the remarkable step of dissolving a Peruvian-based Catholic movement, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, after years of attempts at reform and a Vatican investigation. The probe uncovered sexual abuses by its founder, financial mismanagement by its leaders and spiritual abuses by its top members.

The Sodalitium on Monday confirmed the dissolution, which was conveyed to an assembly of its members in Aparecida, Brazil this weekend by Francis’ top legal adviser Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda. In revealing the dissolution in a statement, the group lamented that news of Francis’ decision had been leaked by two members attending the assembly, who were “definitively expelled.”

It provided no details, saying only that the “central information” about the dissolution that was reported by Spanish-language site Infovaticana “was true but it contained several inaccuracies.” It didn’t say what the inaccuracies were.

The Vatican has not responded to several requests for comment. Dissolution, or suppression,…

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Sources attending an ongoing general assembly have said that after undergoing over a year of investigation by the Vatican, it was announced that the Peru-based, scandal-ridden Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV) will be dissolved.

No formal announcement has yet been made by the Vatican or the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference (CEP), however, participants attending the SCV’s Jan. 6-31 general assembly, being held in Aparecida, Brazil, have said an announcement of its dissolution has been made.

Several participants confirmed to Crux that a decree of dissolution, citing the immoral behavior of the founder and the lack of a founding charism, was read by Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda and Mexican Father Guillermo Rodríguez. Neither of them responded to a request for comments.

Ghirlanda, a revered canonist and close papal aide who has historic ties to the SCV, was tapped by the pope in 2019 to overhaul its formation process, while Rodríguez oversaw the group’s governance amid ongoing efforts…

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The trial is scheduled to take two weeks

The trial for a former Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse begins at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit on Monday. 

Eric Dejaeger faces eight counts of historical sexual assault. 

The charges stem from what is alleged to have happened while Dejaeger was working as a priest in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982, according to court documents. The investigations happened between 2011 and 2015.

Dejaeger was arrested on the charges in Kingston, Ont., in June 2023 and taken into custody in Iqaluit. He was 76 at the time. He was then granted bail on the condition that he live at the Henry Traill Community Correctional Centre in Kingston, which has 24-hour supervision. 

The judge-only trial is scheduled to take two weeks. 

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[See also the full text of the CARA data summary report.]

Annual surveys from the past 20 years show a significant decline in credible allegations of child abuse by Catholic clergy members, according to data released this week.

But while experts say that might be a positive sign, they also acknowledge the report does not detail abuse of adults, and that allegations of abuse can sometimes take decades before they are reported.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University released Jan. 15 a report summarizing its findings from 20 years of surveys about child abuse allegations involving clergy in the United States.

The report found that the vast majority of credible allegations reported in the last two decades occurred in the 1980s or earlier.

Some 97% of credible allegations occurred before the year 2000.

In 2002, the Catholic Church in the U.S. adopted the Dallas Charter, a…

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France’s Catholic Church called on prosecutors on Friday to open a probe into sexual assault accusations against the late French priest Abbe Pierre, who was a lifelong campaigner for the poor and homeless, and potential cover-ups of such abuse.

Henri-Antoine Groues, better known as Abbe Pierre, was a Roman Catholic priest who renounced wealth to campaign for the homeless and was once one of France’s most revered figures. He died in 2007, aged 94.

The church’s request comes after two charities founded by Abbe Pierre released a report last July bearing the testimonies of seven women accusing the late priest of sexual assault or harassment.

The charities, Emmaus International and the Abbe Pierre Foundation, said they believed the accusations and stood by the alleged victims.

In a statement published on Friday, France’s top bishop, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, said he was asking the Paris prosecutor’s office to open a probe for…

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The first ever memoir by a living pope reveals a warm, emotionally intelligent man who loves football and ‘cutting-edge’ cinema – but skates over the more controversial parts of his career

Popes seldom lack a platform or a pulpit, so they have had little need to resort to autobiography to explain themselves. What books do appear under their names in recent decades have been either dull transcriptions of interviews with tame journalists that have been heavily vetted by the Vatican, or compilations of old sermons packaged as something more than they are.

I therefore approached this new volume with a certain weary caution and was pleasantly surprised. It fully justifies its bold claim to be the first ever memoir by a living pope. Indeed, Francis’s Italian ghostwriter, the publisher Carlo Musso, reveals in a brief afterword that the original plan when the book was commissioned in 2019 was that it…

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When Justin’s appointment was announced, I might have been surprised had I known as much then as I know now about how appointments processes work, but I was certainly encouraged. A friend published this comment on Facebook, and I think it was representative of how many people felt at the time:

In March 2013, while training for ordination in Nottingham, I went along to a local church, to listen to an invited speaker. This clergyman spoke about his faith in Jesus Christ. I was struck by how he did not gloss over the death of his child, and his own struggles with depression. A few days later, the speaker, Justin Welby, was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. I am thankful that his words made space for leaders to speak about mental health challenges…

I remember two events early on in his time in office where…

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The trial of a former Catholic priest who worked in Nunavut begins on Monday. This isn’t the first time Eric Dejaeger Is facing charges or abusing people while he was a member of the clergy.

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If you asked Catholics in Maryland (and around the District of Columbia) about the Maryland attorney general’s investigation into clergy sex crimes and cover-ups in their area, most would say, “That’s over.” And they’d be right, but only to a degree. In 2023, the state’s AG released a 463-page report on his probe. It named roughly 150 accused abusers. That report covered the bulk of the predator priests in Maryland, which is mostly covered by the Baltimore Archdiocese. However, the AG’s office is now investigating that portion of the state that technically belongs to the Archdiocese of Washington. It includes five Maryland counties: Montgomery, Prince George’s, St. Mary’s, Calvert, and Charles.

A year ago, Maryland AG Anthony Brown began “actively seeking testimony from victims of child sex abuse“ in those counties. One news source called the move  “a sign that the state is expanding and intensifying its probe.” Prince George’s County is the second largest of…

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Catholic bishops from across the Philippines will convene next week for their biannual plenary assembly to pray and discuss key issues facing the Church today.

The assembly, set for Jan. 25 to 27, will be preceded with a three-day seminar on “transparency and accountability” within the Church.

The event, hosted by the Archdiocese of Lipa, will be held at Seda Hotel in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

Msgr. Bernardo Pantin, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said the seminar will involve not only bishops but also financial administrators.

The seminar will feature speakers from the Philippines, as well as from Rome, London, and the United States.

It is a follow-up to a similar workshop held at the Vatican in June 2024, which some Filipino bishops and priests attended.

The Vatican seminar aimed to equip Church leaders with practical tools to promote transparency within their organizations.

Msgr. Pantin…

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The Brief

• Two Chicago priests, Fathers Henry Kricek and Matthew Foley, are under investigation for alleged sexual abuse of minors, with both stepping away from ministry pending the outcome.
• The Archdiocese of Chicago has offered support services to those making the allegations through its Victim Assistance Ministry.
• Results of the investigations will be reported to the Independent Review Board, determining whether Kricek and Foley will be reinstated.

Two Chicago priests are under investigation for alleged sexual abuse of minors, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced Saturday.

Both priests, who have served at several parishes, have stepped down while the investigations are underway.

Chicago Priests Face Allegations

What we know:

Archdiocese Cardinal Blase J. Cupich sent letters to the parishes of St. Edward, St. Gall, St. James, St. John Bosco, St. John of the Cross, Saints Joseph and Francis Xavier, and several others regarding the allegations against Fathers Henry Kricek…

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Two priests, Father Matthew Foley and Father Henry Kricek, have been accused of sex abuse of a minor at Chicago churches, the Archdiocese said.Two priests, Father Matthew Foley and Father Henry Kricek, have been accused of sex abuse of a minor at Chicago churches, the Archdiocese said.

Two priests who served at multiple Chicago-area churches are facing allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, the Archdiocese of Chicago said Saturday.

Father Matthew Foley and Father Henry Kricek will be stepping away from ministry during investigations into the accusations, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich announced in letters to families of multiple parishes.

Foley is accused of sexual abuse against a minor while he was assigned to St. Agatha Parish in Lawndale approximately 30 years ago, the Archdiocese said.

Kricek is accused of sexual abuse against a minor while he was assigned to St. John Bosco Parish in Belmont Cragin approximately 40 years…

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This week nine more charges of sexual abuse were levelled against Abbé Pierre, the late French Roman Catholic priest who for decades was regarded as a modern-day saint.

This brings to 33 the number of charges, ranging from sexual assault to the rape of a boy, all alleged to have been committed between the 1960s and shortly before the priest’s death in 2007 at the age of 94. Among the latest complainants are a woman now 58, who detailed how she was assaulted by Abbé Pierre exactly fifty years ago. ‘Several times I’ve wanted to shout to the world that this man isn’t who he says he is,’ the woman said in an interview this week. ‘But who would have believed me? People weren’t ready to hear that about Abbé Pierre.’

The priest – whose real name was Henri Grouès – is reported to have been a voracious sexual predator, who indulged his perversion around…

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The debate around “grooming gangs” and sexual exploitation often centres around culture and misogyny. A sexualised culture seeped with misogynistic attitudes is indeed a major cause for the prevailing issue of child sexual exploitation.

Nowadays though, Islam is being blamed for a string of child sexual abuse scandals that shocked Britain in the last few decades. But far from being a cause or a motivation, Islam is actually the antithesis to sexual impropriety, and, in fact, carries the antidote to such crimes.

Around 1 in 20 children in the United Kingdom has been sexually assaulted, according to the child protection charity, the NSPCC. Most of the abuse takes place by family members with girls as the primary victims. In the United States, 93% of victims know the perpetrator, while that figure is 90% in the UK. Abuse happens in a vast range of settings…

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A woman who says she was sexually abused as a child by a priest says it is “absolutely outrageous” her alleged abuser was later praised by the man now leading the Church of England.

Kate – not her real name – was reacting to evidence suggesting Stephen Cottrell, now Archbishop of York, “frequently” held up David Tudor as “an exemplar of parish ministry”.

The BBC also understands that at a service in 2018, Mr Cottrell referred to Tudor as a “Rolls Royce priest” even though he knew the priest had paid a large sum to an alleged abuse victim and was banned by the Church from being alone with children.

In response, Mr Cottrell says he “regrets any upset or distress caused by previous comments.”

Following a recent BBC investigation, Mr Cottrell acknowledged he knew of serious concerns about Tudor in 2010 when he became Bishop of Chelmsford but said…

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The Vatican is expected to formally suppress next week the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a Peruvian-based religious community, after a 2023 papally-ordered investigation into the community and several years of Vatican-ordered reform efforts.

According to sources close to the process, the community’s suppression will be announced early next week, while members of the community are gathered at a general assembly in Aparecida, Brazil, where they had been expected to approve new governing and formation documents and elect new leadership for the group.

Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, a Spanish priest involved in investigating the group, will be appointed to coordinate its wind-down, along with the disposition of the community’s assets, sources close to the process told The Pillar.

While it is expected that at least some financial assets of the community will be used to compensate victims of abusive members, it is not clear what status will be assigned to clerical members of the…

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While the late Abbé Pierre can no longer be prosecuted, the Paris prosecutor’s office could still investigate potential accomplices or failures to report abuse and assault at the time.

The bishops of France on Friday formally requested prosecutors launch a criminal investigation into sexual abuse allegations against Abbé Pierre, a prominent priest who founded the poverty ministry Emmaus.  

The move follows nine new accusations in a new report released on Jan. 13 against the French priest, who died in 2007 at age 94.

Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF), announced the formal request on Jan. 17 during a radio interview, emphasizing the need to uncover any additional victims.

While the late Abbé Pierre can no longer be prosecuted, the Paris prosecutor’s office could still investigate potential accomplices or failures to report abuse and assault at the time.

Latest Developments

Earlier this week, Emmaus International, Emmaus…

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Perhaps the worst scandal across the globe over the last 20 years is the epidemic of child rape inthe Catholic Church – a sin compounded by its repeated efforts to hide it and protect the perpetrators. It is in that context that we now look at the depressing story at Seton Hall.

A priest accused of failing repeatedly to report sexual abuse hasjust been elevated to president of the university, with the apparent approval of the Archdiocese of Newark, led by Cardinal Joseph Tobin. That’s deeply troubling

The backstory: After an explosive Vatican report in 2020 found the predatory behavior of a powerful church leader, Theodore McCarrick, had been ignored by church leaders for years – all the way up to Pope John Paul II – Seton Hall hired two law firms to do an internal investigation about McCarrick’s “influence and actions” at…

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Two Catholic priests who have served at multiple churches in the Chicago area are stepping away from the ministry, amid separate allegations of sexual abuse of a child decades ago, the Chicago Archdiocese announced Saturday.

Fr. Matthew Foley has been accused of sexually abusing a minor approximately 30 years ago while assigned to St. Agatha Parish in the North Lawndale neighborhood, while Fr. Henry Kricek has been accused of sexual abuse of a minor approximately 40 years ago while assigned to St. John Bosco Parish in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood, according to letters Cardinal Blasé Cupich sent to parishioners at multiple churches.

Both priests have denied the allegations against them, but have agreed to step away from the ministry while the Archdiocese investigates.

“I want to stress that the welfare of the children entrusted to our care is our paramount concern. The Archdiocese of Chicago takes all allegations of sexual…

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South Carolina’s high court has ruled an alleged victim of sexual abuse within the Catholic Diocese of Charleston in the 1970s can pursue their case against the church after it tried to claim immunity under a long-defunct state law protecting charitable organizations from legal action. 

The years-old case, filed in August 2018, alleged a John Doe was sexually abused as a junior high school student by two now-deceased employees of the diocese’s Sacred Heart Catholic School in 1969 and 1971.

In addition to relief for the sexual abuse and emotional distress that resulted from the incident, the plaintiff also accused the diocese of gross negligence in relation to the incident along with a bevy of other charges ranging from fraudulent concealment and civil conspiracy to a breach of contract. 

The church claimed it was exempt from legal liability under South Carolina’s now-defunct doctrine of charitable immunity, a controversial legal precedent…

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The president of the French bishops’ conference announced Friday that he has asked prosecutors to investigate whether alleged abuse by the late Abbé Pierre was covered up.

Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort said Jan. 17 that he had asked the Paris prosecutor’s office to examine suspicions that people were aware of sexual abuse allegations against Abbé Pierre, but failed to report them to the authorities. Failure to report a serious offense can be a crime in France.

Archbishop Moulins-Beaufort’s announcement came days after a report presented nine new testimonies of alleged abuse by Abbé Pierre, who founded the Emmaus charity in 1949 and was regularly voted France’s most popular personality before his death in 2007, at the age of 94.

The nine testimonies, which included an allegation of “a penetrative sexual act on an underage boy,” follow seven made public in July 2024, and 17 published in September 2024. The 33 testimonies, which concern…

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France’s Catholic Church on Friday said that it had asked prosecutors to investigate a raft of sexual abuse accusations against a charity icon who was showered with accolades during his lifetime.

Born Henri Groues, French clergyman Abbe Pierre was widely admired as a friend to the poverty-stricken and homeless when he died aged 94 in 2007.

But in recent months, multiple allegations that he committed sexual abuse have shattered his saintly image and left the two charities he founded desperately trying to dissociate themselves from him.

The church has been under huge pressure to explain its silence surrounding Abbe Pierre’s behaviour.

Following fresh allegations of sexual abuse this week, the head of the Bishops’ Conference of France (CEF) Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, speaking to broadcaster RMC, said that he had “referred the matter to courts” this week.

He said he had requested that the Paris public prosecutor “consider opening an…

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The bishops of France on Friday formally requested prosecutors launch a criminal investigation into sexual abuse allegations against Abbé Pierre, a prominent priest who founded the poverty ministry Emmaus.  

The move follows nine new accusations in a new report released on Jan. 13 against the French priest, who died in 2007 at age 94.

Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF), announced the formal request on Jan. 17 during a radio interview, emphasizing the need to uncover any additional victims.

While the late Abbé Pierre can no longer be prosecuted, the Paris prosecutor’s office could still investigate potential accomplices or failures to report abuse and assault at the time.

Latest Developments

Earlier this week, Emmaus International, Emmaus France, and the Abbé Pierre Foundation released their third and final collection of testimonies documenting nine new accounts of alleged sexual abuse. According to the organization, this brings the…

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A former Bradford County youth pastor took a plea deal Thursday afternoon for sexual abuse offenses that occurred around 27 years ago.

Robert David Fenton pleaded guilty to aggravated indecent assault of a person less than 16 years old and statutory sexual assault, both second-degree felonies, during a plea hearing inside the Bradford County Courthouse.

Fenton and his defense attorney attended via video conference. He is currently remanded at the Bradford County Correctional Facility.

A plea agreement was reached between prosecutors from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and Fenton’s defense whereby he will serve three to six years incarceration for each charge followed by eight years of probation. Charges dropped against Fenton as part of the plea deal included involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors and indecent assault.

The two charges he pled guilty to typically carry a maximum sentence of 10 years each with a fine of $25,000…

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A church volunteer in the Sacramento area has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a minor. Edwin Valdez, 28, served at Holy Family Catholic Church in Citrus Heights prior to his arrest on Tuesday, January 14, 2025. Diocesan officials confirmed his involvement with the parish amid these serious allegations.

Sacramento Church Volunteer Arrested for Alleged Sexual Assault of Minor

Valdez is currently being held at Sacramento County Main Jail on $500,000 bail, facing multiple felony charges related to the alleged assaults. The victim has accused him of repeatedly assaulting her during her childhood. His arraignment is scheduled for Thursday in Sacramento Superior Court.

Ongoing Investigation and Concerns for Other Victims

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office has labeled this case as an “active and ongoing criminal investigation.” Detectives are concerned that there may be additional unreported victims, given Valdez’s access to minors through his church role and various positions outside…

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The Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) has initiated a review of its Child and Vulnerable Adults Safeguarding Policy to strengthen measures aimed at protecting minors and vulnerable adults from abuse in the Southern African nation.

In a report following the review exercise that took place from January 14 to 16 at the Catholic Secretariat of Lilongwe Archdiocese, the ECM Chairman for Safeguarding emphasized the Church’s responsibility to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults.

“The Church in Malawi carries this responsibility with great care and dedication. Let us all work together to build a culture of safeguarding that permeates every corner of our society,” Bishop Peter Adrian Chifukwa said in the report published Friday, January 17.

The Local Ordinary of Malawi’s Catholic Diocese of Dedza added, “With God’s guidance, may we create safe and nurturing environments for all, especially for the most vulnerable among us.”

Bishop Chifukwa encouraged safeguarding officers and stakeholders to…

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A new report confirms OSV News’ previous finding that U.S. Catholic dioceses and eparchies have paid more than $5 billion to settle abuse claims filed over the past two decades — but credible allegations have declined significantly over the same period, with the majority of cases preceding a landmark set of anti-abuse protocols established by the U.S. bishops in 2002.

Catholic dioceses, eparchies and parishes in the U.S. have “changed how they do things” in terms of addressing and preventing abuse, said Jonathan L. Wiggins, sociologist and director of parish surveys at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

On Jan. 15, CARA — which conducts social scientific studies on the Catholic Church — released a 20-year summary of annual data for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ yearly report on the implementation of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

The document —…

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The French Catholic Church has formally requested that prosecutors initiate an investigation into Abbé Pierre, a once-revered priest and humanitarian icon who died in 2007, following new revelations of sexual violence.

Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the French Bishops Conference (CEF), announced the move during an interview on RMC radio on Friday. “We must get to the bottom of the truth — uncover any additional victims, accomplices, and failures to report these crimes,” he said.

Who was Abbé Pierre?

Born Henri Grouès in 1912, Abbé Pierre was a French Catholic priest renowned for his dedication to aiding the poor and homeless.

In 1949, he founded the Emmaüs movement, an international organization focused on combating poverty and homelessness.

His humanitarian efforts, especially during the harsh winter of 1954, garnered him widespread admiration, and he was often regarded as the conscience of France.

Emergence of allegations

The allegations against Abbé Pierre…

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A mother’s wrongful death lawsuit filed against a now-closed Christian boarding school alleging her son died after suffering sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of employees can move forward, according to a federal judge.

U.S. District Court Judge Doug Harpool issued the ruling earlier this month.

Kathleen Britt of Idaho filed the lawsuit in October 2023 in the Western District of Missouri federal courts on behalf of her son, Jason Britt. The abuse is said to have occurred in 2010 while Jason attended Agape Boarding School in Stockton, Missouri. Stockton is located in Cedar County, approximately 50 miles northwest of Springfield.

Kathleen said her son suffered ongoing mental anguish in the years after leaving the school. She said he became a weightlifter and took steroids with the goal of becoming strong enough to never be a victim again.

Jason wrote a suicide note, his mother said, but he ultimately…

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A judge ruled that a wrongful death lawsuit against a now-closed Christian boarding school can move forward. The lawsuit claims that sexual abuse at the hands of Agape boarding school staff resulted in the death of a former student.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool issued a 23-page ruling that addressed counts of wrongful death as well as violations of federal law, brought forth by Kathleen Britt. Agape Boarding School staff and the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office both moved to dismiss all counts, which Harpool granted in part and denied in part.

Here’s what to know about both parties, the claims and what may happen next.

Who is the plaintiff, Kathleen Britt?

Britt, of Idaho, is the mother of Jason Britt, who attended Agape School in Stockton when he was 16 years old, according to court records. Jason Britt, she said, was an honor student who began to experiment…

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Judge rules against Christian board school

Lawsuit is “unprecedented” says attorney

Sheriff’s department staffers are also named as defendants

A judge has ruled that a wrongful death lawsuit against a Christian boarding school in Missouri can move forward, rebuffing officials at the now-shuttered facility and local law enforcement who sought to have the case tossed out.

The 23 page decision was issued by U. S. District Judge Doug Harpool earlier this month.

In October 2023, Kathleen Britt sued staffers at Agape School in Stockton and the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office, charging that her son Jason died after having been brutally gang-raped and emotionally abused at Agape.

Several employees of the facility and the sheriff’s department either committed, suspected or knew about Jason’s abuse but ignored or concealed it, according to the suit.

“This brave mother, whose precious son was severely abused, will…

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A church leader in the Florida Panhandle has been arrested and charged with possession of child sex abuse material, after investigators found videos of a girl on the man’s computer, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s office.

Frank Gough II, 64, of Shalimar, who serves as priest of the Anglican Church of the Resurrection in Shalimar was taken into custody on January 9. He was charged with 30 counts of possession of child sex abuse material, the sheriff’s department said.

Gough has served as priest of the church, which is affiliated with the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), since 2010, reported WTVY News 4.

Gough’s name does not appear on the church’s website, which shows 2008 as the most updated information. However, a  2017 social media post shows Gough affiliated with the church, and a 2019 video depicts Gough preaching…

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Editor’s note: The Catholic Church has spent billions of dollars settling claims from sexual abuse cases. National Catholic Reporter is investigating the costs to Catholics, parishes and the church in its new series “The Reckoning.” NCR’s investigative reports, including this series, are made possible in part through the generosity of Annette Lomont.

Years ago, during the height of scandals involving television evangelists, CNN’s Larry King interviewed famed evangelist Billy Graham. 

When King brought up the scandals, questioning how Christianity reconciles itself to what is seen in the news, Graham responded with a metaphor, saying that scandals are like airplanes that crash. Every day, airplanes take off and land safely about 100,000 times worldwide, with little media attention. However, if an airplane crashes, the story will lead the evening news and be on the front page of newspapers everywhere. Yet a plane that crashes does not nullify the…

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More and more frequently, reports surfaced about church leaders who have a history of sexually predatory behavior. Last week, headlines revealed that yet another church had placed a lifetime-registered child sex offender in a pastoral role, this time in Texas. News like this once seemed shocking. In today’s social climate, however, it feels almost routine.

Communities of faith are left to sort out the answers to pressing questions, starting with: Should churches allow individuals with such histories to assume leadership roles, even as volunteers?

Some argue that denying ministry roles due to past behavior equals a denial of the power of the Gospel to change sinners. Others insist that any deviation should result in a permanent ban from ministry of any kind. Where do we draw the line? How do we untangle the confusion?

One thing is certain — we cannot continue leaving this question unaddressed.

As you (and…

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The South Carolina supreme court has unanimously reversed a controversial decision by a scandal-scarred former circuit court judge – and upheld by the state’s court of appeals – which shielded the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, S.C. from liability in a decades-old sexual abuse case.

The ruling – which could open the floodgates for sexual abuse lawsuits against the church – focuses on the Palmetto State’s interpretation of “charitable immunity,” a provision of British law which arose in the mid-nineteenth century and holds that non-profits are exempt from certain claims against them.

“The question in this case requires us to embark upon some legal time travel in search of the answer,” noted justice Garrison Hill in the unanimous opinion of the court. “We conclude South Carolina has never extended charitable immunity to cover intentional torts. We therefore reverse the decision of the court of appeals and…

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It was probably inevitable that American Catholics would eventually move on from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. But I’m still surprised that when they did, it wasn’t a matter of “scandal fatigue” as much as a conscious decision that sex abuse really wasn’t that big of a deal after all. That’s effectively what happened when a clear majority of Catholic voters—and nearly six in 10 white Catholic voters—went for serial sex pest Donald Trump over Kamala Harris in the presidential election last November. Catholic enthusiasm for Trump makes the Catholic cohort Trump’s most reliable religious voting bloc after white evangelicals and, given the strategic importance of the Catholic vote in swing states, Catholic votes made Trump the next president. The outcome of the presidential balloting also made sexual predation a feature of the nation’s preferred leadership model rather than a disqualification.

How is it that Catholics who professed to being…

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Editor’s note: The Catholic Church has spent billions of dollars settling claims from sexual abuse cases. National Catholic Reporter is investigating the costs to Catholics, parishes and the church in its new series “The Reckoning.” NCR’s investigative reports, including this series, are made possible in part through the generosity of Annette Lomont.

This is Part 2 of a two-part story on the sexual abuse settlement in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York. You can read Part 1 here.

PJ D’Amico said his “45-year ordeal” began the first time he was sexually abused by his priest. 

D’Amico was a sixth grader who worshiped with his family at St. Hugh of Lincoln Church in Huntington Station, New York. He said the pastor at St. Hugh of Lincoln, Fr. Alfred B. Soave, abused him repeatedly through the eighth grade, including on the day of his confirmation.

D’Amico, 57,…

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[See also the full text of the CARA data summary report.]

Over the past 20 years, the number of abuse allegations against Catholic clergy has dropped, according to a new report from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).

It also notes that over $5 billion has been paid in costs due to the abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church.

In November 2004, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned CARA conduct an annual survey of all of the dioceses and eparchies whose bishops are members of the USCCB.

In a report issued on Wednesday, CARA said over the past 20 years, dioceses and religious communities have deemed a total of 16,276 allegations of abuse of minors by priests, deacons, and religious brothers as “credible.”

The report says about four in five of these allegations were deemed credible by dioceses and eparchies (13,331 or 82…

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A former altar boy of a Roman Catholic church in Passaic is seeking $50 million in a blistering lawsuit against a former friar and the church he served, claiming he was sexually abused and molested more than three decades ago.

The man, who is not named in the complaint, alleges abuse over 100 times between 1989 and 2003 by Friar Paul Daleo, who served as priest at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Passaic. The abuse purportedly started when the boy was 14 and a freshman at Lodi High School, and concluded when he was 17, when Daleo left the ministry, according to the suit, filed Tuesday in state Superior Court in Passaic County.

“Fr. Paul Daleo engaged in a calculated series of manipulation and grooming” of the teen for several years while the boy served as parishioner, altar boy and member of the youth ministry, the suit…

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[See also the full text of the CARA data summary report.]

Over two decades, Catholic dioceses, eparchies and men’s religious communities spent more than $5 billion on allegations of sexual abuse of minors, according to a new report released Wednesday (Jan. 15) by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

Between 2004 and 2023, three-fourths of the $5.025 billion reported was paid to abuse victims. Seventeen percent went to pay attorneys’ fees, 6% was in support for alleged abusers and 2% went toward other costs. On average, only 16% of the costs related to the allegations was borne by insurance companies.

The CARA report combined 20 annual surveys sent to dioceses and eparchies within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (which excludes some parts of the U.S., such as Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa), as well as U.S. religious communities belonging to the Conference…

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Missouri state Rep. Brian Seitz already has filed three bills this year pertaining to legislation in child sexual abuse cases. The proposed legislation aims to make it easier for survivors of child sexual abuse to seek justice for the crimes committed against them in the state.

Missouri has been at the center of a campaign for legal reforms in light of well-publicized cases at Kanakuk Kamps and other faith-based organizations.

HB-709, filed Jan. 2, proposes: “A nondisclosure agreement by any party to any child sexual abuse claim shall not be judicially enforceable in a dispute involving any CSA claims.”

If voted into law, the bill would prevent the misuse of nondisclosure agreements against abuse survivors who later wish to seek civil claims regarding the crimes committed against them. NDAs have posed issues for Missouri abuse survivors before. Notably, this has been an ongoing issue for survivors who experienced abuse at Kanakuk…

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Pope Francis says in his autobiography he received a ‘large white box’ relating to ‘difficult and painful situations’

Pope Francis has said he inherited a “large white box” full of documents related to various scandals faced by the Catholic church when he took over from his predecessor.

The pontiff makes the revelation in his much-anticipated autobiography, Spera (Hope), which is published on Tuesday.

Francis became pope in 2013 after the shock resignation of Benedict XVI, a decision that meant the Argentinian was in the almost unprecedented position of being able to have an in-person handover when he started.

Shortly after his election as pope, he recalls in his book, he visited Benedict at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence south of Rome.

“He gave me a large white box,” Francis writes. “‘Everything is in here’, he told me. ‘Documents relating to the most difficult and painful situations. Cases of abuse,…

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Survivors and advocates of Nate’s Mission gathered outside a prayer service for incoming Archbishop Grob Monday night to hold a press conference and deliver a letter from Milwaukee clergy abuse victims to the newly promoted prelate.

After the press conference and before the prayer service began, Archdiocese of Milwaukee communication director Sandra Peterson threatened to have victims arrested, telling survivors they were not welcome at the prayer service and were forbidden from touching the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

As Milwaukee-area Catholics entered the cathedral, two Milwaukee police officers were dispatched to form a barrier between victims and the prayer service.

Thankfully, survivors were able to safely deliver their letter to Bishop Grob, who cordially accepted the letter and promised to meet with Nate’s Mission soon.

In the letter, shown below, clergy abuse victims have prepared a list of priorities pertaining to clergy sexual abuse for Grob’s first 100 days in office.

…

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Clergy abuse survivors had a brief but friendly sidewalk discussion Monday night with the new archbishop of the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese. The survivors group Nate’s Mission is next hoping for much more conversation with Archbishop Jeffrey Grob — and a lot of documents from church files about past sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults in the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

The leaders of Nate’s Mission held a news conference outside the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist in downtown Milwaukee, where Grob was due for a prayer service before Tuesday afternoon’s installation — an elaborate ceremony marking the change in leadership, in this case from Archbishop Jerome Listecki, who has retired.

Nate’s Mission Program Director Peter Isely says Listecki may have reached a $21 million settlement with hundreds of abuse victims a decade ago, at the end of a five-year bankruptcy case. But Isely says most survivors received only a few…

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A former priest has pleaded guilty to using an online chat service which discussed having sex with children.

Timothy Gardner, of Medhurst Way in Littlemore, Oxford, appeared at Newcastle Crown Court.

He admitted five charges including encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence, three counts of failing to comply with notification requirements and one count of breaching a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).

The 52-year-old, previously of Walker Road, Newcastle, was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on 14 March.

Gardner was a close associate of Bishop Robert Byrne, who resigned from the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, amid serious concerns over his handling of reports, in December 2022.

A report, from the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency (CSSA), previously found because of the “inappropriate” association, Gardner had “unrestricted access” to a number of diocesan premises which had “presented a serious safeguarding risk”.

Earlier, the court…

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One weekend in early 1991, Jeff Taylor, the youth minister at a centuries-old church catering to Washington’s elite, invited a boy in his congregation to a religious retreat in Illinois. The 13-year-old from the Falls Church Episcopal in Northern Virginia felt flattered, he later recalled. He said he had admired Taylor, a married man with children, even if Taylor bothered him with questions about how often or whether he masturbated.

On their last night, the man said, he and Taylor stayed at someone’s home in suburban Chicago. Somehow, he said, the pair wound up sharing a bed. Then, Taylor — who years later would lead a Red Cross chapter in Georgia and a fundraising arm at the University of Cincinnati Foundation — fondled the middle-schoolerwith lotion in the middle of the night, the church youth group alumnus recalled.

“He kept saying, ‘You seem stressed out, you seem anxious,’” said…

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With just weeks until a third-party investigation of International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOPKC) is completed, the organization that commissioned it has come under fire for removing a trusted voice from  the Senior Advisory Team for the investigation. But after facing intense backlash from the abuse survivor community, the organization—Tikkun Global, a Messianic Jewish network—reversed course and today reinstated the removed advisory team member, Ron Cantor.

Cantor has publicly stood with survivors of alleged abuse by International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC) Founder Mike Bickle. And last September, when months of negotiations for a mutually-acceptable investigation broke down between an Advocate Group for Bickle victims and current IHOPKC leaders, the Advocate Group asked Cantor and Tikkun for help.

Cantor was instrumental in finding a third-party to investigate the allegations that survivors found acceptable—Jim Holler of Firefly Investigations. Tikkun commissioned that investigation and has previously stated that Holler’s investigation…

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• Key Points
• Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Credentials Committee receives and evaluates reports against churches for abuse, a key accountability mechanism in denomination’s larger abuse reform efforts.
• Former East Tennessee worship pastor Preston Garner is suing for defamation over a SBC Credentials Committee inquiry into alleged abuse, causing job loss. Garner says allegations are baseless.
• TN Court of Appeals rejects SBC’s request to throw out the case, raising stakes of first-of-its-kind legal challenge to the credentials committee.

The Southern Baptist Convention cannot use a religious doctrine aimed at exempting churches from outside court review in a case that could have major consequences on a key abuse response measure, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled. 

The court made the ruling in the case of an East Tennessee minister who has quietly faced an abuse allegation and is now suing the SBC for defamation. 

Preston Garner argues Southern Baptist Convention officials recklessly handled a report…

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A new trial date has been set for Johnny Hunt’s lawsuit against the Southern Baptist Convention in which he seeks more than $100 million for damages to his income, reputation and livelihood. That new date falls one week after the SBC annual meeting in June.

Hunt, who was 71 years old when his claim was filed, contends he would have continued to work for another 11 years for the SBC North American Mission Board where he claims to have been paid $610,000 annually. That’s $6.7 million in future income he claims he lost when he was forced to resign over a sex scandal.

He also claims he lost $3.96 million in future book sales and $3.85 million in future speaking fees. And he seeks $880,000 in other lost income, along with $45 million for reputational harm and $45 million for emotional distress.

Last fall, the SBC Executive Committee was authorized to make…

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Jury found him guilty of attempted sexual exploitation by a therapist and child enticement

A former Racine pastor convicted of child enticement was sentenced Monday to 11 years in prison.

Prosecutors argued Bernabe Leon-Alvarez used his position of power to inappropriately touch two teenage girls while he worked at a Racine church that is now closed.

A jury found him guilty of attempted sexual exploitation by a therapist and child enticement.

One of the victims spoke in court Monday.

“All I know is that what happened that day in the basement will forever be engrained in my mind and he will never know how he affected my life afterwards,” she said.

“The only thing I can say is that I’m sorry, and I feel a lot for you,” said Leon-Alvarez, through a Spanish translator.

Leon-Alvarez is in the United States illegally.

His attorney said Leon-Alvarez was to be placed in…

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