ABUSE TRACKER

Vice President Kamala Harris bragged about her supposed passion for helping victims of sexual assault while speaking at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), ignoring her track record of failing to prosecute sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church and even hiding “vital records on abuses that had occurred” when she was a San Francisco district attorney.

Addressing the crowd to formally accept her party’s presidential nomination on Thursday night, Harris reflected on a “pivotal moment” in her life that influenced her decision to become a prosecutor by bringing up the story of a peer who was victimized. 

Harris said that when she was in high school, she started to “notice something about my best friend Wanda.”

After Wanda supposedly confided in her that she was being abused by her stepfather, Harris claimed that she “immediately told her she had to come stay with us, and she did.”

“This is…

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A senior priest who was subject to five police investigations for sexual impropriety and assessed as a major risk to young men received a six-figure payoff from the Church of England to resign in 2022, the BBC reported on August 13. Church leaders say the case raises major questions about the adequacy of the church’s disciplinary system and clergy employment rules at a time when major reforms are planned.

The Rev. Canon Andrew Hindley, 65, known by some as “the Teflon priest,” served for 20 years in the Diocese of Blackburn, 15 of them as canon sacrist at Blackburn Cathedral in Lancashire, before stepping down, after receiving what the BBC has been told was a £240,000 ($370,000) payment.

Hindley insists that he posed no safeguarding risk, and was never charged with a crime. He also alleges that as an openly gay priest, he was subject to a homophobic…

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More than 10,000 pages of highly confidential and legally protected information from a sexual abuse victim’s case against Paige Patterson and Southwestern Seminary were published publicly online for about three days this weekend.

The apparent clerical error occurred as case materials in Jane Roe v. Leighton Paige Patterson and Southwestern Seminary were transferred from the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to the Texas Supreme Court. The Fifth Circuit has asked the Texas high court to rule on one particular issue in the case, which both Southwestern and Patterson have sought to have thrown out for lack of merit.

Four files containing a combined 10,000 pages of sealed information were left open for public view.

Visible information included the victim’s name, medical and psychiatric records, Social Security number, driver’s license number, banking information, address, phone number, email address, police reports of her alleged assaults, sealed testimony, and other personal identifying information and confidential…

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» Continue to this story on Nacional (Croatia) 

CWN Editor’s Note: A Croatian newsmagazine has reported that Archbishop Dražen Kutleša of Zagreb, the nation’s leading prelate, violated the norms of Vos Estis Lux Mundi (You Are the Light of the World), Pope Francis’s apostolic letter on addressing sexual abuse (2019, 2023).

Nacional reported that Archbishop Kutleša also violated the guidelines of Croatia’s episcopal conference.

Archbishop Kutleša, while archbishop of Split-Makarska (2022-23), “relocated priests accused of pedophilia and allowed them to continue to serve and be in contact with the faithful and altar boys,” according to the report.

Update (8/16/24): Nacional offered additional details of the cover-up allegations against Archbishop Kutleša in an August 16 article.The above note supplements, highlights, or corrects details in the original source (link above). 

About CWN news coverage.

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Geo, the name he prefers, sits in a coffee shop on a rainy afternoon as streetcars clang along outside. He is 64. He arrived at Madonna Manor, the Catholic orphanage he is now suing, in August of 1967, as a ward of Louisiana, age seven.

“My childhood was horrific,” he says matter-of-factly. “My father was an abusive alcoholic, my mother diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Madonna Manor was a place where dysfunctional parents dumped their children. My mom was subject to electroshock therapy and thorazine. She lost a baby. She had a psychotic breakdown and was placed in a mental hospital. The state took me over.”

Thin, bearded, redolent of nicotine, he holds a sketchbook of his works.

He enjoys the fellowship of a drawing class once a week, sketching figures of live models. Alcoholics Anonymous helps too, he says, adding: “I have been sober since May 30 and intend to…

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Phil Donahue was to talk show hosts as Fr. Andrew Greeley was to priests and Jason Berry is to print journalists: the first in his field to credibly address the Catholic Church’s then virtually unspoken problem of pedophile priests.

(At great risk, of course, the National Catholic Reporter was the first newspaper with a national circulation to write about abuses and cover-ups, before both Donahue and Greeley. The two men — and years later, many others — clearly read and were inspired by the NCR’s seminal work exposing this corruption.)

The internet wasn’t around back then and my memory isn’t flawless, so it’s possible that, technically speaking, other outlets may have discussed the abuse crisis even earlier than Donahue (perhaps an ultraconservative Wisconsin-based weekly called The Wanderer, for instance).

But none had anything like the reach and impact of “The Phil Donahue Show” (later shortened to…

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The annual SNAP conference highlighted the need for reforms to hold religious organizations accountable, including lifting statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse claims.

For more than 15 years, David Clohessy says, he fondly recalled all the camping, skiing, canoeing and hiking trips with his parish priest, Father John Whiteley.

Then while watching “Nuts” with his girlfriend (now his wife, Laura) — a movie in which the protagonist suffered sexual abuse as a child — it all came rushing back to Clohessy: waking to the priest lying on top of him, sexually molesting him, then turning over and drifting off to sleep.

Recalling the long-suppressed sexual abuse that he suffered over the course of four years as a child, Clohessy curled up into a fetal position and sobbed uncontrollably.

Since then, Clohessy, now 67, has cried almost every day over the abuse by the priest at St. Pius X, his…

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• Cases from Argentina, Australia, Ecuador, France, Mexico, and the United States prove how the Roman Catholic leaders foster the clergy sexual abuse crisis.English Edition
• These seven cases prove how the Roman Catholic Church upholds a system prone to clergy sexual abuse with little or no regard for its own members.
• These seven cases of clergy sexual abuse are not anecdotical. They are representative of how predators attack their victims and the strategies they follow to prey.

On Thursday, despite the deep economic crisis shaking Argentina, most of the media there published stories about Julio César Grassi, a Roman Catholic priest and the former leader of a foundation allegedly devoted to helping homeless and destitute children there.

Grassi had that day a hearing to seek either the full dismissal of his case or an advance release. A tribunal sentenced him in late 2009 to 15 years in jail. Given his high profile…

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Many years ago, I served as an adjunct professor of worship and preaching at a Baptist seminary. One day, as I prepared for an upcoming class, I went to a photocopy shop and begin copying large numbers of worship bulletins and sermons to give to my students.

An employee at the shop noticed the photocopied materials and asked me, “Are you a minister?”

“Yes, I am,” I replied.

He said, “Are you a Southern Baptist minister?”

“No,” I said, “but I used to be. I’ve recently joined the United Methodist Church.”

He looked at me for a moment with suspicious eyes and asked, “Are you divorced or are you gay?”

“Neither one,” I replied.

He said, “Then why did you change denominations?”

I’ve been asked that question many times over the years. The short answer is that I lost faith in the evangelical church. To that subject I’ll now turn.

Early doubts

In…

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The Government will “reflect” on “what action is next appropriate” into the alleged abuses of former Dr Michael Shine after his victims called for a public inquiry into what happened, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said.

In an interview with the Journal.ie, a number of men who were allegedly sexually assaulted by Dr Shine while children and teenagers said they want a public inquiry into the cases to be launched.

Michael Shine worked as a senior registrar and later a consultant at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth between 1964 and 1995.

Now aged 93, he was found guilty of assaults against nine boys at two trials, in 2017 and 2019, before serving three years in prison.

More than 200 people have settled civil claims against the Medical Missionaries of Mary religious order that oversaw the running of the hospital at that time.

Responding to the calls for…

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The New Zealand Royal Commission’s final report condemns Catholic Church leaders for failing to address abuse and neglect, despite past promises of transparency. Their lack of accountability and evasion of responsibility suggests that the current bishops should reconsider their positions.

Based on the New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care’s final report, Catholic Church leaders have brought great shame on the New Zealand Catholic Church. Their lack of accountability and transparency in responding to pervasive abuse merits serious condemnation.

The Commission found that “Catholic Church leaders have not been accountable or transparent to their congregations and the broader community about the nature and extent of abuse and neglect by their members.” (199) Given such a finding, perhaps it would be best for the local Church and New Zealand society if those church leaders—the bishops, tendered their resignations to the pope.

The Commission’s use of the words…

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Prosecutors in the trial of 14 people accused of killing an eight-year-old girl by withholding her diabetes medication have completed presenting evidence after nearly seven weeks of hearings.

Elizabeth Rose Struhs died on January 7, 2022 while lying comatose on a mattress on the floor of her family’s home in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.

She had gone six days without her prescribed multiple daily injections of insulin for her type-1 diabetes, which left her suffering from vomiting and unquenchable thirst.

The defendants charged over Elizabeth’s death, including both her parents, are members of a small religious congregation known as ‘The Saints’.

All 14 defendants are self-represented and have refused to enter pleas.

Crown prosecutor Caroline Marco on Friday told Justice Martin Burns the prosecution had finished presenting its case to the judge-only Supreme Court trial that started early in July.

“The trial has reached the point where no more evidence…

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When a New Mexico bankruptcy judge ruled against a clergy sex abuse claimant earlier this summer in her legal dispute with the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, he may have issued more than a routine legal opinion and order.

Judge David Thuma’s decision may now serve as a cautionary warning to attorneys in other church bankruptcies — attorneys for both church entities and abuse claimants — about the challenges of enforcing provisions in reorganization plans and settlement agreements, especially the legal pitfalls posed by ambiguous language in those documents.

“The Court has reviewed the covenants, the confirmed plan, and related documents and has heard oral argument on the dispute,” Thuma explained in his opinion on June 21, which was accompanied by a court order denying a motion by Mela LaJeunesse, an abuse claimant.

LaJeunesse’s motion, filed by attorney Levi Monagle, was centered on a 142-word non-monetary covenant,…

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Four church leaders have stepped down since June, when senior pastor Robert Morris left over allegations he abused a 12-year-old girl while he was a married 21-year-old

Prominent members of Gateway Church continue to resign or step down following child sex abuse allegations against former senior pastor Robert Morris, who publicly admitted to having “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” 35 years ago.

Morris resigned from the Texas megachurch in June, four days after 54-year-old Cindy Clemishire went public with allegations that the pastor began molesting her when she was 12 and he was 21. Though he downplayed them, Morris acknowledged the allegations.

A month after Morris’ resignation, his son and daughter-in-law, James and Bridget Morris, stepped down as pastors of the Dallas-based church. And on Wednesday, the church’s leadership announced that executive pastor Kemtal Glasgow resigned due to an unspecified “moral issue” that “disqualifies him from serving.”

Here is…

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A Lake Catholic High School teacher is accused of having inappropriate relationships with students, according to the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland.

Scott Posey, the music director and former director of performing arts, was fired after an investigation into the allegations, the diocese said. He had been at the school for more than 20 years.

In a statement, the diocese said its examination began in January when it obtained information that Posey had inappropriate relationships with two students about 15 years ago.

Based on the allegations, a private investigator interviewed several former students and found one who reported that Posey “had, on a number of occasions around the same time period, engaged in inappropriate conduct with her that included touching of a sexual nature,” the diocese’s statement said.

The allegation was reported to law enforcement, and Lake Catholic placed Posey on administrative leave. At the conclusion…

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In this extract from his new book, the former Irish Times Religious Affairs Correspondent recounts the story of a victim of child sexual abuse

Darren McGavin is now a middle-aged man in his 50s. Our first meeting, in Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green shopping centre many years ago, was one of the few occasions in my life when I wept in public.

I belong, very much, to the “weep alone” brigade when it comes to emotional issues. But I couldn’t help it then, even though Darren and I, drinking our coffee, were surrounded by so many people at tables nearby. I kept seeing the small boy, not the man before me, being brutalised.

His recollection of incidents of sexual abuse by Fr Tony Walsh were vivid, detailed and told with the calm delivery of a man who had been over the ground many times. By then, having talked to many other…

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During his recent trip through Latin America, the prelate of Opus Dei, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, gave an interview to the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, in which he spoke about various topics, such as the role of women, the reform ordered by Pope Francis, and a response to those who consider Opus Dei to be “conservative, powerful and secretive.”

“Everyone can have their own opinions and reasons for evaluating reality. If some people perceive it that way, it will be because there is something objective and/or subjective that can cause that impression,” said the third successor of St. Josemaría Escrivá as the head of Opus Dei.

“Making the Work [Opus Dei] better known is, in part, the task of each member: to live one’s own vocation in an authentic way. It is something great and wonderful, although I understand that a perspective of faith is required to understand it in depth,”…

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Scott Surette joins the National Review Board to shift the church’s focus from anger to healing and forgiveness

Scott Surette, a devout Catholic and longtime owner of a home inspection firm, is on a mission to help renew the church.

Yet for all his four decades of experience with construction and code compliance, he’s not looking to renovate buildings — instead, Surette is seeking to repair what Scripture calls the “living stones” that comprise the spiritual house of Jesus Christ.

And now, as one of several recent appointees to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Review Board, a lay-led advisory group on child and youth protection, Surette is “under contract,” so to speak, to make that happen.

The board is mandated by the USCCB “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” established in 2002 amid a torrent of emerging clerical abuse scandals. Commonly called the Dallas Charter,…

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An Episcopal Church bishop based in California has been accused of not properly enforcing disciplinary action against a pastor who allegedly failed to properly vet a sex offender.

Earlier this week, The Christian Post was directed to an Anglican Watch story from July 30 accusing Bishop Lucinda Ashby of the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real of mishandling a Title IV disciplinary complaint.

At issue, according to Anglican Watch, was an incident in which the Rev. Ruth Casipit-Paguio of Holy Family Episcopal Church of San Jose, failed to enforce “Safe Church requirements.”

“Casipit-Paguio reportedly didn’t bother to run background checks on church staff and volunteers during that time, a violation of diocesan policy. Possibly as a result, a known pedophile listed on a state sex offender registry attempted to become involved with the parish. That individual obtained keys to the church,” claimed Anglican Watch.

“When…

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Hundreds of police officers backed by riot squads raided a vast religious compound in a southern Philippine city Saturday in search of a local preacher accused of sexual abuse and human trafficking, police officials said.

A supporter of the group, called Kingdom of Jesus Christ, reportedly died due to a heart attack during the massive police raid that started at dawn in the group’s compound in Davao city, livestreamed online by a local TV network owned by the group, police said, adding that the death was not related to the police operations.

Officers brought equipment that could detect people behind cement walls. But by mid-afternoon, they found no sign of Apollo Quiboloy in the compound — some 30 hectares (75 acres) that includes a cathedral, a school, a living area, a hangar and a taxiway leading to Davao International Airport.

Quiboloy and his lawyer have denied the criminal allegations against him and…

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Lawyers tied up in the fight to land settlements for hundreds of alleged victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse hope that a move this week by a federal judge will speed things along.

$40 million has already been spent on attorneys’ fees, and a settlement for some 500 alleged victims is nowhere in sight.

Federal judge Meredith Grabill has hired an outside expert to move the process along.

The expert is a man named Mohsin Meghji, who works with a New York restructuring firm named M3, and his payment will be capped at $350,000, money which will further cut into church bankruptcy funds that so far have not found their way to any victims,

“This should’ve been done a long time ago like a lot of situations involved with the bankruptcy,” said claimant John Anderson, who heads up the National Association of Survivors of Childhood Abuse.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys like Frank…

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In short:

Paedophile Marist Brother will be released in less than three weeks, after being sentenced to only five months actual jail time.

Gerard McNamara was sentenced in the County Court in relation to the latest victim to come forward whom he sexually assaulted in 1995. 

What’s next?

He’ll be released in three weeks. 

Notorious Marist Brother paedophile Gerard McNamara will be released from Victoria’s Hopkins Correctional Centre within three weeks.

Known as ‘The Rat’ by students in the Gippsland Catholic high schools he taught in, prior to today McNamara had already been sentenced four times in relation to his offending.

He has served two separate periods of imprisonment, in 2019 and 2020.

All victims were sexually assaulted under the guise of massages for injuries, or pastoral care.

The 86-year-old appeared in the County Court via video link, wearing prison greens.

He closed his eyes, shaking his head as Judge…

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In short:

A former student of Champagnat College in north-east Victoria is taking legal action against the Marist Brothers, alleging he was sexually abused by music teacher William Allen in the early 1970s.

After leaving the school, Allen was re-employed by the Victorian Education Department, despite declaring a conviction for child abuse.

What’s next?

Allen, who died in 1985, will be among scores of abusive former teachers whose assaults on students will be examined during the Victorian government’s recently announced truth-telling process for state school abuse survivors.

A “psychopathic” paedophile teacher was employed in a Marist Brothers school despite a prior conviction for child sexual abuse and having previously been banished from the Victorian Education Department school system, a new lawsuit has revealed.

Warning: This story contains discussion of child sexual abuse and suicide.

William Alexander Allen, who had two stints as a Victorian government school teacher despite declaring a…

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Disgraced Hillsong founder Brian Houston and his wife, Bobbie, are asking for money for an online church venture. The longtime pastor says they’ve “got desperate needs” for a TV studio, while glossing over recent scandals and a government probe into past church spending.  

“This is actually a dream I’ve had for some time,” said Brian Houston in the launch video for Jesus Followers TV, which premiered on July 28. The website describes the ministry as an “online platform and church . . . a trustworthy voice of hope and inspiration in the days ahead.” 

Two years ago, Brian and Bobbie Houston resigned as global senior pastors of Hillsong Church based in Sydney, Australia, after an internal investigation revealed Brian had acted inappropriately toward two women. Hillsong’s board of directors stated that Houston had spent time alone in a hotel room with a woman, not his…

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A senior priest who was subject to five police investigations for sexual impropriety and assessed as a major risk to young men received a six-figure payoff from the Church of England to resign in 2022, the BBC reported on August 13. Church leaders say the case raises major questions about the adequacy of the church’s disciplinary system and clergy employment rules at a time when major reforms are planned.

The Rev. Canon Andrew Hindley, 65, known by some as “the Teflon priest,” served for 20 years in the Diocese of Blackburn, 15 of them as canon sacrist at Blackburn Cathedral in Lancashire, before stepping down, after receiving what the BBC has been told was a £240,000 ($370,000) payment.

Hindley insists that he posed no safeguarding risk, and was never charged with a crime. He also alleges that as an openly gay priest, he was subject to a homophobic plot by the…

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A former Michigan pastor is facing four new charges in an ongoing child sex abuse case. Michael Ronald Goble, formerly the pastor of the now-defunct Church of the Good Shepherd in Adrian, Michigan, was originally arrested in July and charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the second degree.

In July, two victims were identified, both of whom were younger than age 13 at the time of the alleged abuse.

At the time of Goble’s arrest, police said that “more victims are believed to exist that have not yet been identified.”

The original charges were the result of accusations that Goble, 75, sexually abused two brothers on separate occasions as they helped him with yard work at his home. These incidents are alleged to have occurred in 2022 and earlier this year.

RELATED: Former Christian School Teacher Charged With Multiple Counts of Sexual Battery With a Student

Now…

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A former teacher at a Christian school in South Carolina is facing 12 counts of sexual battery with a student.

Norman Jermaine Roberson, 36, a former Fountain Inn Christian School music director, is accused of engaging in inappropriate relationships between April and November 2015, as reported by Fox Carolina. 

Fox Carolina reported Roberson allegedly had encounters with students in several South Carolina locations, including in Fountain Inn, Simpsonville, Greenville, and Greenville County.

According to Roberson’s LinkedIn profile, Roberson has also worked as a youth pastor at Word of Life Church in Simpsonville since Nov. 2019. A receptionist answering the church’s phone on Thursday said Roberson was no longer employed with the church and they were not allowed to provide additional information. 

Roberson also lists he was a mathematics teacher at Fountain Inn from March 2015 to June 2016….

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Growing up, spending time on the Canim Lake Band (Tsq̓éscen̓ First Nation) reserve with his extended family in British Columbia, Julian Brave NoiseCat would hear stories. They were horrifying, unspeakable stories about what happened to babies at St. Joseph’s Mission in Williams Lake, B.C., one of many residential schools that North American governments once forced Native children to attend for purposes of assimilation.

“I honestly dismissed those stories as sort of rez legends,” NoiseCat said, in a Zoom interview in mid-August. “It sounded too grisly to be true.” He learned much later that “not only were those stories true,” but he believes his father to be the only known survivor of a pattern of infanticide at the school. Their story is part of a history of abuse, at St. Joseph’s and numerous other Native boarding schools.

NoiseCat, a…

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As the future of six Catholic dioceses in New York remain clouded by bankruptcies brought on by thousands of lawsuits from people who say they were sexually abused as children by clergy, a statewide settlement that would tap into a multi-billion-dollar revenue source appears to be under consideration.

Such a “global” settlement – which would likely need to be approved by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, and possibly the state attorney general – could help resolve the bankruptcy proceedings that have frustrated aging survivors in Buffalo for more than four years because of their slow pace.  

Documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court that were obtained and analyzed by 2 On Your Side Investigates make clear that a statewide settlement with the use of proceeds from the $3.75 billion sale of Fidelis Care is on the table. The Catholic bishops of New York used proceeds from…

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Claims seminarian targeted him for nearly a decade

It represents the first Roman Catholic seminary founded in this country more than two centuries ago, but now, St. Mary’s Seminary has emerged as the latest institution to draw legal action for allegations of child sex abuse.

Tom Finnerty’s family sent him there back in the Seventies for religious tutoring where a seminarian named John Banko allegedly exploited him.

“It happened at a very young age,” said Finnerty, “I was six years old in first grade and it went on for years.”

Whether it was outside in St. Mary’s parking lot or inside his private quarters, the alleged abuse ramped up over time with Banko plying Finnerty with alcohol and eventually even transmitting a sexual disease.

“This is a seminary. This is where they taught people how to be compassionate to people that needed it, cause that was their job,” said Finnerty,…

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As the coordinator of restorative practices and survivor support for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Paula Kaempffer works one-on-one and in small groups with victims-survivors of clergy abuse.

Support for victims, Kaempffer said, is an important aspect in the healing process. As a victim of clergy sexual abuse herself, Kaempffer took the position hoping to bring healing to all those she could.

Kaempffer told “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley during an interview debuting at 9 p.m. Aug. 23 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM, “One statement that I hear said to victims-survivors over and over and over again by bishops, by priests, by parishioners, ‘Why can’t you just get over it?’ And my response to that is, ‘Don’t you think we would if we could?’ … It doesn’t go away. We never get over it. We get through it to a certain point in our lives, but…

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U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill said Tuesday she will appoint an independent expert to help determine whether the long-running Archdiocese of New Orleans bankruptcy can be settled, raising the stakes in a case that’s grown increasingly bitter between the church and the abuse survivors who have filed claims.

More than four years after the nation’s second-oldest diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Grabill raised the possibility for the first time that forging a settlement agreement to financially compensate abuse survivors — one that the church can afford and that survivors will approve — may not be possible.

“I need someone who can tell me if there is a path forward,” Grabill said during the hearing Tuesday. “There needs to be a path forward. If not, we need to cut our losses and look elsewhere for a solution.”

Grabill’s independent expert, who will add another layer of oversight…

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Parties in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy have asked to put off a previously scheduled hearing for the court to consider confirmation of the diocese’s plan of reorganization.

Plan confirmations by Bankruptcy Court judges are a final step in Chapter 11 cases before creditors can be paid. Creditors in the diocese case are more than 400 survivors of childhood sexual abuse by priests and other church officials.

Parties say they need time to revise the current reorganization plan to accommodate a June 27 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

How much plan revisions might further delay a conclusion to the now five-year-old case is not clear.

The diocese asked for court protection in 2019 a month after New York’s Child Victims Act took effect. The act opened a two-year window for such survivors to pursue abusers who otherwise would have been protected by a statute of limitations.  

The…

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A Baltimore man is suing the country’s oldest seminary and the religious order that runs it, claiming they were negligent in his sexual abuse at the hands of a seminarian in the 1970s.

Tom Finnerty, 61, said the abuse started when he was in the first grade. His family wanted him to have supplemental religious education, so they looked to St. Mary’s Seminary & University for a tutor.

He was paired with then-seminarian John Banko.

What happened during that time has had a big impact throughout Finnerty’s life.

“I have a little problem with authority figures. I had really bad, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety,” he said.

Finnerty is now suing the institutions he claims caused his pain: St. Mary’s and the Associated Sulpicians of the United States, the religious order that runs the seminary.

In the 23-page complaint filed Wednesday by the law firm SBWD Law, the abuse…

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[The following is a partial text of the original article.]

Weeks before the Maryland Supreme Court hears arguments over the Child Victims Act, a man from a prominent local Catholic family on Wednesday sued the seminary that he says allowed him to be sexually abused for years.

Tom Finnerty, 61, sued St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore City Circuit Court on Wednesday, saying the institution was a “haven and breeding ground for pedophilia” that turned a blind eye as John Banko abused him from when he was about 6 years old until he was 15.

“It took me a long time to get here,” Finnerty said at a press conference on Thursday. “It has affected me my whole life. It affects me every day . . . They did nothing to protect me.”

Finnerty’s lawsuit comes less than three weeks before the state’s high court considers whether the 2023…

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Survivors of childhood sexual abuse are frustrated that the Catholic Diocese of Rochester’s bankruptcy case is still unresolved.

Carol Dupre was 15 when her parish priest, who was forty years older, started abusing her. She says she told her mother. But when she complained to the church, no one believed her, and nothing was done. 

Carol is one of hundreds to file a claim against the Catholic Diocese of Rochester when the state enacted the Adult Survivors Act. That extended the statute of limitations for sex crimes and gave adult survivors two years to file lawsuits. 

The Diocese filed for bankruptcy protection after that, and insurance companies and the diocese have been hashing out what each will pay to survivors. 

Now 77, Carol says she’s only worn black for the last three years as a sign of mourning while she waits for resolution.

“I have a white dress and that…

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Clerical abuse has been in the news again lately. For more than two decades, horrific stories of abuse and coverup have been a mainstay of the news in the English-speaking world and beyond. The most recent round of stories raises the the question of whether the church will ever really address the root of the problem.

Earlier this month, a Western Australia parliamentary committee gave its final report after examining the support available to survivors of institutional child abuse, saying the Catholic Church and other religious entities had put their own institutional and financial wellbeing over the needs of victims.

In New Zealand last month, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care lambasted the Catholic Church in its report to the abuse of children and vulnerable adults in care facilities.

Also last month, news reports on the legacy of Bishop Eamonn Casey appeared in newspapers and television  in…

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Thomas Finnerty remembers, as a child, when a police officer pulled over the car he was riding in on Saint Paul Street.

After the driver handed over an identification showing that he was a Catholic priest, the officer let the car go, Finnerty, 61, recalled in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. What the priest said to him next still haunts Finnerty decades later.

“He’s like, ‘All I have to do is let them know I’m a priest and I can do whatever I want,’” Finnerty recalled. “He was like, untouchable. For the only reason: Because he had a collar.”

Finnerty’s Irish Catholic parents had arranged for John Banko, who was studying to become a priest at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, to provide the 8-year-old with a religious education. Instead of tutoring Finnerty, Banko sexually abused him for about seven years, beginning around 1970, a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Baltimore…

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The Bishop of Blackburn has called for urgent reform of the way clergy are vetted, in the wake of scandal surrounding Blackburn Canon Andrew Hindley.

Rev Philip North said the Church of England is “hidebound by heavy legal structures and processes, many of which are not fit for purpose.”

Andrew Hindley worked in the Diocese of Blackburn from 1991 to 2021. A BBC investigation found that he had been assessed as a potential risk to children and young people by the NSPCC, and had been subject to five police investigations, including into allegations of sexual assault.  

He did not leave his post until 2022, when it’s believed he was offered a payment in the region of £240,000. The amount was part of a civil law settlement, however, the Church of England said the exact amount was subject to a non-disclosure agreement.

Canon Hindley argues his case was a move…

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A law firm hired by the International House of Prayer-Kansas City to examine how it handled sexual misconduct allegations faces criticism that its founder has been a defense attorney for ministries and won’t conduct an impartial investigation.

IHOPKC hired Telios Law to determine why a former volunteer youth group leader and musician was still involved with the organization years after being banned over allegations of sexual misconduct with teen boys. The firm also is tasked with helping create a safe environment for children within the 24/7 global ministry.

The news that IHOPKC had hired Theresa Sidebotham and her Colorado-based Telios Law prompted immediate backlash last week from some who have had dealings with the firm. They said that in previous investigations, Sidebotham had tried to minimize the damage done to organizations’ reputations and in some cases re-traumatized victims.

In an Aug. 12 statement, Audrey Luhmann said that the Anglican Church…

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Business-turnaround expert Mo Meghji will have his pay for two months capped at $350,000 amid soaring legal costs

A federal bankruptcy judge has appointed a nationally recognized business-turnaround expert to review the soaring costs of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans’ Chapter 11 reorganization, and to file a public report within 60 days about whether the local church can afford to pay about 500 claimants of clergy molestation.

Just a day after judge Meredith Grabill told attorneys in the archdiocese’s contentious, complex bankruptcy case that she needed outside help, she appointed Mo Meghji, the managing partner of New York-based M3 Partners, as the court’s expert witness.

Meghji has more than 30 years of experience helping major corporations emerge from financial distress, according to M3’s website. He recently led major restructuring efforts for Sears and Barneys, among other companies, his official biography says.

His pay for two months of work will be…

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A Catholic archbishop in Pakistan is at the centre of allegations of sexual and financial irregularities.

Most Rev Sebastian Shaw is Archbishop of Lahore in Punjab in which Christians make up just over one per cent of the population of 241 million. However, 80 per cent of all Christians in Pakistan live in Punjab.

Last month a Christian-run YouTube channel ‘National News Nam’ reported Shaw’s imminent suspension and said he would be settling in the United States. It claimed there had been complaints to the Pope about “corruption and dishonesty”.

In August 2022, a Catholic priest suspended by Shaw accused him of homosexuality in a video message posted on social media.

Aftab Alexander Mughal, the editor of Minority Concern Pakistan told Crux the rumours were harmful for the nation’s small Christian community.

“It is unfortunate that there are moral allegations against a church leader. In an Islamic society, it is not good for the church’s moral position….

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A former Vatican envoy to the United States who has publicly called for Pope Francis’s resignation and who was excommunicated earlier this summer has said his life is in danger and voiced belief that the sanction against him is invalid.

Speaking to veteran Vatican journalist Franca Giansoldati with Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò said he has been candid about his whereabouts because “After the release of my memoir on the McCarrick case in August 2018 a contact of mine from the United States warned me that my life was in danger.”

“This is why I do not reside in a fixed place. I don’t want to end up like Cardinal Pell, nor like my predecessor in Washington, the nuncio Pietro Sambi,” he said, referring to the late Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who served as Vatican envoy to the U.S. from 2005 until his death in 2011.

According to…

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Sister Catherine ‘Cathy’ Cesnik’s 1969 murder still remains unsolved to this day

Warning: This article contains discussion of sexual assault which some readers may find distressing.

A true crime documentary from 2017 has stood the test of time after leaving viewers ‘disgusted to the core’.

The ‘incredibly distressing’ Netflix doc in question follows a grim true story of a cold case that tore through Baltimore back in the late 1960s.

Sister Catherine ‘Cathy’ Cesnik was loved by her students at Baltimore’s Archbishop Keough High School.

She was last seen on the evening of November 7th 1969 after leaving her apartment, which she shared with her friend and fellow nun, Sister Russell Phillips, and never returned home.

Sister Russell then turned to Pete McKeon and Gerry Koob, two friends who were priests and lived nearby (Koob was in a romantic relationship with Cesnik) to call police in the early morning hours after Cesnik’s empty car was…

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A retrial date has been set for the former Cape Cod priest charged with indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.

In June, Mark Hession was found not guilty on two counts of rape, however the jury was deadlocked on the indecent assault charge.

The retrial is set for February 10 but there will be a status hearing in November and final pretrial hearing in January.

Hession was the priest at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville at the time of the alleged incidents.

The Catholic Church suspended him five years ago for misconduct.

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Gateway Church Houston is rebranding as Newlands Church in the wake of the sex scandal involving Robert Morris, founder of the main Gateway Church in north Texas. The change was announced last Sunday by Morris’ son-in-law and Gateway Houston’s Senior Pastor Ethan Fisher, who described the name-change as a call from God. 

“I believe that during this season, as a church, that God is once again calling us into something new, and I simply want to follow,” said Fisher, the husband of Morris’ daughter, Elaine.

The move comes after shocking allegations in June that Morris had sexually molested a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s, when he was a young pastor. This quickly led to Morris’ resignation as lead pastor. 

Morris’s son, James Morris, became lead pastor of Gateway after the confession. However, Gateway elders announced in July that James Morris and his wife Brigette would…

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Editor’s note: This article has been updated with additional information and reaction.

Daytime talk show host Phil Donahue tackled a wide range of topics on his show “Donahue,” which ran in syndication for 29 years. He also took on the issue of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic church long before major media outlets were reporting on it.

In a 1993 episode he cautioned against “media hyperbole” but said people with more insight and who were more informed than him on this issue had described the abuse scandal as “the biggest crisis in the history of the largest church of Christendom — the holy Roman Catholic Church.”

“That’s not an overstatement, is it?” he asked on the show, nearly a decade before The Boston Globe’s investigation into abuse cover-ups in the Boston Archdiocese erupted into a national controversy. National Catholic Reporter had been the first publication to…

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) said there was nothing illegal with the offer of a reward for information that may lead to the arrest of Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) founder Pastor Apollo Quiboloy.

Quiboloy faces trafficking and child and sexual abuse cases in courts in Davao City and in Pasig. The controversial pastor however has said that these accusations came from disgruntled former members of his religious group.  

During the continuation of the hearing of the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, which is investigating if there was excessive force in the serving of a warrant against Quiboloy, DOJ Undersecretary Nicholas Ty said various laws allow the offer of a reward such as the National Internal Revenue Code, Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act, and Anti-Terrorism Act.

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[This is an updated, longer version of the brief obituary blogged yesterday in Abuse Tracker. See also videos of Donahue’s March 1993 interview of Barbara Blaine, Jason Berry, and Fr. Andrew Greely: Part 1 and Part 2 (with David Clohessy and other survivors).]

Stalking the aisles, microphone in hand, he turned “The Phil Donahue Show” into a participation event, soliciting questions and comments on topics from human rights to orgies.

Phil Donahue, who in the 1960s reinvented the television talk show with a democratic flourish, inviting audiences to question his guests on topics as resolutely high-minded as human rights and international relations, and as unblushingly lowbrow as male strippers and safe-sex orgies, died on Sunday at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by Susan Arons, a representative of the family.

“The Phil Donahue Show” made its debut in 1967 on WLWD-TV in…

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An evangelical pastor in Kenya ordered his flock to shun education and medicine and starve their children to death in order to meet Jesus, witnesses in a manslaughter trial said.

When her parents denied her food and water for eight days, the girl said that she knew she was going to die, just like her two younger siblings. For days, her parents had beaten her when they caught her sipping water or looking for food. Famished and frail, she said they dressed her in special attire worn for death.

“The children were not supposed to eat, so they could die,” the child, a 9-year-old identified only as EG and hidden inside a witness protection booth, told a packed courtroom on Thursday in the coastal Kenyan city of Mombasa.

She was among the first witnesses to testify last week in the manslaughter trial of Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, an evangelical pastor accused…

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David Haas is currently attending the Church of St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul Park, Minnesota. For those who are unaware, Mr. Haas has been credibly accused by over fifty women of a wide range of sexually abusive behaviors. A number of these reports come from Mr. Haas’s tenure at St. Thomas Aquinas in the 1980s, during which he served as music director. These reports indicate that Mr. Haas used his position of authority to groom and sexually abuse multiple teenage girls and women at St. Thomas Aquinas. Into Account’s Oct. 2020 report on Mr. Haas’s abuse includes some of these allegations. See also in the New York Times.

Into Account has received new first-person reports about Mr. Haas’s current behavior at STA, ranging from suggestive comments to surprising women with unwanted touching. Some of this behavior falls squarely into Mr. Haas’s known patterns…

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After news broke last week about the Vatican’s expulsion of Luis Fernando Figari, the founder of an influential Peruvian lay group, the original whistleblower who reported his abuses said she had asked that action be taken against him in 2010.

Speaking to Crux, Peruvian theologian Rocio Figueroa, who at the time belonged to the women’s branch of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV) founded by Peruvian layman Luis Fernando Figari, said she had asked that Figari be removed from leadership while still part of the community.

“In that moment, this was in 2010 and it was more or less in July. I said to him, I’m going to Lima and [Figari] must not be the superior of the SCV…I asked for three things: I asked to close the cause of beatification for Germán Doig; remove Figari as superior; and third, investigate Figari.”

The SCV, Figueroa said, “did the first two, [they] didn’t do the…

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[See also video of Donahue’s March 1993 interview of Barbara Blaine, Jason Berry, and Fr. Andrew Greely: Part 1 and Part 2 (with David Clohessy and other survivors).]

Phil Donahue, who in the 1960s reinvented the television talk show with a democratic flourish, inviting audiences to question his guests on topics as resolutely high-minded as human rights and international relations, and as unblushingly lowbrow as male strippers and safe-sex orgies, died on Sunday at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by Susan Arons, a representative of the family.

“The Phil Donahue Show” made its debut in 1967 on WLWD-TV in Dayton, Ohio, propelling Mr. Donahue on a 29-year syndicated run, much of it as the unchallenged king of daytime talk television.

Almost from the start, “The Phil Donahue Show” dispensed with familiar trappings. There was no opening monologue,…

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NPR’s David Folkenflik speaks with Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat about their new documentary, “Sugarcane,” about Indian residential schools in Canada.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, HOST:

U.S. students have been missing an alarming amount of school in the wake of the pandemic. When they miss lots of days without an excuse – well, that’s known as truancy. Every state has a policy, and many of those policies make truancy illegal. In some places, law enforcement officers will visit families’ homes even during summertime. Reporter Dylan Peers McCoy of member station WFYI spent a day with one of those officers. She brings us this report from Madison County in central Indiana.

DYLAN PEERS MCCOY, BYLINE: Mitch Carroll is wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and pristine white sneakers when we head out on a Thursday in May.

MITCH CARROLL: I go in a little light.

MCCOY: But it’s obvious that he’s in law enforcement….

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The Vatican has removed the archbishop of the biggest Catholic diocese in Pakistan after an inquiry found him at the center of financial corruption, illegal sale of church property, and involvement in sexual abuse, according to reliable sources.

Rumors have been circulating since last month that the Vatican had decided to suspend Lahore Diocese Archbishop Sebastian Francis Shaw but the Pakistani Catholic leadership reportedly hushed up the issue. However, Lahore’s Archdiocesan Vicar General Father Asif Sardar announced on Aug 15 that 66-year-old Shaw was going on a sabbatical and Karachi Diocesan Archbishop Benny Mario Travas would be taking charge of the Lahore Diocese as the apostolic administrator.

Catholic Advocate Morris Nadeem told Christian Daily International that Father Sardar made the announcement during the Mass on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Lahore on Thursday evening.

“Shaw was in the US…

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Church leaders have a moral responsibility to make public the names of clergy found guilty of sexual abuse, says church historian and poet, Dr Jane Simpson.

Speaking after the release of the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, Simpson argues this is a practical form of redress they could do right now.

“The Commission (2018–2024) made the names of perpetrators public by posting witness statements on its website. But I have yet to hear that any of the eight denominations within the Commission’s terms of reference has made this information readily available, so that the victims and survivors can have some sense of closure,” Dr Simpson says.

“Media statements by church leaders responding to the final report so far are full of generalities. Making the names of clergy guilty of professional misconduct through sexual abuse could demonstrate their commitment both to redress for past…

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Violent accusations against the head of the largest diocese in Pakistan had been smouldering for a long time. Priests wrote letters of protest to Rome. Now the church leadership has apparently reacted. On the ground, however, they are keeping a low profile.

The Vatican has suspended the Archbishop of Lahore in Pakistan, Sebastian Shaw. This was announced by the head of administration of Pakistan’s most populous diocese, Vicar General Asif Sardar, according to the Asian Catholic press service Ucanews (Friday). In the past, allegations of sexual abuse and financial fraud had been levelled against Shaw. Rome has appointed the Archbishop of Karachi, Benny Mario Travas, as interim Apostolic Administrator, Sardar said.

During the mass on the Solemnity of the Assumption, Sardar called for prayers “for our archbishop”, who is now beginning a “sabbatical”. Sardar did not give a reason for the archbishop’s dismissal, according to Ucanews. According to the report, representatives…

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A Stanly County, North Carolina, pastor is facing charges after investigators said he failed to report crimes against children, according to deputies with the Stanly County Sheriff’s Office.

Stanly County officials said an investigation began on May 30 for a string of sexual assault allegations involving minors that spanned over several years.

Kenny Parker, the pastor of Straitway Baptist Church in Albemarle, was charged with three counts of failing to report crimes against juveniles. Parker is also the chief administrator of the church’s school, according to state records obtained by our news partner, WCNC.

The investigation is ongoing.

Parker was released on a $5,000 bond. He is due in court on Sept. 25.

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Archbishop Sebastian Shaw, OFM, has been replaced as administrator of the Archdiocese of Lahore, Pakistan, the diocese’s vicar general announced Thursday.

According to reports, Shaw has faced allegations of sexual abuse and financial fraud, but his future remains unclear amid a lack of official information about his removal and the reasons behind it.

Father Asif Sardar announced at Mass in the Cathedral of Lahore on Aug. 15 that Archbishop Benny Mario Travas of Karachi will take over as apostolic administrator of the archdiocese in northeast Pakistan while Shaw goes “on a sabbatical,” UCA News reported.

The vicar general did not say why the 66-year-old archbishop was leaving in his announcement on the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary at Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Shaw — who led Pakistan’s largest archdiocese, with over half a million Catholics, since 2013 — has been accused of sexual abuse and of selling Church properties and…

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Despite calls from abuse victims and their advocates to stop displaying artwork by the disgraced former Jesuit priest Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, the Vatican has again used one of the artist’s images to illustrate an online article. 

In addition, last week, a video was published by Argentine public TV channel Canal de la Cuidad that shows a Rupnik image hanging in Pope Francis’ personal apartment inside the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence.

On the Vatican website, the Holy See’s communications department used a picture of a Rupnik mosaic of the dormition of Mary at the top of an article for the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary on Aug. 15.

Vatican News articles about Catholic feast days have continued to regularly feature Rupnik’s art after public abuse accusations were made against the Slovenian priest at the end of 2022.

Accused of sexually abusing women, Rupnik is currently under investigation…

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The mother of a Cardinal Newman student has filed a lawsuit claiming her son was racially harassed and sexually abused at the Catholic school. 

The lawsuit claims that the Columbia school was grossly negligent in allowing abuses by students and football coaches to take place under its watch. 

Football players at Cardinal Newman sexually assaulted the student — who was identified as John Doe and whose age was not listed — while other students stood by laughing and filming in late September 2023, the Aug. 14 lawsuit states. The assault happened just a few weeks into the unnamed student’s time on the team. 

Video of the incident, which the lawsuit said left the student “crying and visibly distressed,” was later shared by students through social media, according to the lawsuit. 

The student, who is Black, continued to play football at the school until his mother withdrew him in November of…

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Survivors, advocates, and pastors call for “true repentance” among religious groups that ran schools and homes between 1950 and 1999.

Not long after Frances Tagaloa accepted Christ at 16, she started experiencing flashbacks.

Over the next few years, Tagaloa began piecing together long-buried memories and came to recognize that she had been sexually abused between the ages of five and seven by a Catholic Marist Brother who taught at a school in the Auckland suburb of Ponsonby.

Tagaloa only told her parents about the abuse years later, after getting married and having children, because talking about the issue was taboo in her father’s Samoan culture, and she didn’t want her parents to blame themselves.

Her mother approached the Catholic Church in New Zealand around 1999, but Tagaloa, 56, decided not to speak with them —until three years later, when she heard the Marist Brothers were…

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Evangelical pastor B. Moses Melchidezek, 27, was charged today with two counts of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy in a church in June.

According to Sinar Harian, Moses claimed trial to both charges after they were were read to him in the Shah Alam Sessions Court.

Both charges were proffered under Section 14(a) and Section 14(b) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017, and each is punishable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment and whipping upon conviction.

Section 14(a) pertains to physical sexual contact with a child while Section 14(b) concerns the coercion of a child into sexual activity.

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A former pastor in Lexington, Kentucky, has been indicted by a grand jury with seven felony charges related to his alleged sex crimes against a 15-year-old girl. Zachary King, formerly an executive pastor at LexCity Church, was first arrested in July. 

King, 47, reportedly resigned from the church shortly before his arrest, when he was confronted by members of the congregation. 

According to the arrest report, King admitted to having “sexual intercourse with the minor starting at age 15 in January 2023, continuing until April 2024.” 

King reportedly also specified that the abuse took place “in the minor’s home, at his residence, and at the church where he was a former pastor.”

RELATED: Man Arrested After Reportedly Confessing to Pastor That He Molested a 4-Year-Old

King also confessed to communicating with the child via WhatsApp and SnapChat, arranging meetups and receiving explicit photographs from the…

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An independent assessment of Catholic safeguarding protocols in New Zealand has highlighted significant progress in many areas while also pointing to the need for further improvements, according to a report released Thursday by Te Rōpū Tautoko, the group coordinating the Church’s engagement with the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.

The assessment, conducted by U.K.-based GCPS Consulting, examined the implementation and suitability of safeguarding culture standards across the Catholic Church in New Zealand. It included a review of policies and procedures and interviews with survivors, Church leaders, safeguarding officers, and parishioners.

The move follows the findings of New Zealand’s abuse commission, Abuse in Care: Royal Commission of Inquiry, in care institutions from 1950 to 1999 in a final report released in July.

The report revealed that up to 42% of those in faith-based care run by all denominations were…

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ALMOST 72 per cent of child sexual abuse in Australian religious organisations happened in Roman Catholic churches and organisations, new research has found.

The study, conducted through the Australian Catholic University, did not report specifically on abuse in Anglican organisations. “Anglican” was subsumed in a category with a wide range of denominations, including Jehovah’s Witnesses and Orthodox Churches, together totalling 21.8 per cent of abuse events.

The study, The Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse Perpetrated by Leaders or Other Adults in Religious Organizations in Australia, surveyed 8503 people aged 16 and over, and found that one in 250 of the respondents reported being sexually abused by an adult in a religious organisation. Men reported significantly higher rates of abuse than women; the abuse was overwhelmingly perpetrated by men.

The study found that child sexual abuse in religious organisations had declined over time: results showed that 2.2 per cent of men aged 65 and older had…

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An independent assessment of Catholic safeguarding protocols and procedures in New Zealand has identified significant progress in many areas, while also highlighting where more work is needed, according to a statement from the country’s bishops’ conference.

Te Rōpū Tautoko, the group which coordinated the Catholic Church’s engagement with the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, issued its final report on July 31.

This report came just a week after the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care lambasted the Catholic Church in its report to the abuse of children and vulnerable adults in care facilities.

RELATED: Abuse commission in New Zealand points to Catholic Church in particular

“The assumed moral authority and trustworthiness of clergy and religious leaders allowed abusers in faith-based institutions to perpetrate abuse and neglect with impunity. Religious beliefs were often used to justify the abuse and neglect, and to silence survivors. Hierarchical…

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A Western Australia parliamentary committee gave its final report after examining the support available to survivors of institutional child abuse, saying the Catholic Church and other religious entities had put their own institutional and financial wellbeing over the needs of victims.

“Institutions that maintain an unholy wall of silence can only be doing so as a strategy to limit their financial liability rather than providing just outcomes for victim/survivors,” the committee said in its report.

Specifically mentioning the Christian Brothers, the report accused the Catholic religious group of trying to hide information on the abuse of children under their care to protect their financial viability.

“It is the conspiracy of secrecy and institutional denial around abuse that not only adds to the trauma suffered by those who were abused but also obstructs their path to justice,” committee member Christine Tonkin told state parliament on Thursday.

“The evidence of survivors is…

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Texas megachurch Gateway Church has canceled its popular annual conference in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal involving its founder Robert Morris.

The church announced on Wednesday that the Gateway Conference 2024, scheduled to be held at its Southlake campus, has been cancelled.

The conference has been a mainstay of Gateway for more than a decade, drawing “thousands of church pastors, leaders and staff . . . to bless, empower and equip the local church,” according to the event’s Facebook page.

However, in June, Morris resigned from the church he founded in 2000, after a 54-year-old Oklahoma woman alleged she was sexually molested by the preacher between 1982 and 1987, as reported by The Roys Report (TRR).

Cindy Clemishire was 12-years old, when Morris, then a 21-year-old traveling evangelist, allegedly molested the preteen on Christmas Day 1982.

Also recently resigning from Gateway was Morris’ son, James Morris,…

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A 90-year-old woman, who as a pregnant teenager had a priest look up her skirt to check if she was wearing underwear before sending her to a mother and baby home, said it is “humiliating” that she is still waiting for redress.

Helen Culpan from Co Carlow is one of 34,000 survivors who are entitled to a redress payment for the time they spent in one of the country’s many mother and baby homes. The €800m scheme finally opened for applications on March 20 this year — three years after it was first promised by the State. 

Priority is to be given to elderly applicants, according to the Department of Children and Integration which is responsible for the scheme, many of whom are in their 80s and 90s. However, Helen Culpan is still awaiting her payment, and fears she may pass away before it is paid.

[PHOTO…

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Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore takes ‘sabbatical’ amid rumored suspension

The Vatican has replaced Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore with an apostolic administrator following allegations of sex abuse and financial fraud in Pakistan’s most populous Catholic diocese.

Lahore Archdiocesan Vicar General Father Asif Sardar announced the appointment of Archbishop Benny Mario Travas of Karachi as the apostolic administrator of Lahore on Aug. 15.

“We pray for our archbishop… God grant him good health; always guide him. He is going on a sabbatical,” Sardar told Catholics at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Lahore during the Mass on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Sardar did not specify the reason for removing the archbishop from the administrative role of the archdiocese in the capital of Punjab province, where almost half of Pakistan’s 1.3 million Catholics live.

Church officials refused to comment about Shaw’s removal to UCA News.

However, the…

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While bankruptcy litigation continues in federal court, the diocese says it’s a new era of transparency and accountability.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Editor’s note: This is Part 4 of an ongoing 2 On Your Side series, “Faith & Fallout,” which examines multiple issues facing the Diocese of Buffalo, including the sexual abuse of children, bankruptcy, church closings and how the diocese spends donations by parishioners. 

Four and a half years after the Diocese of Buffalo filed for bankruptcy while facing a mountain of child sexual abuse lawsuits, justice remains elusive for survivors. 

“Survivors are going to get crumbs that fall from the table. And that’s not justice to me, Sean. It’s not what they deserve, and it’s not what they were promised,” said Kevin Brun, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse.

While bankruptcy litigation continues in federal court, the diocese says it’s…

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For Immediate Release August 15, 2024 

Press Conference:  Wyndham Hotel NRG Houston, Texas. 2 pm Friday, August 16th. SNAP, www.snapnetwork.org, is proud to host our annual conference this weekend at Wyndham Hotel NRG Houston, TX.

The conference runs from August 16th to 18th. This event allows us to gather friends, survivors, advocates, and allies for a weekend of camaraderie and connection. We are so happy to be able to welcome many first-time attendees to gather in person and hear powerful messages from keynote speakers such as Cindy Clemshire. Cindy is the courageous Baptist survivor who last month told The Wartburg Watch that Dallas megachurch founder and pastor, Robert Morris, began sexually abusing her on Christmas Day, 1982, when she was only 12 years old. Cindy said that the assaults continued for four-and-a-half years. Although this was not the first time Cindy had spoken out, the blog piece launched a media storm…

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Marko Rupnik, a Catholic priest, was expelled from the Jesuit order because he’d allegedly abused women. He was later accepted into the diocese in his native Slovenia. Rupnik is also an artist, and his work is on display in churches in Lourdes, Rome and Washington, D.C., among others.

Some of these sites are planning to cover or remove Rupnik’s art; some congregants and clergy disagree with such actions. The Vatican’s communication chief, Paolo Ruffini, for example, has defended the Holy See’s decision to keep Rupnik’s art on his department’s website.

As an art historian, I ask whether the debate is missing the point.

Bridging Eastern and Western European traditions

Rupnik’s art has been honored in the past as part of an effort by the Catholic Church to bridge Eastern and Western European faith traditions. With his heritage as a Slovenian, Rupnik was able to create imagery that blended both traditions. He was chosen…

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After decades of controversies and dozens of survivors speaking out, the Church of England still faces fierce criticism for the way it responds when members of the clergy are accused of abuse.

A BBC investigation into how it dealt with allegations about Blackburn priest Andrew Hindley exposed deep and continuing failings in the Church’s child protection system.

After the news about Canon Hindley broke earlier this week, the current Dean of Blackburn, the Very Revd Peter Howell-Jones, acknowledged there had been “a meteoric failure of structure and systems which should have been addressed years before”.

Asked if – given the details we now know – he trusts the Church to which he belongs, the Dean said, “I categorically do not.”

Canon Hindley was offered a secret six-figure pay-off after being assessed as a potential risk to children and young people. The priest, who denies any criminal activity or wrongdoing, was…

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In short:

A WA parliamentary committee has today handed down its final report after examining the the support available to survivors of institutional child abuse.

It found some religious entities have been prioritising survival and financial wellbeing over the needs of those who had been abused.

The committee made 21 recommendations, including that the identities of abusers be clearly listed on the websites in which they operated.

The names of known child abusers should be published prominently on church websites and the WA government should create a centrally accessible list of all known perpetrators, an inquiry into institutional child sexual abuse has urged. 

The Community Development and Justice Standing Committee handed down its final report on Thursday after examining the support available to survivors of institutional child abuse.

It found the Catholic Church and other religious entities had prioritised their own institutional and financial wellbeing over the needs of…

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Tribal leaders and community members will gather in Fort Shaw on Thursday, Aug. 15 for a “Day of Remembrance” to honor the children who died at Indian boarding schools.

From the 1800s to the 1970s, Native children were taken from their homes and forced to attend government-funded Christian boarding schools, where they were emotionally, physically and sexually abused. The explicit mission of these schools was cultural genocide. Some children died at these schools and were buried in unmarked graves. Tribes suffered language and culture loss as a result, and historical trauma persists in Native communities today.

Established in the late 1800s, the Fort Shaw Indian School was one of several boarding schools in Montana.

The event, free and open to the public, will kick off at 10 a.m. with remarks from Iva Croff, liberal studies division chair at Blackfeet Community College, and Carol Murray, a boarding school survivor. Attendees will…

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A second pastor has resigned from Cross Timbers Church in Argyle, Texas, just weeks after Lead Pastor Josiah Anthony stepped down amid scandal.

In a statement released this week, Cross Timbers Executive Pastor Byron Copeland acknowledged the difficulty the church has experienced and announced his decision to leave.

“I have felt the heavy weight of our recent hurt at Cross Timbers Church,” Copeland wrote. He added that he is optimistic about the future of the church, especially given that church founder Toby Slough had returned to “steady the ship.”

“But, I sense that God is calling me to a fresh season of life,” Copeland continued. “So, it is with a thankful heart that I have decided to resign from my position.”

As The Roys Report (TRR) previously reported, Josiah Anthony resigned from Cross Timbers in July due to what was initially labeled “inappropriate and hurtful” actions. However, later Cross…

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Luis Fernando Figari Rodrigo, founder of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (Sodality of Christian Life) and accused of committing sexual abuse, has been expelled from the organization by decision of the Vatican, the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference announced.

In an Aug. 14 statement posted on its website, the conference said that the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has announced, in a decree, that Figari, 77, has been expelled from the sodality “in accordance with Canon 746 of the Code of Canon Law.” 

The decree explains that Figari has been expelled based on the “results obtained and the certainties acquired” in the investigation carried out by Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith following their visit to Peru in July 2023 on behalf of Pope Francis.

At the time, the Holy Father entrusted both prelates with…

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Police have obtained a four-day remand order against a priest who allegedly sexually assaulted a teenage boy.

District police chief Assistant Commissioner Wan Azlan Wan Mamat said police have taken statements from three individuals so far in connection with the case.

“Based on our investigations no other victims have been identified so far.

“The suspect has been remanded for four days to assist further investigations,” he said.

It was reported that a priest was arrested for allegedly committing physical sexual assault on a teenager.

Police received a report from a 13-year-old boy at 10.09pm on Aug 12.

The victim claimed that between June and July this year, the suspect, who is a priest, had physically sexually harassed him in a bedroom within the grounds of a church at Bandar Bukit Puchong.

Police arrested the 27-year-old suspect at a restaurant in Puchong on Aug 13.

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The Vatican on Wednesday expelled the founder of an influential Peruvian religious movement, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, after the Catholic hierarchy spent more than a decade of downplaying allegations of sexual and psychological abuse and financial corruption against him and his community.

The decree against Luis Fernando Figari came after Pope Francis last year ordered an investigation into the Sodalitium by the Vatican’s top sex abuse experts to get to the bottom of the scandal. Previous commissions and investigations had failed to fully address the group’s problems.

According to the decree by the Vatican’s department for religious orders, which was posted on the website of the Peruvian bishops conference, Francis gave his explicit authorization to expel Figari from the movement, even though canon law didn’t precisely cover his alleged misconduct.

Figari’s behavior was “incompatible and therefore unacceptable in a member of a church institution, as well as causing scandal and serious damage to…

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Convicted pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale has admitted more historical child sexual abuse in Victoria.

Appearing in Bendigo Magistrates Court via video link from Port Phillip Prison, as he lay in his prison bed and propped up by three pillows, the frail 90-year-old pleaded guilty to eight additional sexual assault charges against children.

He was facing 62 child sexual assault charges but 56 were withdrawn. 

The former Catholic priest, who had been too unwell to appear before his committal hearing previously, admitted six counts of indecently assaulting young males and two counts of buggery of two children who were aged under 14.

The crimes were committed in the regional Victorian towns of Inglewood, Ballarat, Apollo Bay, Horsham and Mortlake between 1973 and 1981.

“Are you guilty or not guilty, Mr Ridsdale,” Magistrate Megan Aumair asked the accused on Wednesday.

“I’m guilty,” Ridsdale replied.

The notorious pedophile priest will next appear at…

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As both chambers of Congress consider legislation to establish a federal commission to help address Native American boarding school-era trauma, the U.S. bishops have requested an amendment be made to the current proposals to give them a seat at the table.

If passed, the “Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act” would create a five member commission, a 15 member subcommittee, and separate 19 member and 17 member advisory committees to investigate, document and acknowledge past injustices that took place at the federal government’s Indian boarding schools.

As presently constructed, the legislation reserves spots for various Indigenous associations and members of federal departments, which the U.S. bishops don’t dispute are important. However, because many of these schools were run by Catholic and Protestant entities, the U.S. bishops argue the legislation should create spots for members of religious communities, as well.

“It seems like an omission if the…

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Three Jesuit provincials in Bolivia were formally indicted by the general prosecutor’s office for having allegedly covered up abuses perpetrated by former Archbishop Alejandro Mestre of La Paz in the 1960s.

The Bolivian Association of Victims and Survivors of Ecclesial Sexual Abuse praised the measure but hope to add more denouncements to the current inquiry.

Father Bernardo Mercado, 43, the provincial of the Jesuits in the South American country, Father Osvaldo Cherviches, 52, who was the provincial between 2014-2018, and Spanish-born Father Ignacio Suñol, 81, who was the provincial between 2019-2022, are being officially investigated for failing to take Mestre’s case to the authorities.

According to a press statement released by the prosecutor’s office, Chirveches, who was then responsible for “healthy environments” at the provincial curia – the department in charge of dealing with abuse accusations – was informed in November of 2021 of Mestre’s abuse case. The Spanish-born Jesuit…

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The Anglican Church apologizes after an investigation implicated the church. Andrew Hindley, a priest from northwest England, remained in his position from 1991 to 2021 despite repeated accusations against him. He was even offered nearly €280,000 in 2022 to leave.

The Anglican Church apologized August 13 for its handling of the case of a priest from northwest England who was suspected of posing a risk to children and who had been offered a large sum of money to leave its ranks.

Already accused of inaction in dealing with child sexual within the clergy, the Church of England once again promised to strengthen its procedures for handling such cases after it was implicated by a BBC investigation.Further reading: Church of England’s reputation damaged by sexual abuse claims

According to the BBC, Andrew Hindley remained a priest in Blackburn from 1991 to 2021 despite repeated accusations regarding his behavior, which were well-known within…

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A Philadelphia megachurch pastor hoped his charitable deeds would favorably sway a judge at his sentencing. Instead, the judge referred to him as a serial predator and sentenced him to five to 12 years in prison for sexually assaulting three children.

Mark Hatcher, Sr., 61, of Holy Ghost Headquarters Revival Center, was convicted in February  of rape, statutory sexual assault, and indecent assault.

Two convictions stem from Hatcher’s sexual assault of two children to whom he was related—a 6-year-old boy in 2007—2008, and a 15-year-old girl in 2000. The third conviction is for raping a 13-year-old girl in an abandoned home owned by Hatcher’s church.

Before handing down the sentence, Montgomery County Court Judge Thomas Branca said there were two men on trial: one an active, beloved community leader and pastor—and a serial predator, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The judge weighed the good Hatcher has done, adding “heavier weight…

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The Archbishop of Zagreb violated the provisions of the Pope’s document “Vos estis lux mundi” and the HBK guidelines “for handling cases of pedophilia by clerics”

Instead of suspending them, the Archbishop of Zagreb, Msgr. Dražen Kutleša transferred the priests accused of pedophilia and enabled them to continue to perform their duties and to be in contact with the faithful and ministers. Therefore, it can be argued that Kutleša, then still the archbishop of Split, failed to act in accordance with the document “Vos estis lux mundi” in January 2023 , which was issued by Pope Francis in 2019 in order to establish a system for reporting abuse and dealing with such cases within of the Catholic Church, and he did not follow all the “Guidelines for handling cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics” of the Croatian Bishops’ Conference,…

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The Church of England made a six-figure pay-off to a priest assessed as a potential risk to children and young people, a BBC investigation has found.

Canon Andrew Hindley – who worked in Blackburn diocese from 1991 to 2021 – was subject to five police investigations, including into allegations of sexual assault.

He has never been charged with any criminal offences and says he has never presented any safeguarding risk to anyone.

A senior member of staff at Blackburn Cathedral resigned over the settlement and says concerns about the priest were “an open secret” among senior clergy.

The former Bishop of Blackburn Julian Henderson described the financial settlement when he was in post as the “only option” left for the Church “to protect children and vulnerable young people from the risk Canon Hindley posed”.

The archbishops of Canterbury and York have told the BBC they are “still working” to get…

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The Church of England has issued an apology to abuse survivors after a priest, assessed as a potential risk to children, received a payout. On Tuesday, the church’s leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, admitted that survivors had been “let down” by the handling of the case involving Canon Andrew Hindley, as reported by news agency AFP.

Hindley, who was removed from office on health grounds in 2021, had been the subject of multiple allegations over several years, though he had never been criminally convicted or found guilty of misconduct by independent church courts. Reports indicate that Hindley was subjected to five police investigations, including claims of sexual assault. Despite these serious allegations, the details of the payout remain shrouded in secrecy due to non-disclosure agreements, though the BBC reported an offer of £240,000 ($307,000).

A risk assessment carried out by a child protection charity had flagged Hindley as posing “a risk of significant harm…

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The Regional Court in Hildesheim must deal with the claim for damages for pain and suffering of a victim of abuse against the Catholic diocese. The bishop also relies on clarification by the court.

Dispute over compensation for pain and suffering – The diocese expects the civil process to clarify abuse cases

In the legal dispute over a damages payment to a victim of abuse, the Catholic Diocese of Hildesheim has applied for the dismissal of the lawsuit. A corresponding response to the lawsuit has been filed with the Regional Court of Hildesheim. The Diocese cannot make any statements as to whether the victim’s allegations are accurate as described, it was stated. It considers the allegations to be time-barred.

Case of Liability for Public Authorities

The Diocese expects the court proceedings to provide clarity, objectivity, and transparency for all parties involved. Among other things, it is also about questions…

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John Denzel had served in various roles at St. Brigid since 2017 but was given the position of safe environment coordinator in 2022.

A Plain City man who worked at the Saint Brigid of Kildare parish as a safe environment coordinator was indicted for allegedly possessing child sexual abuse material.

John Denzel, 60, was charged with 11 counts of illegal use of a minor or impaired person in nudity and four counts of pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor. According to the indictment, the alleged offenses occurred from July 6, 2022, and Jan. 3, 2023.

The indictment says that Denzel knowingly solicited, received, purchased, exchanged, possessed, or controlled material that shows a minor participating or engaging in sexual activity.

St. Brigid of Kildare Parish, is a parish and pre-K through 8th grade school. A spokesperson for the Catholic Diocese of Columbus said a diocesan administrator was made aware on…

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Professor David Pooler is a Professor in the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work at Baylor University. What is consent and power in clergy-laity relations?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We are back to the “delightful” topic of clergy-related abuse in general, but sexual abuse in particular, because it is the darkest in the public imagination. Regarding consent as a claim when an individual priest, pastor, or religious authority comes forward, what are some important ethical considerations? While that can be considered legitimate in some cases, it is probably not legitimate in most considerations. In other cases, it’s a blanket lie. 

Professor David K. Pooler: I’ll say this. I do think it’s possible that there are people who have had sex with a married pastor, single pastor, priest, or whatever. They probably believe it was consensual because someone may not have said “No,” didn’t resist, or wasn’t clear that they didn’t want that…

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Argentina is in the midst of a vocational crisis.

In 1990, the country saw a high of 2260 seminarians.

This year, there are 481 diocesan seminaries, according to the Organization of Seminaries of Argentina. The number of religious seminarians is not available for this year. But in 2020, the last year for which numbers have been provided, there were 351 religious seminarians in Argentina.

The situation doesn’t seem poised to improve any time soon — this year saw just 57 new entries to Argentinian diocesan seminaries, a far cry from the 256 new entries in 1997.

According to Fr. Andrés Vallejos, formator at the Seminary of the Holy Cross in the country’s second largest diocese of Lomas de Zamora, there are a number of factors in Argentina’s vocational decline: the secularization of Argentine society, the Church’s declining credibility due to the politicization of the priesthood and the abuse crisis, and…

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The Church of England has apologised to abuse survivors who have been “let down by the church”, after a clergyman reportedly assessed as a potential risk to children and young people was given a payout.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York acknowledged the “concerning background” to the case of Canon Andrew Hindley, who the BBC said had been subject to five police investigations, including allegations of sexual assault.

The church confirmed that “a number of allegations were made about the canon over a number of years”, but said there had never been a conviction in the criminal courts or any finding of misconduct in the independent church courts.

Mr Hindley was removed from office on health grounds in 2021 but, after bringing a High Court claim against that decision, was given a payment in settlement, the church said.

The BBC reported an offer of £240,000 was made, but said non-disclosure…

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A recent decision by a Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Tagum, Davao del Norte, convicting 14 Filipino of “child abuse” could end up a case study in the Philippines and maybe even internationally on legal doublespeak and the travesty of justice.

It took me several hours to wade through the court decision, promulgated last July 3, almost six years after the arrests of teachers now known as the Talaingod 18, Talaingod being a town in Davao del Norte where the alleged child abuse occurred.

It’s a complicated story, set against a long history of maltreatment of the “lumad” or indigenous peoples of Mindanao who have, through much of the 20th century, been harassed and pushed away by the military from their ancestral lands, lands rich in natural resources and coveted by companies engaged in mining, logging, and agribusiness.

No one cared, except for social action groups, many affiliated with the…

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The woman said psychotherapy in her teens helped her recover traumatic memories from when she attended her family’s church in Michigan and on a mission trip.

As a young girl, Marian Ippel was consumed by recurring thoughts and dreams of herself and other children being raped. Her yearly physical provoked fear.

It wasn’t until 2020, after months of therapy to address her anxiety and depression, that the inexplicable feeling of dread began to click: Then 17, she recovered memories, she said, of sexual assault by fellow church members abusing her when she was around 3 and 4 years old.

Now 21, Ippel is accusing her Grand Rapids, Michigan, church of creating a culture that fostered alleged abuse in a lawsuit that is not typical: Her complaint, filed Monday in Kent County Circuit Court, claims harm was done to her at such a young age, while hinging on memories that she…

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