ABUSE TRACKER

A former priest who was held liable years ago for sexually abusing multiple children in the greater Sacramento region is back in the spotlight.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta confirmed to CBS13 that his office will review why all criminal charges were dropped against Father Michael Kelly in Calaveras County in 2016. The charges stemmed from the alleged sexual abuse of victim Trevor Martin, who was 10 at the time. 

“That priest, he stole my son’s life from him,” said Deanna Hampton, Martin’s mother. 

Hampton has never stopped fighting for justice for her son. However, she felt silenced for years until a recent Sacramento Bee investigation revealed that the decision to drop the charges against Kelly may have been mishandled by Calaveras County District Attorney Barbara Yook. 

“There’s a thread that needs to be pulled to expose all of this. I don’t know if this is the thread,…

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Civil trials can be complex and challenging, especially when key witnesses or evidence are unavailable due to the passage of time. However, upholding the principle of a fair trial is paramount in the legal system. By majority, the High Court of Australia recently allowed an appeal, overturning a decision in the NSW Court of Appeal to permanently stay proceedings arising out of a claim for historical child sexual abuse.

Background 

GLJ (the Plaintiff), commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court of NSW in January 2020 against the Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the Diocese of Lismore (Diocese). The Statement of Claim seeks damages for personal injury arising out of allegations that the Plaintiff was subjected to sexual assault by Father Anderson, a priest in the Diocese of Lismore, in 1968. The Plaintiff first came forward with the allegations after the death of Father Anderson in 1996.

The Diocese applied for…

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The Unions of Superiors and Superiors General (UISG-USG) have organized an in-person workshop taking place in Rome from Nov. 6–10 with the aim of “creating a culture of protection within religious congregations.”

A total of 132 representatives of the 90 male and female religious congregations are participating in the event and are members of the Union of Superiors General (USG) and the International Union of Superiors General (UISG). The Fraterna Domus community, on the outskirts of the Italian capital, is hosting the event.

According to Vatican News, this is an “unprecedented opportunity” for religious leaders and their congregational protection delegates from around the world “to learn, share experiences, and collaborate to promote a safe and inclusive environment” in their respective institutions.

The workshop focuses especially on caring for minors and adults in vulnerable situations. The organization explained that the event revolves around several key points, such as creating a culture…

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore will end religious services at one of the city’s Catholic churches after its longtime pastor was recently suspended from ministry because he admitted to making a payment several years ago to settle sexual harassment allegations.

Last month, Father Paschal Morlino was dismissed from his position at St. Benedict Church in southwest Baltimore, where he served for nearly 40 years and became known for his efforts to help residents of poor neighborhoods surrounding the church.

Few details about the 2018 complaint against Morlino have been released. Church officials have said they regarded “alleged sexual harassment of an adult man.” The complainant died in 2020 and a lawyer representing him in the case has declined to comment citing a non-disclosure agreement.

Officials with the archdiocese also said in a statement Saturday that they are investigating another complaint against Morlino involving sexual abuse of a minor. They…

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Rosalyn and Keith Carlson felt proud as pastors at their church preached about the importance of taking a strong stand to support sexual abuse survivors.

The message at Grace Church Noblesville called for swift action against abusers and healing aid for survivors. Senior pastor Dave Rodriguez acknowledged Grace had previously fired two male employees accused of abusing women.

“We listened to the women,” Rodriguez told the congregation in the 2018 sermon. “We had heartfelt conversations, but I’m also going to tell you that if I were to do it again today, there might be some things I would do differently to mitigate the pain that the women had to face.”

Associate pastor Amy Christie followed Rodriguez with a promise: “We will not blame you. We will not re-victimize you. We will not shut you down. We will not turn you away.”

The uplifting message in the…

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Former residents of Lord’s Ranch, run by Ted Suhl, convicted of bribery in 2016, say abuse was ‘systematic and widespread’

Eight former residents of a youth treatment center that was run by an Arkansas man whose bribery conviction was commuted by Donald Trump have filed a lawsuit claiming they were victims of “systematic and widespread” abuse at the now-shuttered facility.

Attorneys for the former residents of the Lord’s Ranch said the lawsuit was the first of several to be filed in the coming weeks alleging abuse at the facility that closed in 2016 after owner Ted Suhl was convicted in a federal bribery scheme. Suhl’s conviction was commuted by Trump in 2019.

“Men and women who owned, operated, and staffed the facility preyed on and abused the children housed on the remote facility in Warm Springs, Arkansas, routinely and systematically,” the lawsuit filed on Monday in federal court said.

The lawsuit…

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MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. (WKRG) — A disgraced priest who ran off to Italy with a teenage girl nearly four months ago is back in Mobile County, according to the attorney for the girl’s parents.

Alex Crow is accused of grooming a 2023 McGill-Toolen Catholic High School graduate and taking her to Italy with him. Before leaving the country, Crow wrote a letter and left it with the Archdiocese, saying he would never return to America.

On Aug. 14, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office provided a note to WKRG News 5 that offered insight into Crow’s thoughts before leaving the country. MCSO also released a Valentine’s letter from Crow to the former McGill student.

The Archdiocese of Mobile has released a statement regarding Alex Crow’s return.

“The Archdiocese of Mobile is relieved to learn that Alex Crow and the young woman with whom he left the country after…

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SHELBURNE FALLS — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield this week acknowledged new credible findings against the late Richard Lavigne, a convicted sex offender and former Shelburne Falls priest believed to have killed a 13-year-old altar boy in 1972.

The diocese issued a statement on Oct. 31 to announce an update on Lavigne, as well as on the late Stigmatine priest Joseph E. Flood and the late Rev. J. Victor Carrier.

“Out of respect for the privacy of the survivor, no further details will be released at this time,” Carolee McGrath, a diocese spokesperson wrote in an email regarding Lavigne’s case.

Lavigne and Flood were already listed on the diocese’s “Findings of Credibility of Allegations of Sexual Abuse of a Minor,” and Carrier’s name was recently added based on a credible finding by the diocesan Review Board. The diocese’s statement mentions that an allegation being found credible does not equal…

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A court-ordered ban on lawsuits against Baltimore-area Catholic schools and parishes will remain in place indefinitely as attorneys for sexual abuse victims and the Archdiocese of Baltimore continue to work through the early stages of the archdiocese’s bankruptcy.

The extension of the injunction, which has been in place since Oct. 3, came after abuse victims reversed course from their filing last week with the federal bankruptcy court seeking to have the ban lifted.

An attorney for the unsecured creditors’ committee — a group of seven abuse victims who represent all victims who will bring claims against the archdiocese in the bankruptcy process — said in court Monday that the decision to forgo its current challenge to the injunction was a product of good communication and cooperation between the archdiocese’s attorneys and the committee.

“It bodes really well for how the case may…

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In March 2022, various news outlets reported that one of the victims of the late Cleveland priest Robert McWilliams, who died in prison the month before, had filed a lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. Curious about the status of the case, I recently checked the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas docket and found that the case was dismissed with prejudice in November 2022. Is it a coincidence that the website of the plaintiff’s law firm shows an $800,000 settlement, “Against Catholic Diocese for sexual abuse of minor perpetuated by priest”?

Given the extensive reporting on the case going back to late 2019, I believe that people deserve to know the outcome, though I believe the victim’s identity should be protected at all costs. Other victims might derive benefit by being informed of the settlement. Also, I feel that we faithfully contributing Catholics deserve transparency….

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A brief filed in a Kentucky case has infuriated members of the denomination across the country, just as it grapples with an abuse scandal

For six months, almost no one took notice of the brief filed quietly by Southern Baptists in a case winding its way to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

At the center of the case is a woman whose father, a police officer, was convicted in 2020 of sexually abusing her over a period of years when she was a child. The woman later sued several parties, including the Louisville Police Department, saying they knew about the abuse and had a duty to report it. Now, the state’s highest court is considering whether sex abuse victims can have more time to sue “non-perpetrators” — institutions or their leaders that are obligated to protect children from such abuse.

None of it appeared to have anything to do with…

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Ashley Crouse, a pastor at New Vision Baptist Church in Granite Falls, is facing multiple charges for sexual exploitation of a minor.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Caldwell County pastor was arrested last week on multiple child sex abuse charges, deputies said. 

The Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office served two search warrants at the home of Ashley James Crouse, 51, on Friday, Nov. 3, after receiving a tip that Crouse was accused of having inappropriate contact with a minor. Crouse is a pastor at New Vision Baptist Church in Granite Falls, according to the sheriff’s office. 

Detectives collected items from Crouse’s home and the church that were sent to a lab for forensic examinations for material depicting child exploitation. Crouse is currently charged with four counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. He was given a $1 million bond on those charges. 

Caldwell County deputies are working in conjunction…

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A new lawsuit accuses a private Christian school in Orlando of hiding information about one of its teachers sexually abusing a student. The lawsuit is against First Academy, a private Christian college prep school of about 1300 kids run by First Baptist Church of Orlando. To protect the victim’s identity, she’s referred to in the lawsuit as “Jane Doe.”

ORLANDO, Fla. – A new lawsuit accuses a private Christian school in Orlando of hiding information about one of its teachers sexually abusing a student. 

The lawsuit is against First Academy, a private Christian college preparatory school of about 1,300 kids run by First Baptist Church of Orlando. To protect the victim’s identity, she’s referred to in the lawsuit as “Jane Doe.”

The alleged crimes all happened between 2014 and 2016. Attorneys for “Jane Doe” said she had been using that time to process her trauma in therapy before she finally came forward…

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The First Baptist Church of Orlando was accused of failing to protect a student at its private school after a teacher allegedly groomed and sexually abused her between 2014 and 2016, according to a lawsuit filed Friday.

Church officials and administrators at Orlando-based The First Academy, the private school run by First Baptist since 1987, knew about the inappropriate relationship between the student and Harriet Sugg but didn’t take steps to stop it for years, even as others became aware of the situation, the lawsuit alleged. Sugg, 54, was charged Oct. 11 with five counts of sexual activity with a minor, three of which are tied to being a school authority figure.

The student, who was 15 when the abuse began, was identified in court records as Jane Doe.

The lawsuit filed by attorney Andrea Lewis and an affidavit by the Ocoee Police Department said the two met weeks after…

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Every now and then, major news stories about religious trends in the real world actually have something to do with religion, as opposed to being driven by politics, alone.

I know, I know. It’s hard to imagine that.

Yes, it’s also possible for an important story about religion to involve factors other than “religion,” narrowly defined. These stories may involve economics, mass media, education and, yes, politics. Life is complex.

I thought about this when reading an important New York Times story the other day that ran with this double-decker headline:

“Polish Bishop Resigns After Diocese Is Rocked by Sex Scandal

“A priest in the bishop’s diocese was accused of holding a sex party in his church apartment that involved a male prostitute who lost consciousness.

“Here is the long, but essential, overture for that:

“A Polish bishop whose diocese has been badly tarnished by reports of a…

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore said last week that Masses and sacraments at a Baltimore parish would be discontinued after its pastor was removed there last month following a scandal over sex abuse accusations and hush money.

Baltimore priest Father Paschal Morlino, OSB, the former pastor of St. Benedict Parish, was suspended from priestly duties last month after an investigation from the archdiocese.

The priest told a local media outlet earlier in October that years ago he had entered a confidential $200,000 settlement to quiet allegations of sexual assault and financial fraud. The archdiocese said in a statement last month that after being made aware of the report, it immediately began an investigation and decided within 24 hours, along with Morlino’s Benedictine order, to remove Morlino as pastor of St. Benedict and suspend his priestly faculties.

In a statement on Saturday, the archdiocese announced that “a pastor…

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Church sex abuse survivors seek 2-year deadline to file claims

A federal judge granted lawyers some time to work out differences over the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s bankruptcy filing before heading back to court.

Abuse survivors want to extend the deadline to file a claim and they want to know what church entities are covered by insurance. They’re also seeking more information regarding church assets.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to define how people recover. They have defined what we had to bear for years. It’s our turn to say to them, ‘This is what we want you to bear,’” said Frank Schindler, a church sex abuse survivor.

Church sex abuse survivors left Monday’s bankruptcy court hearing feeling encouraged that negotiations will continue over motions they consider unfair that were filed by the archdiocese, especially the Feb. 24 deadline that survivors must file a claim. Survivors seek a two-year deadline.

“Maybe this…

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The Justice for Survivor bills await a vote by the full house of representatives.

“It was therapeutic. It felt empowering. Shame, guilt embarrassment, that all went away. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was a victim. I was a child, but most importantly, I am a survivor.”

More than five decades had passed before Greg Guggemos remembered he had been sexually abused at the age of five. According to state law, sexual assault claims are only accepted up to three years.

For Guggemos, he was able to speak out against the Lansing Saint Vincent Orphanage more than 45 years after the abuse.

“It’s years and sometimes decades before you even recall it, and like I said, in my case, it was 55 years,” said Guggemos.

State Representative Julie Brixie hopes a new set of bills called Justice for Survivors encourages victims to come forward.

“The goal of these bills is…

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Francis will hold a late November summit with Spain’s bishops, following a visitation of the county’s seminaries earlier this year and the recent publication of clergy sex abuse findings.

Pope Francis has called all the Catholic bishops of Spain to a meeting at the Vatican later this month, an extremely rare convocation that has not occurred since a similar meeting in 2018 with the entire episcopate of Chile. 

The Spanish Bishops’ Conference (CEE) announced on October 31 that the summit with the pope would take place on November 28. 

They made the news public following extraordinary plenary assembly to discuss the conclusions of an independent report, issued a few days earlier, on sexual violence in the Spanish Church. That report estimates that since 1970, 1.13% of Spaniards have been victims of sexual assault in an ecclesiastical environment when they were minors. According to the Spanish daily El Pais, this would…

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Interview with Laëtitia Atlani-Duault, university vice-president and member of France’s Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in Catholic French Church (CIASE)

“A place of remembrance for victims is absolutely essential, alongside other forms of reparation,” says Laëtitia Atlani-Duault, a member of France’s Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (CIASE). 

The 51-year-old social anthropologist, who is vice-president of Université Paris Cité, says “remembrance work” is essential to implementing the finding of CIASE, commonly called the “Sauvé Commission”.

That’s why she and other experts gathered last Saturday at the Centre Sèvres, the Jesuit’s university level school of theology and philosophy in Paris, for a day of reflection on remembering sexual violence in the Church.

Atlani-Duault told La Croix’s Alice d’Oléon that this is essential for both the victims and the Church.

La Croix: Why is it necessary to examine this question of remembrance?

Laëtitia Atlani-Duault : Remembrance work is a…

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The Office of the California Attorney General said Monday night that it will review the Calaveras County district attorney’s decision to dismiss sexual assault charges against a Catholic priest.

In a letter sent to CBS Sacramento, Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said the victim’s mother requested an official review after District Attorney Barbara Yook dropped all charges against Father Michael Kelly.

The move came after the victim Kelly allegedly abused died in 2016. Bonta’s office will now review that decision.

Kelly was held liable for sex abuse in a separate civil trial back in 2012 when he was with the Stockton diocese. Kelly has since moved to Ireland. 

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Attorney General Rob Bonta is taking an unprecedented step to probe alleged mishandling of a prosecution against a Catholic priest indicted for sex assault.

California’s Attorney General will investigate the decision made by Calaveras County District Attorney to drop charges against Father Michael Kelly, an indicted priest accused of numerous sexual crimes against children.

The investigation comes after news reports highlighted concerns about the handling of the case and the lack of efforts made to extradite Kelly from Ireland, where he currently resides.

The backstory: The charges against Kelly, who served at Our Lady of Fatima in Modesto in the 1970s, were dropped after one of the victims, Trevor Martin, died in a base jumping accident.

• The investigation revealed several troubling findings, including an initial admission that the Calaveras County DA lost of the entire grand jury testimony and paper indictment,
• It also found potential violation of constitutional rights under Marsy’s…

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The recent high court decision concerning the Catholic church’s use of permanent stays in abuse cases has sparked significant concern and prompted the New South Wales attorney general, Michael Daley, to order an urgent briefing on the matter. The court’s judgment highlighted the problematic nature of using permanent stays to permanently halt survivors’ claims, stating that such measures should only be considered as a last resort. This practice has been routinely employed by the church and other powerful institutions, particularly in cases where perpetrators have passed away or when crucial evidence is unavailable.

Survivors of abuse and their legal representatives have widely praised the court’s decision, viewing it as a strong message to institutions that they should not exploit permanent stays to avoid accountability for child sexual abuse cases. However, they are also urging state governments, including NSW, where these stays have predominated, to implement further legislation to limit institutions’…

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Multiple alleged victims have come forward accusing a former Sydney Catholic primary school teacher of indecently assaulting them in incidents dating back almost 65 years.

Peter Mervyn Samuel, who is now aged in his mid-90s, has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of indecent assault and one count of buggery.

The three boys were aged between 10 and 13 years old at the time of the alleged offences between 1958 and 1972.

Samuel allegedly called two of them to the front of the class and touched them beneath their shorts.

It is alleged he confronted the third boy alone in a science room and also fondled him as he tried to escape.

The assaults allegedly took place while Samuel was teaching year-six classes at two Patrician Brothers’ College campuses in Blacktown and Granville, and Marist Brothers Primary School in Mosman.

Due to his advanced age making it difficult for him…

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore dismissed Rev. Paschal Morlino in October after he admitted a $200,000 settlement to The Baltimore Banner

Baltimore’s historic St. Benedict Church will close permanently following the revelation of a second allegation implicating its popular former pastor, Rev. Paschal Morlino.

Church leadership on Saturday confirmed the plan to close the parish near Carroll Park during a late-afternoon Mass, stunning the roughly 30 congregants in attendance. The church is scheduled to end administering the sacraments Nov. 15, but the archdiocese said volunteers will continue to operate community programs at the site.

Following the sacrament of the Eucharist, a member of the clergy read from a prepared statement to confirm the closure of the church and the new allegation. Multiple parishioners shook their heads as they listened. Some whispered to one another, while others sat perfectly still.

Outside the church following the announcement, parishioner Tom Phillips reflected on the…

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California Attorney General Rob Bonta has agreed to investigate the decision by the Calaveras County District Attorney to drop charges against an indicted priest found liable for numerous sex crimes against children.

Bonta’s rare intervention comes on the heels of a Sacramento Bee investigation into the handling of the criminal case against Father Michael Kelly, who fled to his native Ireland, where he remains today.

The Bee investigation found that, despite pledging publicly to do everything in its power to extradite Kelly from Ireland, Calaveras County District Attorney Barbara Yook took few, if any, steps to follow through with that commitment.

Kelly was indicted in 2014 for sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy, Trevor Martin. Kelly and the church had already been held liable in 2012 for sexual abuse in a civil case involving another boy. Kelly previously had served as a priest at Our Lady of Fatima in Modesto in…

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LEICESTER, United Kingdom – President of the England and Wales Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, said Saturday was a “most significant day in the life of the Church in England and Wales, and indeed for the Church more widely” due to the creation a new National Tribunal to apply the church’s criminal law.

Nichols called the new tribunal “a focus of practical love and service”, saying it was established to ensure that the “rights and obligations of all the Christian faithful are upheld, robustly and impartially, and that justice and equality prevail.”

While not its only purpose, the tribunal becomes the primary forum in the country for managing cases of clerical sexual abuse under the church’s own legal system, based on the Code of Canon Law.

The National Tribunal was proposed by the English bishops’ conference at their November 2022 plenary assembly, following recommendations of the Elliott Review into Safeguarding…

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ROME – Both the alleged victims of Slovene Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik and the bishops of his native Slovenia have spoken out about the disgraced artist’s welcome into a new diocese.

In the wake of Pope Francis’s decision on Friday to waive the statute of limitations in canon law, five of Fr Rupnik’s presumed victims signed and released a brief statement that was shared in Italian media, saying they were “very surprised” by the announcement.

They voiced hope that “this is a suitable step towards seeing the truth fully known,” and said they are awaiting “further developments.”

Senior bishops in Slovenia meanwhile expressed dismay at the incardination of Rupnik into his home Diocese of Kloper and reaffirmed their commitment to the protection of children and vulnerable adults.

Fr Rupnik, who has been accused of sexual abuse and misconduct by at least 25 adult women, with the alleged abuse stretching over…

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A Catholic primary school in WA’s north has become the target of a historical child sexual abuse investigation, with allegations two clergymen assaulted a student at the school more than 30 years ago.

Key points:

• There is an appeal for past students at St Cecilia’s Catholic Primary School to come forward
• A man alleges he was assaulted by two priests during the 1980s and 1990s 
• Lawyers say the case is the latest of four allegations made against one man

Maurice Blackburn Lawyers has made a public appeal calling for witnesses who attended St Cecilia’s Catholic Primary School and parish in Port Hedland in the 1980s and 1990s.

The school, with less than 200 students, allies with the parishes of both Port Hedland and South Hedland.

The legal team said the appeal related to a client who alleges to have been sexually abused by two priests while attending the school during the same period.

Principal lawyer John…

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Christopher Bacich, former head of Communion and Liberation, identified as ‘sole perpetrator’ of abuse against multiple victims

An ecclesial movement has just admitted its former U.S. leader has been credibly accused of sexual and psychological abuse against young adults and minors over more than two decades.

Christopher Bacich, who headed up Communion and Liberation in the U.S. from March 2007 until August 2013, was the “sole perpetrator” of abuse against “multiple victims,” according to an Oct. 31 statement issued by Father Michael Carvill, the movement’s current head, and Steve Brown, president of the New York-based Human Adventure Corporation, a nonprofit that coordinates the movement’s activities in the U.S.

Communion and Liberation, launched in 1954 by Italian Catholic educator Father Luigi Giovanni Giussani, fosters small, informal communities in some 90 countries that gather for prayer, charitable works, pilgrimages, and the exploration of arts and culture as a path to deeper faith….

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In 2010, Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle, a right-wing Tea Party stalwart, briefly became a national sensation due to some fairly self-parodying comments about the press. In an interview with Fox News, complaining about the way negative media coverage had damaged her poll numbers, Angle delivered her immortal line.

“We needed to have the press be our friend,” she said. “We wanted them to ask the questions we wanted to answer.”

That reply set off a round of derision, including a memorable lampoon in the HBO series “The Newsroom,” in which fictional anchor Will McAvoy, presented as a lawyer and former prosecutor, quotes her about hoping for only the questions she wanted, and then says: “Don’t laugh, I felt the exact same way about the bar exam.”

While Angle may have been mocked, there’s a sense in which her PR model, of trying to engineer situations in which the press…

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For more than two hours on a Sunday afternoon, the Rev. Gustavo Castillo led the Pentecostal congregation he’s been growing in this Minneapolis suburb through prayer, Scriptures, rousing music, and sometimes tearful testimonials.

But it all may end soon. A sudden procedural change in how the federal government processes green cards for foreign-born religious workers, together with historic highs in numbers of illegal border crossers, means that thousands of clergy like him are losing the ability to remain in this country.

“We were right on the edge of becoming permanent residents, and boom, this changed,” Colombia-born Castillo said as his wife rocked their 7-month-old boy, a U.S. citizen by birth. “We have done everything correctly, from here onward we believe that God will work a miracle. We don’t have any other option.”

To become permanent U.S. residents, which can eventually lead to citizenship, immigrants apply for green cards, generally through…

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Masses and sacramental ministry at St. Benedict Parish in Baltimore will end Nov. 15, according to a joint announcement Nov. 4 to the parish by the St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pa., and the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

No new pastor will be named for the parish, the announcement said, limiting the ministries that could continue in the future. “The difficult decision was made based on the limited number of clergy available for this ministry,” the announcement said.

St. Benedict Church is owned and operated by the St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pa.

The decision affects Masses, dispensation of the sacraments, sacramental preparation and worship services. 

The action was precipitated by the removal from ministry Oct. 15 of Benedictine Father Paschal Morlino, who had served the Southwest Baltimore parish for nearly 40 years, from July 1984 to October 2023. At the time of his removal from ministry, Father Morlino…

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Ecclesiastic tribunal said priest “could not prove accusations”

The priest who denounced 12 cases of colleagues whom he suspected of having sexually abused children – some of them still priests today – has been punished by Portugal’s Catholic Church.

Joaquim Nazaré took his suspicions to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the Independent Commission tasked with investigating child sex abuse within the Church over the last 70 years. 

At a point where this scandal within the Roman Catholic Church was finally being addressed by various countries, Nazaré also gave interviews to Expresso and RTP (at the time, his identity was kept secret).

Among Nazaré’s list of names was that of a priest who for various years has been placed at the Sanctuary of Fátima but who was accused by the parents of a teenager who committed suicide in 1997 of having abused their son.

The inference was that the youngster’s trauma, having taken place in…

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This series of mergers and consolidations will impact over a dozen parishes in southeast Louisiana.

“There is no doubt that our parishes, in fact our entire area, have been affected by many factors out of our control,” said Archbishop Gregory Aymond.
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That’s the explanation from Aymond when announcing the merger of several church parishes in a video released Sunday.

Citing inflation and skyrocketing property insurance rates are among some of the impacting factors.

There are four instances where two parishes will merge into one and one instance where the merger will include three parishes.

“My kids came here. They were baptized here, you know, confirmed, married. And it’s just isn’t, oh, my home of my church.” said Jeanette LeBlanc, a member of Our Lady of Divine Providence church.

That’s why Jeanette LeBlanc is relieved her church home isn’t among that list of closures.

She has been a member of Our…

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The Diocese of Springfield acknowledged Tuesday new findings against the late Richard Lavigne as part of a regular updating of its list of credibly accused clergy.

Lavigne died in 2021 as police were planning to charge him with the 1972 murder of altar boy Daniel “Danny” Croteau. Lavigne, a prolific child molester who was kicked out of the priesthood in 2003, told police in a series of deathbed interviews that he took the boy to the area of a boat ramp along the Chicopee River, struck him with a rock, shoved him into the water, and returned later to see his lifeless body, clothed in his Catholic school uniform, floating facedown.

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An insurance company that issued primary and umbrella policies to the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate sought declaration from the U.S. District Court that it need not pay out claims stemming from sexual abuse. The U.S. District Court’s decision in TIG Insurance Company v. Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate was a mixed bag, offering victories for both the insurance company and the sexual abuse survivors.

The Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald was a priest with Oblates, a missionary religious congregation of the Catholic Church, from 1950 to 2009. As an Oblates priest, he was assigned to multiple locations throughout the country, including eight stints in Minnesota. Fitzgerald’s inappropriate behavior was first noticed in 1963, when he tore the bottom of a young girl’s bathing suit. A few years later, after he was moved, he shared a bed with a boy and undressed in front of the child.

Intervenors, who appeared anonymously as “Does,”…

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A deceased priest who served at St. John’s Jesuit High School in the 1990s and early 2000s was placed on a list of established allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.

An allegation was made in 2022 against the Rev. Francis Canfield, who died in May, by a former student of the Toledo school, according to an email sent to an alumnus from the school’s president Mark Swentkofske.

Mr. Canfield’s name was added Monday to the list of Midwest Jesuits with an established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus.

St. John’s released a media statement detailing the investigation and the school’s safety process, but deferred additional questions to the province’s communications office.

The Diocese of Toledo said in a statement that “after learning of the allegation in 2022, the Diocese reported the matter to the Lucas County Prosecutor, and…

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield this week acknowledged new credible findings against the late Richard Lavigne, a convicted sex offender and former Shelburne Falls priest believed to have killed a 13-year-old altar boy in 1972.

The diocese issued a statement on Oct. 31 to announce an update on Lavigne, as well as on the late Stigmatine priest Joseph E. Flood and the late Rev. J. Victor Carrier.

“Out of respect for the privacy of the survivor, no further details will be released at this time,” Carolee McGrath, a diocese spokesperson wrote in an email to the Greenfield Recorder regarding Lavigne’s case.

Lavigne and Flood were already listed on the diocese’s “Findings of Credibility of Allegations of Sexual Abuse of a Minor,” and Carrier’s name was recently added based on a credible finding by the diocesan Review Board. The diocese’s statement mentions that an allegation being found credible does not…

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A pernicious phenomenon happens to abuse victims in the Church when additional abuse is added, sometimes unwittingly, to the harm they have already endured. It’s what I and others refer to as “double abuse” and it’s long past time for church leaders to understand what it is and how it works.

Double abuse occurs when a victim’s family, church, or community fails to recognize the original harm and diminish, deny, dismiss or disregard that primary instance of abuse, instead of believing, supporting, and protecting.

Double abuse can also happen when a victim seeks safety but instead of receiving trauma-sensitive help, they receive biased, harmful, uneducated advice that makes their situation worse. 

Often, survivors in the faith community will approach clergy for help. But if your pastor is not educated in the dynamics of abuse, it’s very possible for them to mean well yet do significant harm. 

An example of this is an…

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First part of a series supported by the Pulitzer Center.

Shaelyn Nielsen remembers the door of the large upstairs bedroom opening early that morning and the sound of breathing growing nearer.

The 18-year-old tried feigning sleep as, she said, the man who’d been a father figure to her for more than a year slid into her bed and groped her under her oversized T-shirt and moon-and-star pajama bottoms. As he rubbed himself against her from behind, she said, she resisted and cried muffled tears.

Chiding her, she alleges, Sherdale Green, a father of two, told her the boys living at Boys Town were not what she wanted, saying: “You know only I can give you what you want.”

Nielsen said she now recognizes, at age 25, the inappropriate touching, hugs and grooming leading up to that moment in 2016 with a house parent at Boys Town, the storied 106-year-old Omaha…

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Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, whose show Life is Worth Living made him an unlikely TV star of the 1950s, liked to tell his audience the following story about corruption within the Catholic Church:

Once there was a man who’d decided to convert to Catholicism. But before he could agree to be baptized, he planned to visit Rome. His parish priest pleaded with him to be baptized first, but the man insisted. The priest was sure he’d never see him again. However, the man returned weeks later more eager to be baptized than before. 

“You’ve been to Rome?” the priest asked. 

“Yes.”

“And you’ve seen how things work?”

“I have, and I’m convinced that the Catholic church is the one true church.”

“You are?” 

“Yes. Only a truly divine institution could survive that level of corruption and immorality.”

The story would draw big laughs from crowds of committed Catholics who knew a thing or two about corruption among the…

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Sarah Stankorb interviews sexual abuse advocate Christa Brown at a free public event November 11 at Wyoming Baptist Church.

Wyoming resident and journalist Sarah Stankorb spent years reporting on abuse within evangelical communities, focusing on how survivors used the internet to call out abuse and to connect with each other. Her work culminated in the publication of Disobedient Women: How a Small Group of Faithful Women Exposed Abuse, Brought Down Powerful Pastors, and Ignited an Evangelical Reckoning (Worthy Books/Hachette). You might have heard about the book, which was featured at the Mercantile Library and on Cincinnati Edition in addition to receiving strong reviews and recently becoming a national bestseller.

A unique event at Wyoming Baptist Church at 7 p.m. Saturday, November 11 brings Stankorb into conversation with Christa Brown, a clergy abuse survivor and retired attorney who is a…

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Diamonds and emeralds, marble busts and oil paintings, sterling silver flatware and an ivory crucifix — these are just some of the things the Archdiocese of Baltimore possesses in its treasure chest of valuables.

The items, including rings, precious gemstones, gold and silver chains, and antique furniture, were disclosed as part of the archdiocese’s most recent court filing in its ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Attorneys for the church declined to provide a value for most of the items (they’re listed as collectibles), instead describing their value as “unknown.”

Among the possessions:

•A cross made of gold set with 36 emeralds.

•A gold ring set with an amethyst in the center surrounded by 28 diamonds.

•A locket with a profile of St. Peter surrounded by 16 sapphires and eight pearls.

The full list of collectibles spans 11 pages and is one of many insights into the finances and operations of the…

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A committee representing clergy abuse survivors is asking a federal bankruptcy judge to reconsider her order barring lawsuits against Catholic schools and parishes as part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Parishes and schools are technically not assets of the archdiocese, despite Archbishop William E. Lori having control over whether they can be bought or sold, but were granted protection from lawsuits because the archdiocese insures them.

In early October, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michelle Harner issued an interim injunction on lawsuits against entities covered by archdiocesan insurance policies (known as covered parties). Harner determined those policies are assets of the corporation that makes up the archdiocese, meaning any lawsuit would inevitably draw down on insurance monies in order to pay legal fees and settlements.

Whenever any entity files for bankruptcy it is automatically protected from lawsuits so its assets can be preserved to pay creditors. Sometimes those protections can…

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A first-term Democratic lawmaker wants to enact an exception to state laws that allow clergy to refuse to disclose what was told to them in confession or similar confidential communication.

But Rep. Stacey Travers of Phoenix has so far run into a procedural wall. Rep. Quang Nguyen, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, where her bill was assigned earlier this year, refused to even give it a hearing.

And the Prescott Republican told Capitol Media Services that he’s not prepared to allow the bill to proceed in 2024, even if it deals only with cases of child abuse and neglect.

“The seal of confession is a sacred, sacred part of the Catholic church,” said Nguyen who is Catholic.

“The seal of confession is never to be broken,” he said. “And priests will go to jail for it.”

Still, Nguyen acknowledged that there are difficult issues to be addressed. And he…

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The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request by the Archdiocese of Miami to take up a dispute involving allegations that a priest sexually abused a child. 

Justices, as is common, did not explain their reasons for declining to hear the case. 

The archdiocese wanted justices to review a decision by the 3rd District Court of Appeal that allowed the alleged victim to pursue a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress against the archdiocese. 

The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiff, identified as John Doe 1, was sexually abused dozens of times between 1999 and 2001, when he was 7 to 9 years old, according to a March 22 decision by a three-judge panel of the South Florida appeals court. 

The case names as a defendant the archdiocese and not the priest. 

The appeals court rejected part of the lawsuit alleging negligence by the archdiocese, citing a four-year statute…

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The Catholic community in Wales has spent a week standing in prayerful solidarity with victims and survivors of abuse at the country’s first LOUDfence event. It took place in Cardiff from 21-28 October 2023.

LOUDfence is a survivor-led initiative, open to everyone, that gives a voice to those who have experienced abuse within a faith-based setting or have been affected by it.

At a Mass to mark the opening of the initiative, on Saturday, 21 October, Archbishop Mark O’Toole, Archbishop of Cardiff and Bishop of Menevia, offered a sincere apology and called for reparation – not just though words but, more importantly, through actions:

“We know of the betrayal of the innocent who have suffered at the hands of those from whom they should have experienced only life and love. If you have suffered in any way like this, within the life of the Church, I offer my profoundest apology……

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Father Marko Rupnik’s former superior in the Society of Jesus, Father Johan Verschueren, denied that the Jesuits facilitated the incardination of the priest, who is accused of sexual abuse, in the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia, and said that the order warned the local bishop about the serious complaints against him.

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Verschueren, delegate for the Interprovincial Houses and Works of the Society of Jesus, assured that in March the Jesuits “exhaustively” informed the bishop of Koper, Jurij Bizjak, about the cases and complaints of abuse against Rupnik.

The Jesuit official revealed that the Slovenian bishop “informed us on his own initiative that he would offer incardination to MIR [Marko Ivan Rupnik] if we would give him the indult to leave the Society of Jesus.” However, the priest was not released but expelled from the Jesuits on June 15.

An Oct. 25…

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Christianity has a knack for resurrecting careers that should be as dead as Lazarus pre-miracle. It’s like a magic trick, only the rabbit pulled out of the hat is an abusive pastor. The routine is old but somehow still gets applause: a scandal erupts, the leader puts on a public performance worthy of an Oscar—complete with insincere sobbing and rehearsed humility—and poof! After a “season of healing,” they’re back, front and center.

Mark Driscoll, Perry Noble, Matt Chandler, Johnny Hunt, Carl Lentz—sounds like a guest list for a Narcissists Anonymous meeting. They’re the beneficiaries of a twisted inheritance from spiritual OG abusers like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. In a world where a Google search can immortalize your worst moments, it’s impressive, really, how these guys find their way back to the pulpit and…

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Members of the Points-Coeur association still wear habits, live like a religious community and promote vows of consecrated life.

The Vatican’s secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin has warned French bishops that two groups stripped of their canonical status in 2020 are pretending to be Church-approved religious communities.  

Members of the Points-Coeur association, whose male wing is known in English as Heart’s Home and female wing as Servants of the Presence of God, still wear habits, live like a religious community and promote vows of consecrated life, he said in a letter to the French bishops’ conference, but added that this was deceptive.

“They…have no more canonical link to the Church, even if they often continue to work civilly with NGOs,” he said. “This attitude cannot fail to arouse scandal among the faithful and among victims.” 

Parolin’s letter, addressed to the bishops’ conference president Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort of Reims, Parolin warned bishops…

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The Christian youth camp claims the insurer withheld information during settlement negotiations with sex abuse survivors

Kanakuk Kamps is suing its insurance carrier, ACE American Insurance Company, for breach of contract and fiduciary duty and for bad faith refusal to defend Kanakuk over the lawsuit brought against the camp by a sexual abuse victim.

Kanakuk alleges the insurance carrier withheld information from victims and threatened to deny coverage to the camp during the years immediately following the sexual abuse scandal.

Logan Yandell, a Kanakuk camp sexual abuse victim, filed a lawsuit against the camp in November 2022. The lawsuit asserts a fraud claim against Kanakuk Ministries, Kanakuk Heritage, and Joe White, president of Kanakuk.

In 2010, Yandell agreed to a settlement for an undisclosed amount and signed a nondisclosure agreement, but now claims those were based on false and fraudulent representations by the Kanakuk defendants.

Between 2005 and…

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The Sauvé report “proposed structural changes in Church governance” which have not been implemented.

Jean-Marc Sauvé, whose commission estimated 330,000 sexual abuse cases in the French Church – two-thirds by priests – since 1950, said little had been done to prevent further abuse since its report came out two years ago.  

The bishops accepted the report and began compensating victims, he told Le Parisien, but have not implemented the reforms it suggested.

“Maybe the Church considers the work of the Ciase [abuse commission] was both the diagnosis and the remedy,” he said. But the report also “proposed structural changes in Church governance” such as including lay people, especially women, much more in ecclesial decision-making.

Among its reform ideas, it proposed ordaining women as deacons and older married men – the so-called viri probati – as priests.

Sauvé said the bishops’ plenary in Lourdes last spring was the occasion to consider these reforms, but the meeting…

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Outrage Canada is a newly formed group of outraged Canadians committed to holding leaders of the Roman Catholic church publicly accountable for sexual abuse crimes past and present.

Sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic church of Canada is well documented with a growing number of civil and criminal cases surfacing each year. Given the response to date however, Outrage Canada believes that the Roman Catholic church is more concerned with avoiding scandal and protecting their reputation than ending sexual abuse and finding justice for victims.

With the launch of their new website on November 2nd, All Souls’ Day, Outrage Canada, a national, secular, non-partisan organization raises the question – Where is the Outrage? – with the intent that like-minded Canadians, including practicing Catholics, will join them in their mission.

Outrage Canada is committed to ensuring justice for victims of abuse and to putting practises in place that will prevent other people from…

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Advocates of the victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church issued a detailed letter to the Archdiocese of San Francisco on Wednesday requesting the Catholic Church sell some unused properties to compensate victims.

The letter, sent by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, was addressed to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone on Nov. 1.

The document details the SF Archdiocese’s net worth of more than $6 billion in real estate, some of which could serve as reparations.

The SF Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 21, claiming it was because of the 500 lawsuits stacked against them.

Instead of bankruptcy, they said the Catholic Church could look at its assets, like millions of dollars’ worth of property not in use.

“There’s enough money in the Diocese and enough property for it to continue its mission and still sell property to address the needs of these victims,” said…

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Attorney general Michael Daley requests urgent briefing on high court’s damning judgment on use of permanent stays

The New South Wales attorney general, Michael Daley, has ordered an urgent briefing on the landmark high court decision over the Catholic church’s tactics in abuse cases.

The high court on Wednesday delivered a damning judgment against the church over its use of permanent stays to permanently halt survivors’ claims, finding that such a measure should only be used as a last resort.

The church and other powerful institutions have been using stays routinely where perpetrators have died, or where other witnesses or documentary evidence do not exist, allowing it to defeat active claims before courts or low-ball survivors during settlement negotiations.

The tactic effectively uses a survivor’s delay in coming forward to defeat their claim, an approach criticised as immoral, given the church’s own role in delaying justice and the vast barriers that complainants…

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Some decades-old credible accusations of sexual abuse by priests who worked at Boys Town didn’t become public until two years ago.

Over the years, Boys Town programs have been associated with some high-profile suspected or documented cases of sexual abuse and rape. Here are some cases that have made headlines:

Rape by three youth shuts down New York program

In 2017, Boys Town shut down three large residential programs for youth in California, Texas and New York, announcing in a news release that regulatory and environmental issues made it too difficult for employees to adhere to its model of care.

Those closures came after leaders at the Omaha, Nebraska, headquarters invested millions trying to build up residential programs across the country. But they also came after one of the most alarming cases of rape and employee neglect in Boys Town’s history.

In June 2015, three teens in a…

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A first-term Democratic lawmaker wants to enact an exception to state laws that allow clergy to refuse to disclose what was told to them in confession or similar confidential communication.

But Rep. Stacey Travers of Phoenix has so far run into a procedural wall. Rep. Quang Nguyen, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, where her bill was assigned earlier this year, refused to even give it a hearing.

And the Prescott Valley Republican told Capitol Media Services that he’s not prepared to allow the bill to proceed in 2024, even if it deals only with cases of child abuse and neglect.

“The seal of confession is a sacred, sacred part of the Catholic church,” said Nguyen who is Catholic.

“The seal of confession is never to be broken,” he said. “And priests will go to jail for it.”

Still, Nguyen acknowledged that there are difficult issues to be addressed. And…

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North Attleboro — A former altar boy at St. Mary’s Church in the 1960s has reached a financial settlement with the Diocese of Fall River for sexual abuse he suffered form now notorious Catholic priest James Porter.

The 72-year-old man, who now lives on the North Shore of Boston, recently reached a financial package in the “mid-five figures,” Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian said during a press conference Wednesday.

Garabedian, who has represented more than 30 victims of the disgraced Father Porter and numerous other victims of Catholic priests worldwide, declined to disclose the exact amount of the settlement.

He said the victim was 11 around 1961 when Porter forced him to accompany him from the World War II Memorial Pool to the church rectory, where the boy was sexually abused.

Porter, who admitted to sexually abusing at least 200 children in three states, used the guise of needing to go…

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An abuse survivor group has just chosen several patron saints as “heavenly friends” and guides on the journey to recovery.

“Many people find great comfort and strength in developing a relationship with particular saints who they turn to for inspiration and intercession,” said Sara Larson, executive director of the independent nonprofit Awake Milwaukee, which works to raise awareness of and heal sexual abuse in both the Milwaukee Archdiocese and the Catholic Church as a whole.

In a message posted to its website Oct. 25, Awake announced it had named as its patrons:

• St. Charles Lwanga, a 19th-century court page in what is now Uganda, who was martyred for his faith and for defending royal pages from the king’s sexual advances; 
• St. Catherine of Siena, a 14th-century Italian mystic, church reformer and one of only four female doctors of the…

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WHAT TO KNOW

• A bankruptcy judge has offered a new strategy to reach a settlement between Long Island’s Catholic Church and hundreds of clergy sex abuse survivors.
• Judge Martin Glenn said he has discussed the possibility of having several clergy sex abuse cases go to trial as “test cases” to help set guidelines for a settlement.
• Lawyers for the Diocese of Rockville Centre said the church opposes the proposal while attorneys for survivors voiced support.

A bankruptcy judge Wednesday offered a new strategy to reach a settlement between Long Island’s Catholic Church and hundreds of clergy sex abuse survivors, a day after the deadline to resolve the case.

Judge Martin Glenn of U.S. Bankruptcy Court said he has discussed the possibility of having several of the 600 clergy sex abuse cases against the diocese go to trial as “test cases” or “bellwether cases” to help set guidelines for a settlement.

Otherwise, Glenn warned, he might become the…

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The Communion and Liberation ecclesial movement acknowledged on Tuesday that the movement’s former U.S. leader has been accused of sexual and psychological abuse against young adults and minors, and that the movement’s officials initially failed to respond appropriately to allegations. 

“[W]e believe the moment has come for a more public account of a situation that deeply wounded some of our communities,” said an Oct. 31 letter posted to the Communion and Liberation website.

“We sincerely apologize to the victims, families and community members harmed by these evil acts. We are truly grateful to the victims, families and community members who had the courage to bring these events to light.”

The open letter is signed by Fr. Michael Carvill, the North American Responsible for Communion and Liberation, and by Steve Brown, president of the Human Adventure Corporation (HAC), a non-profit which coordinates the activities of CL in the United States.

The…

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Survivors of decades-old sexual assaults may soon get a two-year period to bring civil cases against their alleged abuser while also seeing the actionable window for bringing a claim expanded under moves made by House lawmakers Tuesday.

Members of the House Criminal Justice Committee voted along party lines to advance legislation – HB 4482 through HB 4487, referred to as the “Justice for Survivors” package – which seeks to primarily allow victims of childhood sexual abuse the ability to bring forward their claims long after the act has occurred.

Under the package, the statute of limitations for when a survivor of sexual assault can bring civil action in court would be increased from age 28 to 52 – the average age a sexual assault victim discloses if they’d been sexually abused. It would also, once enacted, allow for a…

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Survivors and advocates have written to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, asking him to reconsider bankruptcy. SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, has researched the real estate portfolio of the Archdiocese, and believes that it has ample non-essential assets to care for those survivors who filed lawsuits in the recently closed civil window without resorting to this extreme measure. 

A copy of the letter sent earlier today by email is linked below, as are the attachments to the letter.

CONTACT: Dan McNevin, SNAP Board of Directors Treasurer (dmcnevin@aol.com, 415-341-6417), Melanie Sakoda, SNAP Survivor Support Director (msakoda@snapnetwork.org, 925-708-6175),   Joey Piscitelli, SNAP Northern California (caljoey1@aol.com, 925-262-3699), Mike McDonnell, SNAP Interim Executive Director (mmcdonnell@snapnetwork.org, 267-261-0578), Shaun Dougherty, SNAP Board of Directors President (sdougherty@snapnetwork.org, 814- 341-8386)

(SNAP, the Survivors Network,…

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It took 10 months for the Vatican to reopen Fr. Marko Rupnik’s case — from the first reports on the case of Slovenian mosaic artist in December 2022 and the first alleged victims’ testimonies at that time, to dismissal of the priest from the Jesuit order in July, to public outrage after his incardination into a Slovenian diocese.

A victim of another well-known charismatic priest said the reason the church neglected the Rupnik case for so long is simple: It still doesn’t listen to vulnerable adults.

“It didn’t surprise me at all, because that’s how it works. Unfortunately, in the church, where we already have some procedures worked out regarding harmed children, … it feels like we don’t have any procedures worked out regarding adults harmed in the church, and it’s still such a taboo topic,” said Weronika (whose name has been changed to protect her identity), who was repeatedly…

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Following the close of last month’s Synod of Bishops, a leading Latin American cardinal has signaled openness in some cases to ordaining women deacons and also called for swift justice in sexual abuse cases, including the potential dissolution of a lay community in his own country currently under Vatican investigation.

Cardinal Pedro Barreto made the comments in an Oct. 30 exclusive interview with Crux, prior to leaving for Rome’s Fiumicino airport to return to Peru following the close of the synod.

The Archbishop of Huancayo and President of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA), Barreto also spoke of the growing influence of Latin America in the Church and the fact that Catholicism’s center of gravity has shifted from the west to the global south.

On the topic of women, one of the biggest themes of the pope’s Oct. 4-29 Synod of Bishops on Synodality and among the most divisive issues…

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At one end of the spectrum, generally speaking, there’s SafeSport. After just six years in operation, it now lists more than 1,900 child molesters in its disciplinary database. SafeSport deals with abuse cases in Olympic-related sports down to the grassroots level — a scope that covers more than 11 million athletes. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which promised to set up a public database of abusive preachers almost a year and a half ago but has yet to name even one.

In between are most US Catholic bishops. As a general rule, bishops whose dioceses are in states where victims have some legal rights have posted names of child molesting clerics on their websites. But for the most part, prelates whose dioceses are in states where victims have FEW legal rights…

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Imagine that after decades of silence, inspired by a groundbreaking royal commission, you finally pluck up the courage to come forward to tell your story that as a young teenager, you were abused by a priest — a man you then thought to be God’s representative on earth.

Imagine you then go to court to argue that the Catholic diocese should have done more to stop that priest, whom it knew had multiple other victims, from abusing you.

But imagine the diocese then argues because the priest is dead, that places it at a dreadful and inconvenient disadvantage — it can’t ask the priest if he abused you, it says, even though he refused to cooperate in relation to other allegations.

A court finds you shouldn’t even have the right to stand before a judge and make your case. You can’t be heard. What’s known as a permanent stay is granted and your…

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Thirty-three-year-old Corey White, who according to members of the congregation was a youth minister at Redeemer Midland, has been charged with access with intent to view child pornographic materials. 

To preface, what’s described can be seen as graphic. 

According to court documents, the charges were stemmed from an investigation in Nassau County. New York. The Nassau County Police Department initiated an investigation after receiving 15 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) cybertips from 2018 to the present. 

These tips involved the upload of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) videos and images via “Skype” from an IP address in Seaford, New York. 

A search warrant was executed which resulted in the seizing of this material from electronic devices. Upon further investigation, a New York man had been communicating with numerous adults and minors using the video chat site “Omegle”. During these interactions, the New Yorker used a screen sharing…

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A group of alleged victims of Father Marko Rupnik said Monday that Pope Francis’ decision to lift the statute of limitations on the case and order the opening of a new process against the priest accused of sexual abuse “is an appropriate step for the truth to be recognized.” 

Gloria Branciani, Mirjam Kovač, Vida Bernard, Mira Stare, and Jožica Zupančič are the authors of a news release shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, commenting that they were “very surprised” by the statement from the Holy See.

The five women, former sisters of the Loyola Community, were referring to the Oct. 27 statement by the Holy See Press Office that reported that Pope Francis had decided to lift the statute of limitations on the Rupnik case, allowing a canonical process to take place. The priest is accused of having sexually abused women for decades.

According to the Holy See,…

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Revelations of a scandalous amicus brief raise the question: Who’s driving the SBC?

here’s a story my family has told since before I was born about my great-uncle Johnny. When his four daughters were teenagers, the family took a long trip in which they had to stop in a familiar town for dinner.

About 30 minutes out, Aunt Betty Jane and the girls started talking through the variety of eating options and, after 10–15 minutes of deliberation, they agreed upon the best restaurant. But when they arrived in town, Uncle Johnny, who hadn’t said a word, pulled into a different restaurant, got out of the car, and walked silently inside, leaving five dumbfounded women looking at each other and wondering what had just happened.

That story—at least, a sinister reading of it—came to mind as I tried to process last week’s revelation of View Cache

Who’s actually responsible for the positions and actions taken by entities of the Southern Baptist Convention?

This is a pressing question now, as controversy flares over the SBC and three of its entities signing an amicus brief in a Kentucky Supreme Court case, taking a position against a sexual abuse survivor who was, herself, a member of a Southern Baptist church and whose youth pastor allegedly did not report her abuse.

Abuse survivors and advocates were outraged to learn the SBC, the SBC Executive Committee, Lifeway Christian Resources and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary all signed the friend of the court brief against abuse victim Samantha Killary. Their brief urges the state Supreme Court not to allow a retroactive expansion of the statute of limitations for filing sexual abuse claims and not to allow third parties to be held liable for knowing about abuse but not acting.

Trustee officers of the Executive Committee have said…

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Two women are accusing Hillsdale College, a private Christian school in Hillsdale, Mich., of silencing them and “blaming” them for their rapes, instead of their assailants, according to a lawsuit filed last week.

The women, Grace Chen and Danielle Villarreal, told USA Today they began attending Hillsdale because they thought it would be safe. But their suit, filed in the Western District of Michigan, claims that Hillsdale “fostered a campus environment that exposes students to an unacceptable and unusually high risk of sexual assault.”  

The suit adds, “When brave students report their experiences of sexual assault to school officials, they are met not with support, but with sham investigations, arbitrary decisions, and punishments,” the lawsuit said. “In response to calls for transparency and accountability, Hillsdale instead silences and threatens survivors, blaming them, not their assailants for their assaults.”

The suit claims Hillsdale failed to respond appropriately…

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Guardian investigation found the church routinely uses deaths of paedophile priests to avoid paying or to reduce amount of settlements

The Catholic church has lost a landmark case over its controversial use of the deaths of paedophile priests to thwart survivors’ attempts at justice.

The high court on Wednesday delivered a significant blow to the church’s use of permanent stays in historical abuse matters, where it has sought to argue that delay, the death of perpetrators, and the loss of records render it unable to receive a fair trial.

Earlier this year, a Guardian investigation found that the church was now routinely using permanent stays in cases where perpetrators have died, either to defeat active claims before the courts or to low-ball survivors in settlement negotiations. The tactic is causing profound harm to an already vulnerable group.

Critics say the tactic is immoral, given the church’s own role in delaying justice…

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A former priest at St. John’s Jesuit High School has been added to a list of those with established allegations of sexual abuse toward minors.

According to a statement from SJJ, Father Francis Canfield died in May of 2023. He was a faculty member at St. John’s from 1990 to 2005.

The school said in a statement that a former student told the Church in 2002 about alleged sexual abuse that occurred during the 1999-2000 school year. The claim was investigated by the Church and determined to be “established”.

The full list kept by the Jesuit Midwest Province can be found here. Read the full statement from the school leadership below:

St. John’s Jesuit High School has been notified by the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus that Fr. Francis E. Canfield, SJ has been placed on the public list of Jesuits with an established allegation…

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Following the publication of an ombudsman’s report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain, the country’s bishops renew their apology to abuse victims, saying some media estimates are not true and affirming that the “shadow of suspicion” should not extend to all clergy and religious.

On Tuesday, the Spanish Bishops’ Conference (CEE) held a press conference on the Extraordinary Plenary Assembly that took place on 30 October to discuss an official public report released last week on sexual abuse in the Church in Spain.

The “Gabilondo Report”

The report is the result of an investigation conducted by Ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo, and was presented to the Spanish Congress of Deputies on Friday, 27 October.

Included in the report is a survey based on 8,000 phone and online responses. The poll found that 1.13% of the Spanish adults questioned said they were abused as children either by priests or lay…

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Father Francis Canfield, who died in May, was accused last year by a former student who said the abuse happened during the 1999-2000 school year.

A priest who taught at St. John’s High School in the 1990s and early 2000s has been added to the list of Jesuits with “established allegations” of sexual abuse of a minor, according to a letter from the school.

St. John’s officials said Father Francis E. Canfield, who died in May, was accused by a former student who said the abuse happened during the 1999-2000 school year.

The former student reported the abuse in 2022, the school’s letter said. School officials then notified civil authorities, the letter said.

While no criminal charges were filed the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus conducted its own investigation.

“Following required ecclesiastical procedures, the Midwest Jesuits engaged the services of an independent firm to investigate…

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A report summarizing discussions at the assembly of the Synod of Bishops said the church may need more welcoming pastoral approaches, especially to people who feel excluded, but also acknowledged fears of betraying traditional church teachings and practices.

Among the topics addressed in the report were clerical sexual abuse, women’s roles in the church, outreach to poor and the concept of “synodality” itself.

The assembly, with 364 voting members — 365 counting Pope Francis — met in working sessions six days a week Oct. 4-28 after a three-day retreat outside of Rome. They were scheduled to join the pope Oct. 29 for the assembly’s closing Mass.

After the voting on the synthesis concluded, the pope said he wanted to remind everyone that “the protagonist of the synod is the Holy Spirit.” He briefly thanked the synod officers and joined members of the assembly in giving thanks to God.

The assembly’s…

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A former priest who was formally relieved of his clerical status decades ago was recently arrested for allegedly molesting a 15-year-old cancer patient during an unsanctioned blessing ceremony in Ohio.

Luis Jesus Barajas, 76, stands accused of one count of gross sexual imposition, according to the Westlake Police Department.

Authorities say it’s not the first time the former man of the cloth has been accused of child sexual abuse – not by a long shot.

The underlying alleged incident occurred on Oct. 10, when the defendant was driven to a home in Westlake – a large suburb of Cleveland located in Cuyahoga County – in order to pray with the girl at her family’s request because she was suffering from cancer and her concomitant chemotherapy treatment, police say. The girl’s family had previously heard about Barajas because he was visiting the…

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Attorneys for the Archdiocese of Baltimore and abuse survivors are expected back in court next week as the church’s bankruptcy proceedings unfold. Meanwhile, survivors say they’re eager for answers about how they’ll find justice amid the bankruptcy process.

The archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late September, just days before the start of a new Maryland law that allows survivors of child sex abuse to sue their perpetrators or responsible parties, no matter how long ago the abuse took place. But the church’s move, filed in federal court, immediately halted church abuse survivors from filing civil claims against both the church and its parishes in state courts.

The bankruptcy proceeding is still in the early stages, but so far, the court has appointed what’s called a creditors committee made up of seven survivors and their attorneys that will serve as representatives for all survivors expected to come forward in…

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Spain’s bishops apologised on Monday after a report estimated more than 200,000 minors had been sexually abused by the country’s Roman Catholic clergy since 1940.

But the Spanish Episcopal Conference said the numbers mentioned in the report, by an independent commission, “do not correspond to the truth”.

The paper published Friday did not give a specific number of abuse victims but said a poll of more than 8,000 people found that 0.6 percent of Spain’s adult population said they had suffered sexual abuse by members of the clergy when they were children.

With a population of about 39 million people, that would make about 230,000 victims.

In a statement issued after an extraordinary assembly held to assess the report, the conference said: “The bishops present have expressed their pain for the damage caused by some members of the Church with sexual abuse and reiterate their request for forgiveness from the…

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Sex abuse survivors groups are asking why Pope Francis took so long to waive a statute of limitations to permit the possible prosecution of Slovenian priest-artist Father Marko Rupnik.

Victims “need justice, not talk,” said Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins (pictured), a former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM) who resigned in protest in 2017.

For over a year, the furore surrounding Rupnik, perhaps contemporary Catholicism’s most famed muralist, who has been accused of sexually assaulting around 25 adult women over a 30-year period, has plagued the Church, in part due to several question marks over the handling of the case.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) initially declined to open canonical proceedings, citing a canonical statute of limitations for the abuse of adults, which had previously been waived in other cases, making the Pope’s announcement on Friday a seemingly complete…

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Nearly 25 years since the Portarlington paedophile Donal Dunne was jailed for offences against young boys, his deeds continue to cast a shadow over many lives.

He had a 45 year teaching career and left the Christian Brothers in 1957, his abuse of boys having spanned both his time in the order and subsequently.

He began his teaching career in Dublin in 1940 at Scoil Mhuire in Dublin’s Marino and he held posts in a total of ten schools before retiring from the Sacred Heart School in Tullamore. At the age of 78, he received a two year prison sentence at Tullamore Circuit Court in 1999.

Dunne’s abuse of boys came to light after incidents relating to a neighbour’s child led to a Garda investigation into his teaching career. This included the three years he spent as principal of Walsh Island NS, one of at least six schools where he…

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The Catholic Church is dominated by men but is making progress on giving a stronger voice to women, representatives of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), an umbrella group of Catholic nuns, said on Wednesday.

Pope Francis has appointed a few women in senior Vatican managerial positions, and has for the first time given them voting powers in this month’s synod, a bishops’ summit discussing church reforms.

At the same time, Francis has ruled out opening up the priesthood to women.

The Church is “by and large fully led by a male hierarchy”, and “if you ask if I have felt frustrated, yes I have felt frustrated,” Sister Mary John Kudiyiruppil, UISG Associate executive secretary, said.

“But I really think we are making progress,” the Indian-born nun added, speaking at the Foreign Press Association in Rome.

Sister Maamalifar Poreku, a missionary nun from Ghana who co-chairs a UISG panel on…

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[Video of report posted yesterday in Abuse Tracker, with brief interviews of survivor Paul O’Halloran and attorney Angela Sdrinis, who represents survivors.]

The Catholic Church-owned insurance company [Catholic Church Insurance] that insures Catholic organisations is struggling to keep up with demand for payouts relating to historical child sexual abuse.

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A Thunder Bay court approved a proposed settlement agreement between abuse victims of Ralph Rowe, a former Anglican priest and scout master. On 27 Oct 2023 Justice Bonnie Warkentin approved a proposed settlement agreement in the class action lawsuit against Ralph Rowe, Scouts Canada, and the Diocese of Keewatin to compensate victims of abuse.

The class action suite was filed in 2017 and sought $110 million in damages for numerous incidents of sexual abuse committed by Rowe between 1975 and 1985 when he was a priest and Scout leader in the geographic boundaries of the Diocese of Keewatin in Northern Ontario.

Since 1988 Rowe has been found guilty of over 50 counts of abuse and sexual assault involving dozens of young boys. He has served less than five years imprisonment for his crimes. 

The settlement will see the diocese, Scouts Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada pay $13.25 million…

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A retired priest has been removed from ministry pending an investigation into an allegation of child sexual abuse, according to the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, asked the Rev. William Killeen to “step aside” after learning of the allegation last week, according to a Saturday evening news release. The abuse allegedly happened about 40 years ago at St. Patricia Parish in Hickory Hills. Killeen denies the allegation, according to the statement.

Killeen declined to comment on the investigation when reached by phone Sunday afternoon.

The archdiocese said it notified civil authorities, and that the person who made the allegation was offered services of the archdiocese’s victim assistance ministry.

Retired since 2019, the archdiocese said Killeen occasionally celebrates Mass at St. Francis Xavier Parish and St. Cletus Parish, both in La Grange, and St. John of the Cross Parish in Western Springs.

Cupich notified eight parishes that…

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Case shows why Zero Tolerance must be mandated by canon law

After sustained pressure over the past year, the Pope announced earlier today that he is finally waiving the statute of limitations in the case against Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, a statute that he has previously stated he “always” waives in cases of minors or “vulnerable adults.”  

ECA has long contested current Vatican policy that requires the Pope’s intervention to waive the statute of limitations on an individual basis. Earlier this month, ECA released the text of our newly proposed Zero Tolerance law, legislation that would mandate permanent removal from the priesthood for any cleric found guilty of abusing a child or vulnerable adult, as well as any bishop found to have institutionally concealed such abuse. Furthermore, this Zero Tolerance law exempts any instance of sexual abuse from a statute of limitations.

In our latest press release, sent prior to…

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WESTLAKE, Ohio (WJW) — City police arrested a 76-year-old Colombian man who claimed to be a retired Catholic priest, after he was accused of molestation while “blessing” a 15-year-old girl suffering from cancer.

A local priest reported the “disturbing incident” to city police just before 2 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 20, according to a Tuesday news release from police Capt. Gerald Vogel.

The man, whom police identified as Luis Jesus Barajas, a Colombian national, has been staying with local families in Lorain County for months, “performing spiritual ceremonies to the nearby Spanish-speaking population,” reads the release.

On Friday, he was driven to Westlake to pray with a 15-year-old girl who had been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy, according to the release.

“According to witnesses, Mr. Barajas touched the juvenile inappropriately during the blessing,” Vogel wrote….

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CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – A 76-year-old former priest accused of “inappropriately touching” a 15-year-old Westlake girl sick with cancer while giving her a blessing is scheduled to appear in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Monday.

Luis Jesus Barajas will face a judge for an initial appearance. He is being held on a $500,000 bond at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center.

Westlake police arrested Barajas on Oct. 23 and charged him with gross sexual imposition.

According to police, the Columbian national has been staying with local families in Lorain County for several months.

On Oct. 10, he was driven to Westlake to pray with the teenager and her family.

Witnesses told police Barajas used blankets and clothing to to hide his actions and his movements during the blessing were “unconventional.” Another Catholic priest learned of the incident and reported it to police on Oct. 20.

Barajas was accused of sexual…

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A former priest was arrested Monday and accused of molesting a 15-year-old girl who is ill with cancer.

A local Catholic priest called Westlake Police Department to report “a disturbing incident” involving Luis Jesus Barajas, 76, who was visiting the area and performing spiritual ceremonies in Spanish for Hispanic residents in the area.

Barajas, who has been staying with families in Lorain County, was driven to a home in Westlake on Oct. 10 to bless a 15-year-old girl who is undergoing chemotherapy.

Witnesses told police Barajas touched the girl inappropriately during the blessing, police said.

“Mr. Barajas’ used blankets and clothing to hide some of his actions from witnesses, but his touching made several uncomfortable. Witnesses said Barajas’ movements were ‘unconventional’ compared to past blessings they had seen,” a police report said.

Barajas, from Colombia, had been accused in the past of sexual misconduct…

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The historic report released by Spain’s ombudsman details the abuses committed by clergy members, calling out the religious institution in harsh terms. According to the figures released, Spain is the country with the highest official projection of victims

Spain has become a global exception among majority-Catholic countries. It went from having no officially recognized cases of pedophilia within the Catholic Church to being the country with the highest number of victims in the world. It is estimated that 1.13% of the current adult population has suffered abuse in the religious sphere. This is according to a large-scale survey, the first of its kind in the country, carried out by Ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo.

The ombudsman avoided making the calculation in round numbers during his appearance in the Congress of Deputies on Friday, October 27. His final report also doesn’t offer such figures. However, according to calculations by EL PAÍS, that 1.13%…

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Cardinal Omella took 24 hours to react to the report that was commissioned by Spain’s ombudsman. He dismissed the study that estimates that 1.13% of the country’s population — approximately 440,000 people — have suffered childhood sexual abuse in religious environments

Cardinal Juan José Omella — president of the Episcopal Conference of Spain and archbishop of Barcelona — has rejected the conclusions of one of the pillars of the recently-released report on pedophilia in the Catholic Church of Spain.

The report — commissioned by Ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo — was presented to Spain’s Congress on Friday, October 27. It entailed a demographic survey of more than 8,000 adult Spaniards. Based on the results of said survey, it is estimated that 1.13% of Spain’s adult population — more than 440,000 people between the ages of 18 and 90 — have suffered abuse in religious environments in Spain. Approximately…

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A report released by Spanish Ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo on Friday found that priests within the Catholic Church have abused more than 1 in every 200 Spaniards. The report was presented to the Spanish Parliament on Friday and aimed to ensure that the perpetrators are held responsible and accountable for their actions. The ombudsman also sought to create greater awareness about the issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

The report detailed that, out of 8,000 interviewees, 11.7 percent were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests during their childhood or adolescence. Additionally, the report revealed that more women than men were abused and how many now suffer from mental health issues or have contemplated committing suicide.

Last year, the Spanish Parliament agreed to create an independent body to investigate the increasing cases of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. After 1,237…

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Four former members of the Monastic Family of Bethlehem denounce excesses of founder Odile Dupont, which they claim led to a system of control in the name of unreasonable obedience to the Virgin Mary

In January 2021, the Monastic Sisters of Bethlehem opened a complaints center to hear from alleged victims of abuse in their community since its founding in the 1950s. Far from “carrying out justice and reparation” as announced, this center has been seen by former members, who have been trying to alert the Church for nearly 15 years, as a “smokescreen” and a new attempt to discredit their testimony. 

Therefore, they entrusted their testimonies and the task of investigating the alleged dysfunctions of the Monastic Sisters of Bethlehem since its origins, to Blandine de Dinechin, a former journalist who worked on spiritual abuse. According to them, these issues stem from the excesses of the founder, Odile Dupont…

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• The Catholic Church-owned insurance company that insures Catholic organisations is struggling to keep up with demand for payouts relating to historical child sexual abuse.
• The company, established in 1911, stopped issuing new policies in May but says it’s still having financial difficulties.
• What’s next? Catholic organisations need to find insurance elsewhere, but there are concerns they’ll struggle to get cover for abuse claims and smaller organisations won’t have the money to fund future claims.

Paul O’Halloran went to Marist College in north-west Tasmania the 1960s.

In recent times, he’s seen six former staff members from the Burnie Catholic school jailed for historical child sexual abuse.

Allegations have been made against another five, who have since died.

“It’s unimaginable, I think, the damage that’s been done to this community through the abuse on the scale that it was,” said Mr O’Halloran, a former Tasmanian Greens state MP.

Mr O’Halloran and his brother both allege…

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Are the commitments for a synodal Church credible when a priest accused of repeated sex abuse finds a new diocese?

Most mornings, on the drive to school, my daughters wave at the Catholic Church we drive by and say, “Hi, Jesus!” It’s a small gesture of their deep faith, and one that gives me great hope. Even at just six and three, they know the Lord is there, Jesus present in the Eucharist, inside the tabernacle, set behind the altar, in the Church we drive past.

But some mornings, like the morning of October 25, that great hope in their young faith and my love of the Church was short lived. Because sometimes, the Church lets me down, and even the burgeoning faith of my two little girls can’t seem to buoy it back up.

I hoped my Wednesday would be spent reading the Letter from the Synod of Bishops…

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El informe del Defensor del Pueblo, que constata los abusos sexuales ocurridos en el clero, resalta la falta de colaboración de la Iglesia católica

El informe presentado este viernes por el Defensor del Pueblo no cierra, desgraciadamente, la investigación sobre los abusos sexuales ocurridos en el ámbito de la Iglesia católica española durante décadas porque no incluye la plena admisión de responsabilidad por parte de la jerarquía de esta institución ni su compromiso efectivo de poner en marcha los mecanismos necesarios, no solo de reparación por lo ocurrido hasta ahora, sino también, y sobre todo, los recursos de prevención que permitan controlar en el presente y en el futuro hechos parecidos en colegios e instituciones dependientes de la Iglesia católica.

Los periodistas que abrimos esa investigación en el diario El PAÍS, en septiembre de 2018, lo hicimos conscientes…

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Today, Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, notified eight parishes that he had asked Fr. William Killeen to step aside pending investigation of an allegation of child sexual abuse received this week. Father Killeen denies the allegation. The abuse is alleged to have occurred approximately 40 years ago at St. Patricia Parish in Hickory Hills.

The parishes are: St. Alexander in Palos Heights, St. Patricia in Hickory Hills, St. Michael in Orland Park, St. Christopher (now St. Augustine) in Midlothian, Infant Jesus of Prague (now St. Veronica) in Flossmoor, St. Francis Xavier in La Grange, St. Cletus in La Grange, and St. John of the Cross in Western Springs.

Retired since 2019, Killeen celebrates Mass occasionally at St. Francis Xavier Parish and St. Cletus Parish, both in La Grange and St. John of the Cross Parish in Western Springs. Civil authorities have been notified, the person making the allegation has…

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