The Chief Ombudsman has criticised Sacred Heart College in Auckland over the way it dealt with a bullying complaint. Peter Boshier said the school had “failed to ensure the student was safe.” He called the Board of Trustees’ response to the complaint Siobhan Harvey made about the bullying of her son “unreasonable”. Boshier recommended the Read more
Pope Francis highlighted the problem of bullying in a recent message to young people. Francis said bullying is an issue that concerns him. He made the comments to participants in the online conference #StopcyberbullyingDay. Francis called on participants to find their own identity but not at the expense of others. “An issue that concerns me Read more
Green MP Golriz Ghahraman is being accompanied by a security escort at all times following a series of death threats. The MP has seen a significant escalation in threats of violence following comments by ACT MP David Seymour, a source told Stuff. Ghahraman is an Iranian-Kiwi refugee, lucky to escape war and persecution as a Read more
Half a century ago, the bishops’ conference of the United States commissioned an interdisciplinary study of the priesthood in that country. Key parts of it were led by two priests who at the time were celebrities in the Catholic community, Andrew Greeley the sociologist and Eugene Kennedy the psychologist. (Disclosure: as a seminarian I was Read more
A new study has found children who were bullied and sexually abused are more likely to smoke and drink alcohol excessively as adults. The findings were published recently in BMC Public Health. Few studies have explored this phenomenon in Australia, according to Dr David Alejandro González-Chica, senior lecturer and research supervisor at the University of Read more
Promise Jesus and me not to bully anyone, Pope Francis asked 45,000 teens when he met them in Milan last Saturday. He also told their teachers to be aware of the bullying problem. “I ask you, in silence: In your schools, in your neighborhoods, is there someone that you mock? That you make fun of Read more
A Catholic teenager in Britain was tied to a wooden cross and hung from a wall by work colleagues, a court has heard. Four men are on trial at York Crown Court accused of religiously aggravated assaults. All four deny the charges and three claimed the incidents were part of general workplace banter. The mock Read more
A US mother has filed a lawsuit after she told a Catholic school that her child was bullied and the school got an abuse investigation launched against her. Melissa Schroeder’s attorney has filed the action against Kansas City Archdiocese, Sacred Heart Catholic School in Shawnee and the school’s principal. Mrs Schroeder said she reported the Read more
Ireland’s former president, Mary McAleese, has spoken of her son as a devout young Catholic who was made to feel lonely and was bullied because he was gay. Mrs McAleese said her son Justin was a “willing and happy” altar boy and an enthusiastic member of his local Catholic youth club. But he went through Read more