The former bishop of the diocese of Albany, New York, has acknowledged covering up allegations of sexual abuse against children by priests. Howard J Hubbard made the admission during a deposition taken last year. He said he didn’t take action in part to avoid scandal and protect the reputation of the diocese. Hundreds of people Read more
A court in Argentina has sentenced a Catholic bishop, well known to Pope Francis, to a jail term in an abuse case involving two young seminarians. Gustavo Zanchetta, former bishop of Orán in Argentina, was detained immediately and is now serving four and a half years in prison. Zanchetta denied all charges in the criminal Read more
Retired Pope Benedict XVI’s lack of a personal apology or admission of guilt immediately riled sex abuse survivors. They said his response reflected the Catholic hierarchy’s “permanent” refusal to accept responsibility for the rape and sodomy of children by priests. Benedict’s letter received a lukewarm reception from bishops in Germany, while victims’ organisations expressed disappointment, Read more
A high-ranking official in an important catholic diocese quit his job because of internal opposition to attempts to deal with clergy sex abuse. Msgr Peter Beer, who served from 2010-2020 as vicar general of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, said the horrific details that emerged from a recently published report on sex abuse in Read more
Phil Saviano, a clergy sex abuse survivor and whistleblower who played a pivotal role in exposing decades of predatory assaults by Catholic priests in the US, has died. He was 69. Saviano’s story figured prominently in the 2015 Oscar-winning film Spotlight, about the Boston Globe investigation that revealed how scores of priests molested children and Read more
German Bishop Heiner Wilmer has claimed that the Catholic Church “utterly gambled away” people’s trust in the institution by the way it has mishandled the clergy sex abuse crisis. “Protecting the institution and the perpetrators was always the most important factor for the Church. (Protecting) the victims, on the other hand, simply did not occur,” Read more
The bishops of France will sell real estate assets to compensate sexual abuse survivors who were victims of clergy and staff of the French Catholic Church. “We will not take money from the Church’s yearly parish contributions, we will not use donations that the faithful make to us for [our missions]”, Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, president Read more
The French Catholic Church allowed the child abuse to become “systemic,” said Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, chair of the country’s Bishops Conference. In a statement on Friday, the conference said the French Catholic Church bears “institutional responsibility” for the thousands of child abuse cases documented in a report released in October. “This responsibility implies a Read more
A report on the handling of abuse cases in Germany’s Archdiocese of Munich and Freising is unlikely to be published before January 2022. Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, the law firm compiling the report, announced the delay on Nov. 3, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. The Munich law firm said that the delay was caused Read more
The French Catholic bishops conference began on Tuesday, with half the seven-day meeting to focus on damning child abuse revelations. The 120 bishops are meeting to pour over a shock report released last month that detailed child abuse of more than 200,000 minors spanning 70 years. The findings of the Sauvé report on sexual abuse Read more