A Blenheim-based priest is expected to be in court today (Tuesday). The priest has been removed from duties after being charged with indecent assault. The vicar-general of the Archdiocese of Wellington, Monsignor Gerry Burns told parishioners at mass last Sunday that police had charged the priest who had been at St Mary’s Parish since last Read more
Mr Bill Kilgallon, the executive officer of the New Zealand Catholic Church’s National Office for Professional Standards, says he expects more people will come forward with allegations as Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse gets under way. He says that since June the church has received five new claims of abuse Read more
A former Catholic brother will remain on bail while a judge considers an appeal on his extradition. Bernard Kevin McGrath faces 252 charges of alleged offending against boys in New South Wales over several decades. McGrath’s appeal case was heard on Thursday morning in the High Court in Christchurch by Justice Christian Whata. All of Read more
The awful record of the institutional Catholic church’s leadership in dealing with the scandal of clerical sex abuse of minors has clearly, and rightly, been a trigger for the federal government’s Royal Commission into sexual abuse of children in Australia. This is a record that has already prompted other inquiries here and overseas. It would indeed be Read more
The new promoter of justice at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has said the news media did the Church a service by uncovering the clerical abuse scandal. “I think that certainly those who continued to put before us that we need to confront this problem did a service,” Father Robert Oliver Read more
1. Are you sure members of the Church hierarchy are worse than anyone else? When people cite the pedophilia scandals as a key reason for abandoning the Church, I worry that they’re setting themselves up for deep disappointment. The fact that priests abused children is an idea so horrific that one can hardly bear to Read more
Last week Bishops, Religious and mental health experts met at the Pontifical Gregorian University for a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sexual abuse. Called “Toward Healing and Renewal” — the aim of the Symposium was to change the culture of how the church deals with cases of pedophile priests. At the end of the meeting a new internet-based Read more
The shortage of outback priests will be a point of discussion when a congregation of Australian Bishops meet in Rome, and may be discussed with the Pope. The administrator of the Wilcannia-Forbes diocese, Bishop Kevin Manning said a lack of men joining the priesthood is of great concern. He thinks one of causes of low Read more
The number of new credible accusations of clerical abuse in the United States dropped in 2010, however more dioceses are receiving “management letters”. So says the Report on the implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which also highlights 428 new credible allegations of child sexual abuse were lodged against 345 Read more