Posts Tagged ‘Sex abuse’

Catholics still don’t get it: sexual abuse is not about sex

Monday, March 2nd, 2020
church crisis

We continue to hear of incidents that more than suggest that Catholics – and, in particular, their bishops – have learned very little from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. This is quite alarming and depressing because the Church in North America has been dealing with issues regarding priests who abuse children and teenagers for at Read more

Retired Catholic priest found not guilty of sexual assault

Thursday, September 19th, 2019

A Wisconsin jury on Friday acquitted a retired Catholic priest on charges alleging that he had sexually assaulted an altar boy over several years, starting in 2006. The Jefferson County jury found William Nolan, 66, not guilty of five counts of sexual assault following a weeklong trial. The 26-year-old accuser, who lives in California, alleged Read more

New Vatican law on abuse cover-up has hit-and-miss week

Monday, September 16th, 2019
abuse cover-up

When the Vatican announced new procedures to hold bishops accountable in May, the main question was: Will it work? The legislation – called Vos Estis Lux Mundi – enacted what is known as the Metropolitan Model, in which archbishops would play a prominent role in policing those bishops in their ecclesiastical province. This week, the Read more

A letter to the Protestant church about sex abuse: We are not safer

Thursday, August 29th, 2019
Protestant

Many Protestants have expressed righteous sadness at the sexual crimes in the faith traditions around us, namely the Catholic Church, while remaining indifferent to similar crimes within our congregations. We believe Protestant churches are safer. We are wrong. I know this from personal experience. Both my youth minister and pastor sexually abused me in my Read more

Ex-Vatican envoy in hiding calls Pope Francis a blatant liar

Thursday, June 13th, 2019

Dissident retired archbishop Carlo Vigano has accused Pope Francis of “blatantly lying” in saying he had no knowledge of sexual abuse allegations against ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. In a series of emails from an undisclosed location, Vigano told the Washington Post that Francis and Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI must come clean about what they knew of McCarrick’s Read more

Pell won’t appeal child abuse sentence if conviction stands

Thursday, May 30th, 2019

Disgraced Cardinal George Pell won’t seek a reduced sentence if the Court of Appeal upholds his conviction for sexually abusing two Melbourne choirboys in the 1990s. Pell has been behind bars since February and is due to return to court next week to fight his conviction. But he won’t be adding an appeal against the Read more

Success of Pope Francis’ new sex abuse reporting rules depends on enforcement

Monday, May 13th, 2019
trust

Learning from what he calls “the bitter lessons of the past,” Pope Francis has issued the most comprehensive response of his papacy to the sex abuse crisis. The new document requires bishops, priests and religious to report sexual abuse and cover-ups to church officials and sets up new procedures for investigating bishops. It also tells Read more

The church’s systemic problem of paedophilia

Monday, May 13th, 2019

Paedophilia is a systemic problem and the Church’s efforts to ensure the “accompaniment” of the victims were ‘insufficient,’ says French Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort. The president elect of the Conference of Bishops of France says the need to shed light on the Church’s sex abuse scandals “cannot be considered purely marginal. “It’s a systemic problem Read more

No religion is safe if priests are forced to violate confessional seal

Thursday, May 2nd, 2019

If priests are forced to violate the confessional seal, no religion is safe a Dominican priest says. A proposed change in law in California would legally require priests to violate the sacramental seal of confession in suspected cases of child abuse or neglect. Fr Pius Pietrzyk OP, who is an assistant professor of canon law, Read more

Sexual freedom of 1960s to blame for abuse crisis says ex-pope

Monday, April 15th, 2019

The Pope emeritus, Benedict XVI, has published a 6,000-word essay blaming clerical sex abuse on the “all-out sexual freedom” of the 1960s. Cultural and historical change have led to a “dissolution” of morality in Catholicism, he claims. As an example, he says despite allegations of clerical sex abuse of children dating back to decades before Read more