ABUSE TRACKER

From Peru to Argentina and from the United Kingdom or Thailand; Catholic or Anglican, clergy sexual abuse is a global phenomenon.

In Peru, there is a drive to suppress the Sodalitium, but in Argentina there is little evidence of even symbolic measures being taken against sexual abuse.

In the UK, the Church of England suffers as much as the Catholic which, in Thailand, dismisses the complaints and warnings from faithful trying to prevent clergy sexual abuse.

Last week, the clergy sexual abuse crisis had two major developments. One coming from the Roman Catholic Church has to do with the Peruvian Sodalitium of Christian Life. Other came from the Anglican Church with new revelations about John Smyth’s case and the resignation of yet another bishop in that denomination.

But also, Thailand offers a new example of how dismissive the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church is when warned about potential risks…

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The ruling that church’s accountability doesn’t cross state lines deals a blow to victims seeking justice under New Jersey’s Child Victims Act.

New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled the Archdiocese of Philadelphia cannot be held liable for a priest’s alleged 1971 abuse in Margate. This file photo shows the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the headquarters of the archdiocese.

In a blow for clergy sex abuse victims, the New Jersey State Supreme Court has ruled that a Catholic archdiocese’s accountability for an alleged predatory priest does not cross state lines.

The decision arose from the case of an Illinois man who accused Michael J. McCarthy, a priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1965 until he was defrocked in 2006, of molesting him during an overnight stay in Margate in 1971, when he was 14 and a member of McCarthy’s parish.

The…

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A message to the faithful of eastern Washington,

This week, state lawmakers are once again attempting to enact laws, Senate Bill 5375 and House Bill 1211, which seek to force priests to violate the Seal of Confession if child abuse is revealed within the celebration of the sacrament. In light of this, I wish to reiterate my previous statement regarding this matter:

I want to assure you that your shepherds, bishop and priests, are committed to keeping the seal of confession – even to the point of going to jail. The Sacrament of Penance is sacred and will remain that way in the Diocese of Spokane.

For those legislators who question our commitment to the safety of your children, simply speak with any mom who volunteers with a parish youth group, any Catholic school teacher, any dad who coaches a parochial school basketball team or any priest, deacon or…

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Washington State’s legislature is currently considering a bill that would require Catholic priests to report any admission of child abuse during confession. The law would require priests to break the seal of confession in such cases, which the Catholic Church views as an offense for which a priest can be immediately excommunicated. Now the bishop of Spokane is calling on Catholics to vote against the bill. 

The bill, introduced by six Democratic senators, would amend a current law that requires the reporting of child abuse in professional positions like those in law enforcement, teachers, doctors, and childcare providers, to include church clergy members. It is not just aimed at Catholics, but also includes religious leaders of all faiths. The bill reads: 

“The amended law would apply to any “ordained minister, priest, rabbi, imam, elder, or similarly situated religious or spiritual leader of any church, religious denomination, religious…

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The Catholic church on Long Island says it has taken major steps to protect children from clergy sex abuse and is seeing real progress some two decades after the worst scandal in its history erupted.

The Diocese of Rockville Centre said new measures, such as automatically reporting all allegations to law enforcement, have created one of the safest environments anywhere for children. They point to dramatically falling numbers of reported current cases as evidence the policies are working.

The diocese said it immediately removes from ministry any clergy member accused of sexual abuse when allegations have been deemed credible by law enforcement or church-hired investigators — and announces it at Sunday Masses in the priest’s or deacon’s parish in front of often-stunned parishioners.

It reports all allegations, regardless of whether they are initially deemed credible, to the local district attorney for potential criminal prosecution, the diocese said. And it has put some 160,000 clergy, employees and…

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Victim support groups call for investigation into whether Saints flouted NFL’s own commitments to prevent abuse

Clergy sexual abuse survivor support groups have called on the National Football League to investigate whether leaders of the New Orleans Saints flouted the NFL’s goals by campaigning alongside the city’s Roman Catholic archdiocese to soften critical media coverage of how the church handled its clerical molestation scandal.

A statement from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (Snap) pointed out how the NFL’s website expresses a commitment to “addressing and preventing domestic violence and sexual assault”. Yet emails first reported on Monday morning by the Guardian, its reporting partner WWL Louisiana, the Associated Press and the New York Times establish how the Saints – owned by the devout New Orleans Catholic Gayle Benson – and team executives were far more involved in helping its local archdiocese spin media coverage of the abuse scandal than…

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EXPAT EYE

I don’t even remember the story.

It was published back in 2003 when, as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, I wrote all kinds of stuff that has since slipped my mind.

This particular piece was about a Roman Catholic priest arrested in Santa Ana, California, for allegedly sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl. As it happened, he was an immigrant to the United States, having previously worked at a parish in the Philippines. And the only reason I remember the story now is because it’s among hundreds cited in a study recently released by a US-based watchdog group called BishopAccountability.org. The allegation: that the Philippine Catholic Church maintains what the New York Times calls a “culture of impunity” regarding sexually abusive priests.

“BishopAccountability.org has identified 82 priests and brothers with ties to the Philippines who have been publicly accused of sexually abusing minors,” the organization declared…

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Father Cary Chan said the man is also partially blind, and might not have recognised that he had hit a priest.

A priest who was attacked at the Church of the Holy Spirit on Sunday (Feb 9) morning told CNA that he was punched in the head by a man with special needs.

Father Cary Chan said the impact knocked his glasses off and caught him off guard.

“He gave me a hard blow to the head … I feel a little shaken, I did not expect a hard blow to come from him,” he said about three hours after the incident.

Father Chan described the attacker as a regular churchgoer who has special needs and is partially blind.

“He likely did not recognise who he punched,” he said. “I know him very well. I think he didn’t recognise me. He can’t exactly see who you are.”

The police said in…

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A man was arrested for public nuisance after he allegedly assaulted a priest at the Church of the Holy Spirit located at 248 Upper Thomson Road on Feb 9 morning.

The police received a call for assistance at 10.35am, said the Singapore Police Force in a Facebook post.

See post by Singapore Police Force on Saturday 8 February 2025

Preliminary investigations revealed that a 22-year-old Singaporean Chinese man allegedly assaulted Father Cary Chan after church service during dispersal.

The priest told Channel NewsAsia that the punch knocked his glasses off and caught him off guard.

“He gave me a hard blow to the head … I feel a little shaken, I did not expect a hard blow to come from him,” said Father Chan, who described the man as a regular churchgoer who has special needs and is partially blind.

Someone had removed the man’s backpack from the church,…

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Allegations of abuse: Paris public prosecutor’s office will not investigate Abbé Pierre

The Paris public prosecutor’s office has announced that, despite serious allegations of abuse, it will not investigate Abbé Pierre because he is no longer alive. No investigations are possible against other people who may have covered up abuse due to the statute of limitations.

“The Paris public prosecutor’s office announced that the priest could no longer be investigated even after his death in 2007,” ORF reported. “The crime of ‘failure to report’ is time-barred, so no investigations are possible here either.”

Previously, the French bishops formally requested that prosecutors open a criminal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against Abbé Pierre.

The move followed nine new allegations in a new report released Jan. 13. Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, the head of the French bishops’ conference, announced the formal request in a radio interview on Jan. 17, stressing the…

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The Catholic priest and podcast host from Michigan was charged in Illinois, police say

A Michigan priest known for leading religious relic tours and hosting an exorcism podcast has been charged after allegedly placing a teenage girl’s hair in his mouth and proceeding to floss his teeth with it.

Father Carlos Martins, a member of the Catholic Church and the co-host of “The Exorcist Files” podcast, was charged with misdemeanor battery in Illinois for the incident in November.

“The Exorcist Files” podcast, which is accompanied by a book with the same title, boasts of Martins’ ability as an expert in exorcism and relays his personal stories.

The incident unraveled during a relic of St. Jude’s tour at the Queen of Apostles parish in Joliet, Illinois, on Nov. 21, 2024.

Father Carlos Martins, who hosts “The Exorcist Files” podcast, is now facing charges in…

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A proposed law in Washington state would require priests to violate Catholic Church law by breaking the seal of confession. The bill would amend the current state law that requires law enforcement, teachers, medical professionals or child care providers to report cases of child abuse or neglect to include church clergy that hear about abuse during the sacrament of confession, according to the bill’s text. Priests that break the seal of confession are automatically excommunicated from the Church according to Canon Law.

The bill was proposed by Democratic Washington Sens. Noel Frame, Claire Wilson, Jessica Bateman, Manka Dhingra, T’wina Nobles and Javier Valdez.

“Washington State has no right to force a priest to break the sacred rite of confession,” Tom McCluskey, director of Government Affairs at CatholicVote, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This is nothing but an attack on the authority of the Church laced by Anti-Catholicism, seeking to put all things…

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He’s possibly the youngest clergy abuse victim now suing the Catholic church in California. Now, he’s speaking out for the first time, saying abuse within the church is not a problem of the past. 

At just 22 years old, the man NBC Bay Area is calling John Doe might be the youngest clergy abuse survivor now suing the Catholic church in California. 

While more than 4,000 people have filed lawsuits against Catholic institutions across the state since 2020, the overwhelming majority of those plaintiffs are decades older than Doe. On average, it can take survivors 40 years to come forward, according to victim advocates.

Doe is an exception. He credits his supportive family and a society increasingly willing to believe survivors for giving him the strength to come forward at such a young age. Now, he has a message he wants to share with the public. 

“The house is still…

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A ruling by the Arkansas Court of Appeals overturned a 2021 law on Wednesday intended to aid child sexual abuse victims.

The court’s majority opinion stated the  Justice for Vulnerable Victims of Sexual Abuse Act was not legal due to a long-standing legal precedent that prohibited extending the statute of limitations. The act intended to allow child sexual abuse victims under 55 years old to sue their abuser.

Recent amendment to Arkansas law extends period for child sexual abuse victims to sue; Victim calls it a sign of hope

Previously, the law only allowed victims to sue for three years after the victim turned 18 as a statute of limitations. A revision to the act in 2023 removed the 55-year-old requirement and allowed all victims, regardless of age, to file for two years after the revision became law.

The case came before the appeals court after four people sued…

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An Italian support group for victims of clerical sex abuse launched a network Friday to help affected families, whom it said were often shunned by their communities in the mainly Catholic country.

Organisers said it was the first such association in Italy, where the culture of silence surrounding the sexual abuse of minors by priests is still strong, despite efforts by Pope Francis to tackle the problem.

One mother, Claudia, described how her devastation at discovering her two young sons had been abused by a priest was compounded when “the entire parish abandoned us”.

“It was hell,” as the community “turned its back on us” and “made fun of us”, she told journalists at a news conference organised by the Rete L’Abuso association to launch the network.

The Catholic Church worldwide is still trying to manage a tide of revelations about paedophile priests going back decades.

But campaigners say Italy,…

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On Monday, the Supreme Court of Maryland upheld the constitutionality of a state law that ended the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse lawsuits. SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is ecstatic that the state’s highest court reached this decision.

Maryland SNAP leader David Lorenz called this ruling “a victory for survivors.” He continued, “They will finally get their chance at justice and being able to expose the predators that harmed them. The Catholic Church has not done that, and this law will allow that to happen.”

Delayed disclosure of child sexual abuse is the rule. Some trauma-informed experts say more survivors disclose between the ages of 50-70 compared to any other age group. When archaic laws limiting victims’ access to the courts are overturned or even lifted for a time, communities are safer. Knowledge about who the…

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‘The exceptional nature of my case reveals that it should not be necessary to have to speak to the Pope for a trial to open.’

An ex-seminarian said abuse victims need press coverage and even the Pope’s intervention for the Spanish Church to investigate allegations of clergy abuse.

The man – under the pseudonym “Carlos” – alleged 15 years ago that Fr Pedro Rodríguez Ramos had abused him while he attended the minor seminary of the Archdiocese of Toledo.

After Carlos met the Pope in 2023, the Dicastery of the Doctrine of Faith (DDF) ordered the Spanish Church to open a canonical trial last March.

“The exceptional nature of my case reveals that it should not be necessary to have to speak to the Pope for a trial to open,” Carlos said. “Do all victims need to come and speak to him before anyone pays them any attention?”

He claimed the…

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An independent investigation found that Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer, committed sexual abuse or misconduct on at least 17 women, some of whom were minors at the time. The alleged abuses were perpetrated over the course of decades. No one stopped him.

In the details of the investigatory report released two days ago – the Firefly Report – the documented grooming, abuse, and coverup patterns are sadly similar to what we’ve seen in so many other clergy sex abuse stories. TRIGGER WARNING: Seeing these patterns in print, yet again, will feel painful and familiar for many of you.

Beyond the allegations against Bickle, the investigation also uncovered numerous other stories of sexual abuse and misconduct perpetrated by other individuals associated with the International House of Prayer. These other alleged abusers may not be famous like Bickle, but their abuses also did unfathomable harm and showed the entrenched patterns at…

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Several alleged victims, including his own sister, have accused Gary Thomas “Tom” Keesee, the son of Ohio pastors, Gary and Drenda Keesee, of sexually abusing them. Now, thousands have signed a public petition, calling on Ohio law enforcement to investigate Tom Keesee.

Tom Keesee’s parents are pastors of Faith Life Church in New Albany, Ohio, and Tom used to be Faith Life’s chief media officer before resigning in August.

Drenda Keesee is also a Knox County commissioner and friends with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. And Gary and Drenda Keesee have a financial show, “Fixing the Money Thing,” on embattled Daystar TV and are friends with Daystar TV President Joni Lamb.

Joni Lamb is facing allegations by her son and daughter-in-law, Jonathan and Suzy Lamb, of covering up the sexual abuse of their daughter by a family member.

…

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According to a new report, at least 17 former or current staff members at the Kansas City-based International House of Prayer (IHOP) including founder Mike Bickle, are accused of sexual crimes and misdeeds. For the safety of the public, we hope that the additional 16 names are soon made public as well.

We also hope that a similar investigation into accusations at an orphanage run by a Union MO-based non-profit, Ninos de Mexico, due out later this year, will be even more thorough and detailed than the IHOP probe.

The scathing report on IHOP describes “a longstanding culture of systemic abuse and cover-up” within the community that apparently goes much deeper than just the wrongdoing of a few officials at the top.

We hope that law enforcement officials, in Missouri and elsewhere, will digest and circulate the information in this report. We hope…

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Richard Youngblood made his claims in a legal filing in a defamation suit Jakes brought against Youngblood’s brother, Duane, who was the first to accuse the Texas megachurch pastor.

The Rev. Richard Edwin Youngblood, the brother of a minister who has accused Bishop T.D. Jakes of sexual misconduct, has made his own accusation against Jakes, claiming the Texas megachurch leader climbed into bed with him on a church business trip.

The claims were made in a legal filing responding to a defamation lawsuit Jakes brought in November against Youngblood’s younger brother, Duane Youngblood, a Pennsylvania man who made allegations against Jakes in two 2024 interviews on the “Larry Reid Live” YouTube talk show.

Jakes’ suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, includes denials by Jakes’ legal team of Duane Youngblood’s accusations that Jakes tried to groom and sexually abuse him. The suit…

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Dear Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee:

Please stop with all the talk-talk-talk about abuse reform.

All the promises. All the posturing. All the platitudes.

Just stop.

Until you have at least 1,000 names of clergy sex abusers in a database — including those credibly accused — please stop telling us what you’re allegedly going to do.

We’ve heard it all too many times already. So, either do it, or stop talking about it.

The latest talk already rings hollow

Your president and CEO Jeff Iorg recently announced the hiring of an abuse response coordinator, Jeff Dalrymple, to head the new Sexual Abuse Prevention and Response Department, which will operate under the Executive Committee’s domain. He also said several sexual abuse prevention and response initiatives will be announced at the Executive Committee’s upcoming meeting on Feb. 17-18.

That’s why we’re writing this now — in anticipation of still more hollow words.

…

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Goodell has failed at his most important job, again

Roger Goodell isn’t going to do anything about the New Orleans Saints. He said as much on Monday night. He took the stage hours after the Associated Press dropped a bombshell report about the lengths to which the Saints went to assist the Archdiocese of New Orleans during a sexual abuse scandal in the church — including helping to craft the church’s media messaging and seemingly ensuring some clergy wouldn’t face charges.

In a time-honored tradition of dodging difficult questions, Goodell somehow found a way during his state of the NFL presentation on Monday night to praise the Saints, while adding he had no interest in looking into the organization.

“Mrs. Benson and the Saints are very involved in this community and they are great corporate citizens,” he said. “Mrs. Benson takes all these matters seriously, particularly for someone with the…

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This past week, a report revealed that the New Orleans Saints had aided the Archdiocese of New Orleans in damage control and cover-ups following the 2018 release of the names of 50 priests credibly accused of sexual abuse. The Saints initially denied their involvement and went to court in 2020 to try to prevent the leak of their emails with the archdiocese. Those emails, now released, reveal that the Saints’ officials organized and orchestrated a “crisis-communication blitz” in support of the Catholic Church and the archbishop.

The reporting, led by Jim Mustian of the Associated Press, reveals that New Orleans Saints “team executives played a more extensive role than previously known in a public relations campaign to mitigate fallout from the clergy sexual abuse crisis.” This extensive role mentioned in the report includes allegations that the NFL franchise used its power to edit clergy names off of lists, provide…

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Victims upset that the franchise helped Catholic officials

They charge that the Saints’ conduct was detrimental to survivors

The nation’s leading support group for clergy sexual abuse victims says that top officials with the New Orleans Saints flaunted National Football League (NFL) goals by working with Catholic officials to hide predators, thus endangering children and further wounding abuse victims. SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) wants the NFL to open an investigation into the Saint’s actions.

The Saints are accused of colluding with the Archdiocese of New Orleans to modify the Archbishop’s list of abusers, pressure elected officials to turn a blind eye to the scandal, and to influence public opinion by putting pressure on media outlets to curtail their coverage. Drawn into this web of deceit are judges, lawyers and the ultra-rich. SNAP issued an earlier statement on the recent revelations…

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Four individuals have filed lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, alleging they endured sexual abuse and harassment by church officials between 1960 and 1980. 

The defendants were between the ages of 10 and 14 at the time of the alleged assaults. 

“The suit alleges that the Diocese had full knowledge that numerous priests in positions of trust were grooming and sexually abusing children and not only did nothing about it [but] intentionally concealed it,” stated the Clarkson Law Firm. 

The four individuals, who are now adults, were able to file lawsuits against the Diocese under the updated Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act. The act opened a two-year window for victims to file civil suits against assailants and institutions that enabled sexual abuse, with no statute of limitations. The window to file similar cases closes on Feb. 28, 2025, after which a 9-year statute of limitations will apply.

Kristin Burnett, a…

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Lex Garcia says she was raped for two years by her teacher at a Rio Rancho high school.

During a time when she said she should have been preoccupied with the normal worries of a teenager, Garcia said she was instead embroiled in a manipulative relationship with her instructor, with whom she worked as a lab assistant.

It took 15 years for Garcia to acknowledge to herself she had been sexually exploited, and even longer “to admit it to anyone that could help me.” That time, the now-33-year-old said, far exceeded the timeline currently allotted by law for victims to come forward to make a civil claim, a problem Garcia said would be addressed by a bill on lawmakers’ table to eliminate the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse.

“Trauma is not tied to a [timed] clock,” Garcia told lawmakers of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee on…

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Father Carlos Martins, a known exorcist and co-host of “The Exorcist Files” podcast, pleaded not guilty Jan. 27 in an Illinois court to a misdemeanor charge of battery over an alleged incident that took place during a national relic tour.

The Will County state’s attorney’s office filed the charge Jan. 23 after Joliet, Illinois, police investigated an alleged incident that involved students. It was reported by priests at a local parish Father Martins was visiting in November while touring the country with a relic of St. Jude.

The criminal charge obtained by OSV News and filed by the state’s attorney’s office accuses the priest of “knowingly without legal justification by any means made physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature with I.K., a minor, in that said defendant placed the hair of I.K. in his mouth.”

The charge is a class A misdemeanor in the state of Illinois and…

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[See also the decision of the Maryland Supreme Court.]

Three separate cases asked the court to void the law, saying it illegally removed a statute of limitations for filing lawsuits

A 2023 state law that lifted a 20-year statute of limitations on lawsuits against public and private entities involved in incidents of sexual abuse, essentially allowing victims to file suit at any time, is constitutional.

The Supreme Court of Maryland, in a narrow 4-3 decision Monday, ruled that the legislature was within its power when it passed the Child Victims Act of 2023. The law, signed by Gov. Wes Moore (D) in 2023 opened the door to claims against private entities — most notably the Archdiocese of Baltimore — and state government agencies.

Defendants in three cases — the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, The Key School and the Board of Education of Harford County — argued the 2023 law…

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[See also the decision of the Maryland Supreme Court.]

The Supreme Court of Maryland ruled Feb. 3 that the Child Victims Act passed by the General Assembly in 2023 is constitutional. The CVA removed any statute of limitations for civil suits involving child sexual abuse. 

The law repealed a statute of repose that had been established in a 2017 law. Some institutions that had been sued after the CVA was enacted contested the constitutionality of the 2023 law on the basis that a statute of repose cannot be changed retroactively.

The justices ruled 4-3 that the state Legislature actually meant to extend the statute of limitations in the 2017 law, rather than establish a statute of repose, even though the term “statute of repose” was used numerous times in the 2017 bill.

The 2017 bill extended from age 25 to age 38 the time when victim-survivors of child sexual abuse…

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The Maryland Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, has upheld the Child Victims Act as constitutional.

The Child Victims Act (CVA) enacted in 2023 eliminates restrictions put in place in 2017 that had prevented many adult victims of child sexual abuse from suing.

After the CVA went into effect on October 1, 2023, numerous adult plaintiffs filed child sexual abuse claims in state and federal courts in Maryland. Their claims of having been victims of sex abuse when they were minors had been time-barred before October 1, 2023.

The high court addressed three cases where lower courts had dismissed constitutional challenges to the CVA by institutions being sued for alleged child sexual abuse. The challenges were brought by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. which includes five counties in Maryland; The Key School, Inc., a private school in Annapolis; and the Harford County board of education.

The parties agreed…

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[See also the decision of the Maryland Supreme Court.]

The Maryland Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Child Victims Act is constitutional, notching a huge victory for survivors of childhood sexual assault.

The ruling allows thousands of civil court cases filed against individuals and institutions to continue after being put on hold for more than a year.

“This is a historic victory for survivors to affirm their right to have their voices heard in court,” said Robert Jenner, a managing partner at Jenner Law, who represents victims. “It sends a strong message to institutions that they can no longer rely on procedural loopholes to escape accountability.”

The Child Victims Act allows survivors of childhood abuse to sue their alleged abusers at any time after an incident. Previously there was a time limit for those who wanted to sue.

“My journey began in 2002 when what happened to…

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[See also the decision of the Maryland Supreme Court.]

Maryland’s high court this week upheld a sweeping state law that lifts the deadline for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue the institutions that enabled their harm.

With a 4-3 vote, the justices deemed constitutional the Child Victims Act, clearing one last obstacle for adult survivors to take their claims to the courts. The ruling has implications for churches, schools and government agencies. Survivors and plaintiffs’ attorneys were celebrating the decision on Tuesday. Here’s what you need to know.

Decision examined a word: ‘repose’

Maryland law has long had a statute of limitations that set a deadline for adults to sue institutions over the abuse they suffered as children. Lawmakers extended that deadline in 2017 and added seemingly innocuous language to the law: “statute of repose.” This was an obscure legal principle that had otherwise been…

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[See also the decision of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.]

Exceptions must be made for organizational cover-ups of abuse and for survivors facing threats of retaliation.

With respect to the Jan. 29 article “Maine supreme court rules 2021 child sex abuse law is unconstitutional,” I am glad to have received a factual, detailed and timely representation on the crucial issue of filing lawsuits against sex abusers in Maine. After reading, I find myself concerned with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s decision to reinstate the statute of limitations on child sex abuse.

Maine Supreme Judicial Court rulings are important to the people of Maine. The decisions made by our judicial leaders can affect the everyday lives of ourselves and our community members, depict the overall attitudes held by our governing bodies and allow us to make predictions of what may be to come.

In particular, statutes of limitations surrounding sex…

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[See also the decision of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.]

Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s decision to reinstate the statute of limitations on child sex abuse

“I remember details,” Frank said, flipping through old photographs of his younger self.

But at his home in Augusta, he tells us that for most of his life, he’s been trying to forget.

“I lost my soul—I lost my morals—I didn’t care anymore,” he said.

So, filing a lawsuit against the Special Olympics of Maine was a difficult decision.

That decision reignited memories that still physically shook him to his core.

The lawsuit alleges that Melvin “Mickey” Boutilier, the founder of Special Olympics Maine, started abusing Frank when he was a child in the 1960s and continued for decades while he worked for the program.

“I never want Special Olympics to be hurt by this,” Frank said. “Please, anyone who watches this—the program itself…

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The Archdiocese of Luxembourg announced the end of its collaboration with the Verbum Spei fraternity, which had been established there since 2016. The reason: a relationship between a priest and a student, revealing the persistence of a system of control and concealment within this dissident community of the Brothers of Saint John.

“An ongoing attachment (…) to the person and teachings of Father Marie-Dominique Philippe.” This was one of the reasons cited by the Archdiocese of Luxembourg in a statement January 31 announcing the immediate termination of its collaboration with the Verbum Spei fraternity.

Originating from dissidents of the Brothers of Saint John

Verbum Spei, which is mostly composed of French members but almost unknown in France, was founded in 2012 in Mexico by dissidents from the Saint John community who sought to remain faithful to its founder, Dominican Father Marie-Dominique Philippe (1912–2006). Philippe, however, had been severely criticized for his…

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[See also the transcript of Judge Warshaw’s decision.]

The Catholic Diocese of Camden challenged use of a special grand jury for the investigation

New details have emerged about secretive court proceedings that have allowed the Catholic Church to delay a state investigation into sex abuse allegations.

The Catholic Diocese of Camden was able to shut down part of the investigation at a secret court hearing roughly two years ago, according to court documents first obtained by NorthJersey.com.

The diocese challenged the state’s authority to use a special grand jury for the investigation, which was supposed to end with an extensive report detailing individual abusers, their actions and any broader cover-up by the church. A judge sided with the diocese and agreed to seal the ruling at the request of the church, writing that special grand juries investigate public officials or government agencies, not private institutions like churches.

…

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A former priest who is currently in prison for historic sex abuse is listed to appear in court again today (Thursday)  facing 16 similar allegations.  

Dennis Finbow, 76, of HMP Bure in Norwich, faces charges of indecent assault on girls and boys as young as eight years old in the 1980s.  

Eight charges are for indecent assault on a girl under the age of 14; three are for indecent assault on a girl under the age of 16; and five for an indecent assault on a boy.

Fourteen incidents are alleged to have happened in Peterborough, one in St Neots and one in Windsor, Berkshire. 

Finbow, who previously served in the parishes of Peterborough and St Neots, is listed to appear at Cambridge Magistrates’ Court this afternoon. 

In December, he had his clerical status and rights removed by His Holiness Pope Francis. 

Finbow was handed a prison sentence of six…

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The rule of law must prevail so that the child victims can have justice, freedom, and a good happy life

Philippine Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David has reacted to the allegations by a US-based non-government organization that researches and documents clergy that are credibly accused, charged, and convicted of child sexual abuse internationally.

His words are very welcome to defenders of child rights who campaign for justice for victims of child exploitation and abuse.

It is the first time that we have heard a Philippine cardinal encourage the laity to assist child victims in filing criminal charges in civil courts against abusive priests.

David, who is the bishop of Kalookan and now president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), is a human rights defender who stood up against former president Rodrigo Duterte in defense of victims of summary executions and their families.

Now, he…

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Spokane Bishop Thomas Daly is urging Catholic voters in Washington state to oppose a proposed law that would order priests to violate the seal of confession in cases where child abuse is revealed during the sacrament. 

The bill, proposed in both houses of the state Legislature, would amend state law to require clergy to report instances of child abuse with no exemption for instances where the abuse is learned during the sacrament of penance. 

A 2023 version of the proposal offered an exemption for abuse allegations learned “solely as a result of a confession.” The latest bill does not contain such a carve-out.

State Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, told the Washington State Standard that the proposal was “a hard subject for many of my colleagues, especially those with deep religious views.”

“I also know far too many children have been victims of abuse —…

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In a blow for clergy sex abuse victims, the New Jersey State Supreme Court has ruled that a Catholic archdiocese’s accountability for an alleged predatory priest does not cross state lines.

The decision arose from the case of an Illinois man who accused Michael J. McCarthy, a priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1965 until he was defrocked in 2006, of molesting him during an overnight stay in Margate in 1971, when he was 14 and a member of McCarthy’s parish.

The man, identified only as D.T. in court paperwork, sued the archdiocese in May 2020 in New Jersey, one year after state legislators here enacted the New Jersey Child Victims Act.

That law created a two-year window, from 2019 to 2021, to allow people to revive previously time-barred civil claims arising from childhood sexual abuse. Thereafter, under the law, victims can sue for childhood abuse before…

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The archbishop of New Orleans’ Catholic Church denies he ousted top leadership at a church-affiliated food bank in Louisiana for refusing to redirect millions of dollars to support clergy sexual abuse settlements, according to a video statement he published this week.

Two fired board members have issued statements saying they were removed last week by Archbishop Gregory Aymond of the Archdiocese of New Orleans after resisting pressure to channel as much as $16 million to support the church’s long-running bankruptcy negotiations with hundreds of sexual abuse survivors.

The Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana says that it provides upwards of 39 million pounds of food and groceries to hundreds of thousands of families across South Louisiana annually.

CEO Natalie Jayroe, who led the organization for 19 years before being fired, “resolutely refused to reallocate donor funds that are solely intended to help alleviate hunger and food insecurity in…

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[See also the transcript of Judge Warshaw’s decision.]

It was a court fight waged quietly behind closed doors for more than six years.

Motions were argued before a judge in Trenton and filed under seal. An appellate panel reaffirmed the lower court decision, that record was hidden as well from the public. Now the Supreme Court has it.

At stake could be some of the darkest secrets of the Catholic Church.

But a series of cryptic court filings that have tracked the case docket over time, along with what had been a sealed transcript first reported Wednesday by NorthJersey.com, tell a story that no one — not the lawyers involved, the prosecutors, nor those directly affected by what may yet be decided — was ever allowed to talk about.

It’s the story of a prolonged fight by a diocese to stop the state’s effort to…

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[See also the transcript of Judge Warshaw’s decision.]

When New Jersey’s attorney general announced an investigation into decades of alleged sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, survivors in the state hoped they would finally see the public reckoning they had long sought.

Nearly seven years have passed since then, but there’s been little sign the Attorney General’s Office is close to finishing the probe. The agency has been tight-lipped about its progress, if any, despite receiving hundreds of tips from alleged victims.

Court documents obtained by The Record and NorthJersey.com offer one explanation for the delay: One of New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses succeeded in quashing a key part of the investigation at a secret hearing almost two years ago.

Those documents, which have not been publicly reported before, show that the Diocese of Camden challenged the state’s authority to empanel a special grand jury to lead the…

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An international online database of clergy who face allegations or have been convicted of child sexual abuse launched its Philippine listing Jan. 29, drawing a sharp response from the Philippine bishops’ conference, which reiterated the need for efforts to hold the church accountable for abuse.

The BishopAccountability.org’s new listing names 82 priests and bishops who are either Philippine nationals or foreign nationals and have faced or are facing allegations either in the Philippines or the United States, and sometimes in both countries. The listing of each accused individual is based on a compilation of media reports, court documents and/or statements from dioceses and religious orders.

Anne Barrett Doyle, a director of BishopAccountability, pointed out that there have been no

convictions among the clergy who had substantiated allegations against them. While attending a conference hosted by Ending Clergy Abuse, an international network of clergy abuse survivors’ groups in Quezon City in…

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The Anglican Church leadership in South Africa has admitted to failing to disclose sexual abuse allegations against its former member John Smyth, who mistreated children in the 1970s and 1980s in the U.K. and Zimbabwe before fleeing to South Africa, where he died in 2018.

In November, an independent review found the Church of England covered up “horrific” abuse by Smyth, who volunteered at Christian summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s.

A South African panel, headed by a retired judge, released its own report Tuesday in which it said the Anglican Church should have reported Smyth, even though there was no evidence that he had committed similar abuses in the country. Nevertheless, the risk that he would reoffend was high, the panel found.

Smyth fled to South Africa in 2001, where he worked in parishes until 2014.

The head of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa said the report found that…

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Maryland’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld the constitutionality of a state law that ended the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse lawsuits following a report that exposed widespread wrongdoing within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The court upheld the 2023 law in a 4-3 ruling, saying the Maryland General Assembly had the authority to change the law as it did, after hearing arguments in September.

Opposition over the law’s constitutionality focused on an earlier 2017 law that established a cutoff age of 38 for victims to sue. The justices considered whether it was written in a way that permanently protected certain defendants from liability. The court concluded that the Maryland Legislature has the power to change such a statute, which it did in passing the 2023 law.

In the court’s majority ruling, written by Maryland Chief Justice Matthew Fader, justices decided that the relevant portion of the 2017 law created a…

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When Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned in November over his failure to report a serial child abuser in his own denomination, the drastic step, it was thought, would preserve the Church of England’s ability to discipline its clergy in other cases of abuse — and its moral authority overall.

Before Welby could leave office, however, the bishop of York, who was to run the Church of England in the interim, was hit with questions about his own management of abuse, and on Jan. 28, the bishop of Liverpool resigned after being accused of making unwelcome sexual advances. (He denies the allegations, saying he resigned so as not to be “a distraction.”)

While the clergy sexual abuse crisis has most famously struck the Catholic Church, every faith tradition and every kind of clergy (though mostly male) have been implicated: celibate monks and Protestant ministers who are family men….

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Some of the most conservative media outlets covering Christianity in America are skewering the Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board for its policy of communication by obfuscation.

Protestia represents the far-far right of American evangelicalism. The latest headline at the online publication screams, “NAMB Disputes Johnny Hunt’s $610K/Year Salary Claim In the Most Secretive, Stupid Way Possible.”

The Baptist Report is an anonymously sourced online journal reporting on the inner workings of the SBC. Its headline is comparatively toned down: “NAMB Responds to Reports It Allegedly Paid Johnny Hunt a $610K Salary — Sort Of.”

And Church Leaders took a more understated approach with its headline: “NAMB Responds to ‘Some Speculation Online’ About Executives’ Salaries Following Johnny Hunt’s Claim of $610K in Annual Earnings.”

As BNG previously reported, the former executive vice president at NAMB — who was felled by a sexual abuse scandal — claims in court filings to have been…

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Closing the first-ever International Summit on Children’s Rights, the Pope stresses that children around the world “are watching us to see how we move forward in life.”

February 3, 2025 was a day dedicated to children. The Vatican held its first-ever International Summit on Children’s Rights in the Apostolic Palace with the presence of Pope Francis, advocates, and heads of NGOs.

Speakers from all over the world came to discuss the global crisis of millions of children without basic human rights. The message that rang throughout the Summit was that “nothing is worth more than the life of a child.”

An Apostolic Exhortation dedicated to children

In a world marked by poverty, war, lack of education, and exploitation, children everywhere face injustice and vulnerabilities. Pope Francis expressed his gratitude to all the participants and speakers for making “the rooms of the Apostolic Palace an ‘observatory’ focused on the reality of…

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On January 24, 2025, Nicholas Wagner was arrested in Vero Beach, FL, for allegedly exposing himself to a teenage girl at a park. According to media reports, the Vero Beach Police Department confirmed that the incident occurred on January 10, 2025, at South Beach Park near a Pavilion. The victim told police that a strange man walked by her and her friend while they were handing out religious materials near the pavilions. They claim the man was pacing nervously, fidgeting with vending machines, and talking to himself. After several minutes, Wagner walked into a nearby restroom and remained there for a long time. When he finally exited, the victim claims he stood in the doorway of the restroom—fully exposed—locking eyes with the young girl and making no attempt to cover himself. The man then walked to the parking lot, got into a blue SUV, and fled the area. The victim’s friend took several photos of the man and…

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Roger Goodell speaks as emails detail how team helped to spin coverage of clergy sexual abuse scandal

The NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, said the New Orleans Saints “are great corporate citizens” despite revelations in unearthed emails detailing how the football team’s owner and other top executives coordinated with the city’s Roman Catholic archdiocese in a campaign to soften media coverage of a decades-old clergy-abuse scandal engulfing the church.

The Saints owner, Gayle Benson, and other key lieutenants “are very involved in this community, and they are great corporate citizens”, Goodell said after media outlets provided the most complete accounts yet detailing the team’s decision to help the New Orleans church’s messaging about a scandal that has prompted state police and federal agents to jointly open a child sex-trafficking investigation into the archdiocese.

Goodell’s comments came after being asked about the correspondence between the Saints and the church at a news conference…

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The New Orleans Saints NFL team is denying that any members of its organization had input into, or oversight of, a list of credibly accused clergy in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, with the denial coming amid a media controversy over the football team’s role in helping the archdiocese manage the fallout from the abuse scandal.

A media firestorm erupted this week after leaked emails showed the extent of the Saints’ involvement in offering the archdiocese public relations help amid its reckoning with the clergy abuse crisis.

Saints owner Gayle Benson, herself a Catholic, had previously acknowledged in 2020 that team spokesman Greg Bensel had helped the archdiocese prepare for the 2018 release of its credibly accused clergy list. 

Benson said at the time that Bensel had urged the archdiocese to “be honest, complete, and transparent” and “own the past wrongs and find a solution to correct them,”…

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Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOPKC) groomed and sexually abused 17 women, some of whom were minors, according to an independent investigation released tonight. In some cases, the abuse constituted rape, the investigation found.

“Throughout the investigation, we have identified and interviewed seventeen (17) Survivors who were either sexually abused or experienced sexually abusive misconduct, including sexual abuse, rape, clergy abuse, and spiritual abuse, perpetrated by BICKLE beginning to our knowledge in the mid-1970s,” stated the report by Firefly Independent Sexual Abuse Investigations. “These acts of abuse have had profound and lasting impacts on the lives of the victims, causing significant emotional, psychological, and spiritual harm.”

Bickle and his Executive Leadership Team (ELT) also responded to reports of sexual abuse with “deliberate indifference” and discouraged victims from involving law enforcement, the report added.

“This indifference not only exacerbated the trauma experienced by the…

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A newly released report on abuse at the International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC) found that leaders at the 24/7 prayer ministry “shielded perpetrators and minimized victims” in what was a “systemic” leadership failure.

As reported yesterday by The Roys Report (TRR), the investigative report also found that IHOPKC Founder Mike Bickle sexually abused 17 women, including minors, and the abuse included rape.

The report is the result of a months-long investigation by Firefly, which was commissioned by the Messianic Jewish network Tikkun Global. In addition to Bickle, survivors also accused 16 other IHOPKC staff of sexual misconduct, the report said. The report did not name the other accused staff.

Firefly stated in the report that high-level leaders knew of the allegations but “shielded perpetrators” from legal accountability, allowing many to continue to work there.

It added that “certain members of the ELT (Executive Leadership Team) at IHOPKC were more focused on…

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A 2020 lawsuit first revealed the New Orleans Saints‘ involvement in the New Orleans Archdiocese’s crisis management response to a sex-abuse scandal. At the time, the team stated its collaboration was “minimal” and that the archdiocese had reached out to request PR assistance.

New emails revealed that the Saints were not only more involved than what was previously believed, but that people in the organization were the initiators of the correspondence and resulting collaboration.

Investigations by the New York Times and Associated Press uncovered more than 300 emails related to the Saints’ involvement in the church’s response to sexual abuse accusations against the New Orleans Archdiocese. The emails, which were revealed in a 2019 subpoena, and their contents had remained private until now.

Saints’ emails reveal different story than their initial claims

Among the first of those emails, according to the Times, was…

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The child told their mother that then-Pastor Timothy Nall touched the child “all over.” The child said they were scared of him, the document said.

Arrest documents allege an East Texas pastor accused of sexually assault would bring the young child into his church office and touch them inappropriately. 

Timothy Daniel Nall, 69, of Holly Lake Ranch, was arrested by Tyler Police Department Saturday for a warrant for a sexual assault of a child charge out of Wood County. He was previously the full-time pastor at Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church in Mineola. 

According to an arrest affidavit, the reported sexual assault of a child happened in fall of 2022 at the church. Parents of the child told investigators they noticed strange behavior at home starting in the fall of 2022.

In counseling sessions, the child mentioned “a bad guy who touches her belly” and the child referenced getting candy from…

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The Paris prosecutor said Tuesday it cannot investigate allegations by several women who said they were sexually assaulted or harassed by Abbé Pierre, a nationally revered priest and humanitarian crusader who died in 2007.

The allegations against him first surfaced last year and were detailed in an internal report by Abbé Pierre’s foundations. The French Catholic Church last month asked prosecutors to initiate an investigation, saying it wanted to uncover the full extent of the abuse, any other victims and any systemic cover-up.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said Tuesday that it looked into legal options, but that Abbé Pierre’s death makes it impossible to open an investigation into his past actions.

It also studied whether to investigate those who covered up or failed to report the abuse allegations, but because of statute of limitations, no investigation is possible.

Abbé Pierre was a French Catholic priest renowned for his dedication to…

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An in-depth report released today by Ramon Antonio Vargas of the Guardian and David Hammer of WWL Louisiana revealed that high-level executives with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints football team and the NBA’s Pelicans basketball team had a deeper role than previously known in connection with the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ list of “credibly accused” clergymen. SNAP is certainly not surprised by these revelations.

When powerful institutions get together to hide something, the weak and vulnerable are inevitably the ones who are harmed. The news that two professional sports teams coordinated with the Archdiocese of New Orleans to apparently hide the names of abusers should signal that the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is more widespread and insidious than anyone could possibly imagine. 

Sports are interwoven into the fabric of American life. Professional basketball and football franchises are valued at billions of dollars. Even though it…

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The New Orleans Saints are under fire this week for the team’s involvement in the alleged cover-up and public-relations spin of the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal, according to new reports. As the sports world descends on New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX, questions are mounting for the team and the NFL.

New emails revealed by the Associated Press, WWLTV and others show that the Saints front office was in regular communication with the local Archdiocese as the scandal in New Orleans unfolded. The team had claimed before this new revelation that their efforts in the cover-up and spinning of the scandal were minimal.

However, emails seem to show that the team had a year-long involvement in the situation, coaching the church on how to respond publicly and even seeming to sympathize with some in the church for having to deal with the issue.

In addition —…

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In a country where abuse and neglect remain grim realities for too many children, places like the Sunflower center offer something rare: another chance

Jun was 9 years old when he arrived at a boys’ shelter in Baguio City in 2012, his body marked with burns and scars from years of abuse inflicted by his stepfather, who had also been accused of sexually assaulting his younger sister. 

When authorities intervened, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) moved the siblings from a Cordillera province to the city for their safety. His sister was taken to the DSWD’s shelter and Jun, to the halfway home for boys. 

After he spoke with social workers and counselors, he opened up about his experiences and showed them marks on his young skin that had yet to heal. 

Once, he recalled, he was put in charge of breakfast. It was very early, so while…

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Clergy abuse survivors and their supporters express pain over sports officials’ efforts to soften coverage of scandal

Clergy abuse survivors and their supporters expressed disgust, pain and disbelief after the Guardian and WWL Louisiana’s investigation on Monday into hundreds of emails showing officials with the NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans aided New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese efforts to soften critical media coverage about the church’s management of a clerical molestation scandal.

Richard Windmann said it was “disturbing” to see the emails mention his decision to go public about his abuse as a child at the hands of a priest and janitor at Jesuit high school in New Orleans in the 1970s.

In 2012, after he came forward about his abuse, the religious order which runs Jesuit deemed Windmann credible and paid him $450,000 to quietly settle out of court. But after media coverage about a local, abusive deacon and a Pennsylvania grand…

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When New Orleans church leaders prepared to publish a list of predatory Catholic priests, they turned to a well-oiled public relations machine: the city’s NFL franchise.

What came next was a crisis-communications blitz orchestrated by the New Orleans Saints’ president and other top team officials, according to hundreds of internal emails obtained by The Associated Press.

The emails show team executives played a more extensive role than previously known in a public relations campaign to mitigate fallout from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. And they shed new light on a behind-the-scenes effort driven by the team’s devoutly Catholic owner, a close friend of the city’s embattled archbishop.

Here are some key takeaways from the emails, which the team for years sought to keep secret:

Saints executives helped church in PR effort

Team executives were so closely involved in the church’s damage control efforts that a Saints spokesman briefed his…

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After a U.S abuse watchdog slammed the Philippines’ bishops for not taking action against clergy accused of sexual abuse, Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David urged Filipino Catholics to report priests accused of misconduct to both Church and civil authorities.

Days after BishopsAccountability.org on Jan. 29 launched its Philippines database, which lists 82 priests and brothers publicly accused of abusing minors, David insisted the country’s Catholics must report “erring priests.” 

“Please don’t hesitate to file complaints against abusive clerics whether in the civil or Church forums,” David insisted in a Jan. 31 statement. “[Pope Francis] has been insistent on putting up structures of check and balance and accountability to prevent past mistakes from happening again.”

David conceded the Church is “not always successful” in keeping accused clergy accountable and needs “the help and participation of our laypeople, including our professional journalists” to protect minors and vulnerable adults from…

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[See also the media statement by James C. Gulotta, Jr. on behalf of Gayle Benson, Dennis Lauscha, Greg Bensel, and the New Orleans Louisiana Saints.]

The New Orleans Saints have responded to the release of internal emails detailing their involvement in the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ public relations efforts amid the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

In a statement, the team denied any role in shaping the list of credibly accused priests and criticized the media’s handling of the leaked correspondence.

The emails, obtained by the Associated Press, show that Saints executives, including team president Dennis Lauscha and senior vice president of communications Greg Bensel, provided strategic communications support to the Archdiocese in 2018.

The records suggest that Bensel coordinated messaging, drafted talking points for Archbishop Gregory Aymond, and advised on handling media inquiries. One email also indicated that the Saints’ PR team was informed of discussions with…

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Efforts to shape narrative pulled in or targeted government officials, local media figures

A number of locally influential civic figures and organizations are involved in emails showing how top officials at the NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans closely coordinated with New Orleans’ Roman Catholic church in a campaign to soften media coverage of a decades-old clergy-abuse scandal in their city.

The Saints and Pelicans as well as the church fought in court to keep the emails hidden from the public. One of the primary justifications cited in favor of keeping the emails confidential was to protect the identities of clergy-abuse victims. Yet none of more than 700 pages of emails reviewed by the Guardian and reporting partner WWL Louisiana named any such victims.

Here is a look at some of those people present in the so-called Saints emails.

US district judge Jay Zainey

Like the Saints and Pelicans owner, Gayle Benson,…

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A bombshell new report from NYT details the involvement of the New Orleans Saints’ office in “crisis communications” for the religious institution.

The sexual-assault crisis within Holy Mother Church continues to reverberate. But, I admit, on my Catholic Church Sex Scandal bingo card, I didn’t have deep involvement by a National Football League franchise, much less the one named after our glorious canonized dead. But, then again, this is Louisiana, so anything’s possible. From The New York Times:

So in July 2018, when Greg Bensel, the Saints’ head of communications, saw a local news story revealing that a former deacon who had been removed from the ministry after abuse accusations was serving in a public role at a local church, he sent an email to Ms. Benson. “The issues that the Archbishop has to deal with that never involve him,” Mr. Bensel wrote. In reply, Ms….

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Hundreds of newly disclosed emails between the New Orleans Saints and the Archdiocese of New Orleans detail the extent to which two of the team’s top executives helped to shape the church’s public relations strategy around the clergy sex abuse crisis as the scandal was coming to light six years ago.

The emails, which were obtained by WWL Louisiana, The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Guardian, center on crisis communications advice officials with the Saints organization gave Archbishop Gregory Aymond in 2018, as he was preparing to release a list of priests and deacons accused of sexually abusing children.

Aymond’s release of that list, which originally contained 67 names and has grown to more than 80, and the ensuing flood of claims, eventually led the archdiocese to file for federal bankruptcy protection in May 2020.

Since then, more than 550 abuse survivors have filed claims…

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The Saints, whose owner is friends with New Orleans’s archbishop, fought for years to keep the emails secret.

Hundreds of internal emails obtained by The Washington Post on Monday shed new light on the role New Orleans Saints executives played in helping the city’s Catholic church leaders deal with the fallout of a sex abuse crisis years ago.

In one 2018 email, sent the night before the Archdiocese of New Orleans released a list of former clergy accused of sex crimes, Saints vice president of communications Greg Bensel wrote of a call with a local prosecutor that “allowed us to take certain people off the list.”

For years, Saints officials have denied allegations by lawyers for victims that team officials had input on the list of accused clergy, produced amid a sex abuse crisis that sent the archdiocese into bankruptcy proceedings.

On Monday, Bensel deferred questions from The Post to…

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[Includes a video excerpt from the BishopAccountability.org press conference, also available on YouTube.]

The Jan. 29 launch of BishopAccountability.org’s database listing at least 82 priests who have been charged or accused of child sexual abuse in the Philippines has made international news. The United States-based child-protection organization behind the site is headed by Anne Barrett Doyle and Suzy Nauman, who have called for an end to bishops’ tolerance and coverup of clerical child abuse and of greater care and help for victims and survivors.

News of the database hit two days before the opening of a conference called “Zero Tolerance Philippines Summit 2025.” It was organized by the Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA), a worldwide coalition of survivors’ groups in 25 countries dedicated to working for greater transparency and accountability for all, especially bishops, to end the systematic abuse of children in dioceses where this exists. The group demands that…

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The Guardian and WWL Louisiana have obtained emails showing how top officials at the NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans spent a year collaborating with New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese as the organizations sought to soften media coverage about the church’s management of a decades-old clergy-abuse scandal in their city.

An investigation of the emails shows how the communications call into question statements made over the last five years by the Louisiana billionaire Gayle Benson’s two professional sports franchises that sought to minimize their role in trying to help the church deal with the scandal’s fallout once they got involved in the summer of 2018. Nonetheless, in a lengthy statement from a team attorney on Saturday, the Saints insisted they had accurately portrayed their involvement.

Below is a summary of key points made in the lengthy report that WWL Louisiana and the Guardian published after an extensive review of the emails in…

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Excerpts from emails in which officials from the sports teams tried to finesse coverage of a clergy-abuse scandal

What they said

Greg Bensel, our senior vice president of communications, was asked if he would help the Archdiocese prepare for the media relative to the release of clergy names involved in the abuse scandal.

– Gayle Benson statement, 10 February 2020

What the emails said

I like Sarah – his PR person a lot – but if he ever wants to chat crisis communications – with him and Sarah – we have been through enough at Saints to be a help or sounding board – but I don’t want to overstep!

– Greg Bensel email to Gayle Benson, 8 July 2018, referring to Archbishop Gregory Aymond and his archdiocese’s in-house spokesperson, Sarah McDonald. This was four months before the list was released

Thank you Greg, I will pass this…

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RECENTLY, an American group that apparently has taken upon itself the task of “avenging angel” for the victims of clerical misconduct, particularly the molestation of minors, took the Philippine bishops to task “for refusing to be accountable.”

Alleging that priests who had been charged with offenses involving minors were either reassigned to other parishes or, worse, returned to the same environment within which the offenses were alleged to have been committed. This allegation — not the first time it is made, to be sure, but revived every time the Catholic Church is targeted for attack because of the positions it takes or its advocacies — begs the question: To whom should bishops be accountable?

In the theology of the Church, bishops head “local churches” — dioceses or archdioceses. They are the agents as well as the representatives of the hierarchically organized community called the Catholic Church. If this theological point…

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The Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) and DDB Group Philippines were honored with a Gold Anvil Award at the prestigious 60th Anvil Awards for their impactful short films highlighting the issue of Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children (OSAEC). The award, presented in the Public Relations Programs – Cause Related/Public Awareness/Advocacy category, recognizes exceptional campaigns that raise awareness, foster positive change, and inspire action for critical social causes. Presented annually by the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP), the Anvil Awards is regarded as the “Oscars of PR” in the country.

PCW Chairperson Ermelita Valdeavilla expressed her gratitude for the recognition, emphasizing its broader significance, saying: “This award is more than a milestone for PCW and DDB Group Philippines—it is a victory for every child whose voice has been silenced. While we are honored by this recognition, our commitment extends beyond this accolade. It is crucial that we…

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A trove of emails shows the team’s leadership using their influence in New Orleans to aid the archdiocese, including writing talking points for media interviews.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans was facing a crisis. A sex-abuse scandal was bursting into public view, sending shock waves through the heavily Catholic city.

Leaders of one of New Orleans’ other major institutions, the N.F.L.’s New Orleans Saints, were concerned. Gayle Benson, the team’s owner, is a devout Catholic, major church benefactor and close friend of Archbishop Gregory Aymond.

So in July 2018, when Greg Bensel, the Saints’ head of communications, saw a local news story revealing that a former deacon who had been removed from the ministry after abuse accusations was serving in a public role at a local church, he sent an email to Ms. Benson.

“The issues that the Archbishop has to deal with that never involve him,” Mr….

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Sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the Philippines has drawn renewed scrutiny following the January 2025 release of a database by the US-based watchdog BishopAccountability.org, which identified 82 clergymen—including 34 Filipino and foreign priests accused of abusing minors in the country—linked to cases spanning decades. The allegations range from exploitation, child abuse and rape, often involving victims closely associated with the clergy, such as altar servers or parishioners. While the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines established an Office for the Safeguarding of Minors to address complaints and report to the Vatican, critics argue systemic failures persist, including bishops’ historical silence, repatriation of accused priests to evade prosecution abroad and reliance on internal ecclesiastical processes over criminal accountability. Survivors and advocates highlight the enduring trauma faced by victims, contrasting sharply with the lack of convictions and the reintegration of some accused priests into ministry after canonical reviews. This ongoing crisis…

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Unearthed emails detail how the sports franchises’ owner and PR team counseled archdiocese on how to respond to unfolding clergy-abuse case

High-level executives with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints football team and the NBA’s Pelicans basketball team had a deeper role than previously known in connection with a list of priests and deacons faced with credible allegations of child molestation while the clergymen worked with their city’s Roman Catholic archdiocese, the Guardian and reporting partner WWL Louisiana can reveal.

According to highly sensitive emails that were obtained by the outlets, one top executive even described a conversation with the New Orleans district attorney at the time that allowed them to remove clergy names from the list – though the clubs deny their official participated in that discussion, and the prosecutor back then vehemently denies he would ever have weighed in on the list’s content.

The emails call into question prior and newly issued…

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Efforts to shape narrative pulled in or targeted government officials, local media figures

A number of locally influential, outside civic figures and organizations are involved in emails showing how top officials at the NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans closely coordinated with New Orleans’ Roman Catholic church in a campaign to soften media coverage of a decades-old clergy-abuse scandal.

The Saints and Pelicans as well as the church fought in court to keep the emails hidden from the public. One of the primary justifications cited in favor of keeping the emails confidential was to protect the identities of clergy-abuse victims. Yet none of more than 700 pages of emails reviewed by WWL Louisiana and reporting partner the Guardian named any such victims.

Here is a look at some of those people present in the so-called Saints emails.

US District Judge Jay Zainey

Like Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson, Jay Zainey…

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Groups acting on behalf of abuse victims have urged Britain’s Catholic Church to speak up on a case that sent shockwaves throughout the United Kingdom and respond to fresh claims about the mass rape of children by mostly Muslim “grooming gangs,” being attentive to victims that may come from their communities.

Campaigners are shocked by the lack of accountability for state officials who ignored the abuse and disappointed by the church’s silence on the issue.

Advocates like Timothy Dieppe and Antonia Sobocki stress that victims are turning to the church for help and that church leaders must speak out against these abuses, regardless of the cultural sensitivities involved.

“When something like this happens, it’s an affront to everyone’s human dignity, and those engulfed by this pandemic of sexual abuse need the church now more than ever,” said Antonia Sobocki, Catholic director of the British-based LOUDFence organisation.

“The job of church leaders isn’t…

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As New Orleans church leaders braced for the fallout from publishing a list of predatory Catholic priests, they turned to an unlikely ally: the front office of the city’s NFL franchise.

What followed was a months-long, crisis-communications blitz orchestrated by the New Orleans Saints’ president and other top team officials, according to hundreds of internal emails obtained by The Associated Press.

The records, which the Saints and church had long sought to keep out of public view, reveal team executives played a more extensive role than previously known in a public relations campaign to mitigate fallout from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The emails shed new light on the Saints’ foray into a fraught topic far from the gridiron, a behind-the-scenes effort driven by the team’s devoutly Catholic owner who has long enjoyed a close relationship with the city’s embattled archbishop.

They also showed how various New Orleans…

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Poverty, slow legal system worsen plight for victims of clergy sexual abuse, conference told

Victims of sexual abuse committed by the clergy in the Philippines urgently need shelter and protection to withstand pressure to settle or abandon criminal cases against offending priests, activists said at the start of a three-day “Zero Tolerance” conference. 

Poverty and the slow pace of the legal system threaten survivors’ search for justice, according to representatives of the People’s Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance (Preda) Foundation, a non-government organization that seeks to protect and rescue children from sexual abuse. 

Preda president Francis Bermido Jr. and founder and Columban Father Shay Cullen were speaking on the first day of the Zero Tolerance Abuse Philippines 2025 conference, organized by the Ending Abuse Global (ECA) coalition. 

The conference opened two days after Massachusetts-based abuse watchdog BishopAccountability.org released its first-ever database of priests accused…

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The head of the Philippines bishops’ conference urged Catholics on Friday to report sexual abuse to civil or ecclesiastical authorities, after a victims’ advocacy group published reports of abuse against clergy and religious in the country this week.

While the cardinal’s remarks were meant to demonstrate a commitment to addressing clerical sexual abuse, they are likely to spark controversy among victims’ advocates, who say that ecclesiastical officials should urge potential cases always be reported directly to law enforcement.

In a Jan. 31 statement, Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David also asked Filipinos to help bring abuse perpetrators to justice, adding that this would support Pope Francis’ vision of synodality in the Catholic Church.

“We welcome initiatives intended to hold people in whatever form of authority accountable, including the Church. This is part of the pope’s call for a more synodal Church. The Church, being a human institution, is not exempt from sin…

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North Carolina’s highest court has upheld a law that gave adult victims of child sexual abuse two additional years to seek civil damages

North Carolina’s highest court upheld on Friday a law that gave adult victims of child sexual abuse two additional years to seek civil damages, rejecting arguments that the temporary window violated constitutional protections for those facing claims that otherwise could no longer be pursued in court.

In a case involving a local school board sued by three former students years after an ex-high school coach was convicted of crimes against team members, the state Supreme Court ruled the General Assembly was able to enact a key provision within the 2019 SAFE Child Act that was also signed by then-Gov. Roy Cooper.

Before the law, victims of sexual abuse before age 18 effectively had until turning 21 to file such civil claims against perpetrators. Now such victims have…

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THE public must appreciate that Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, in his Jan. 30, 2025 statement, acknowledges that sexual abuses of some priests against minors “wound the Catholic faith” and the Church is “fully committed to support the survivors and their families.”

The victims and their families need a lot more than that and they want to know about it from the church leader.

• Aside from assurance of spiritual healing — as the Lord “heals the broken-hearted and binds their wounds” — the Church can compensate materially the survivors and help in their rehabilitation, without the force of litigation.
• Turn into concrete the promise of support for the abused children and their families “to be heard and get justice” by adopting a plain and clear process, marked by an efficient system of reporting the abuse and the action on it, whether within the Church or before government prosecutors and the courts.
• Other than…

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Dr. Rene Obra said survivors often develop coping mechanisms, such as pathological lying and poor anger management.

Victims need professional legal, medical and psychological support to regain their well-being, according to Obra, former chief of the Center for Behavioral Sciences of Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.

“They need people who can understand their problem, empathize with them and help restore their physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being,” he told SunStar in text message Friday, Jan. 31, 2025.

SunStar interviewed Obra after BishopAccountability.org, a United States-based group that monitors abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, released on Wednesday, Jan. 29, a list of 82 priests linked to dioceses in Visayas and Mindano who were accused of sexually abusing female and male minors.

Obra said these cases could be just the “tip of the iceberg,” with many more likely unreported.

He pointed out that the issue is not exclusive to Catholic clergy…

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A school disciplinary task force detailed investigators’ findings and recommendations in a 2019 letter to Joseph Reilly, saying he should no longer hold a leadership role.

The new president of Seton Hall University was told in writing more than five years ago that he violated federal Title IX policies on sexual abuse reporting and that he should no longer hold the leadership positions he held at the time.

In internal documents being published for the first time by POLITICO, a special task force formed by the university to carry out disciplinary actions detailed investigators’ findings and recommendations against Monsignor Joseph Reilly in 2019. Reilly, then a high-ranking seminary leader and member of university boards, was not accused of abuse but investigators determined he did not properly report sexual misconduct allegations from 2012.

Reilly acknowledged those findings in November 2019 and,…

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For the first time ever, leading experts gathered in a landmark three-day public summit to confront the issue of child sexual abuse and cover-ups by clergy on Jan. 31, 2025. The event featured the Philippines’ foremost authorities on the Catholic abuse crisis, alongside renowned global experts from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

Organizers aimed to spark a national conversation in the Philippines— the world’s third-largest Catholic country— about this long-silenced issue, while exposing the systemic failures within religious institutions across the developing world that have allowed abuse to persist unchecked.

In many countries, including the Philippines, clergy sexual abuse has been shielded by powerful church leaders who prioritize protecting the institution’s reputation over the well-being of survivors. Bishops and senior Church officials have been complicit in covering up abuse, transferring predator priests from parish to parish, and silencing victims. This entrenched culture of protection has allowed the…

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Two Democratic state lawmakers are trying again to require clergy members in Washington to report child abuse or neglect, including when it is disclosed to them by a congregant during confession.

Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, and Rep. Amy Walen, D-Kirkland, introduced legislation to add clergy to the state’s roster of professions whose members must inform law enforcement if they believe a child has been harmed.

Frame’s Senate Bill 5375 will get its first hearing Tuesday afternoon in the Senate Human Services Committee.

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Ousted leaders say Gregory Aymond removed them after they refused to fund sexual abuse lawsuit settlements

The way that the archbishop of New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese fired leaders at a church-affiliated food bank Thursday has angered many congregants of the bankrupt organization.

Aymond summarily removed Natalie Jayroe – the longtime president and CEO of Second Harvest of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana – on Thursday, as well as three members of the Second Harvest board of directors: Kristen Albertson, Nick Karl and Bert Wilson.

A statement released on behalf of some of the ousted leaders said they had been removed for refusing to send the archdiocese up to $16m to pay settlements for child molestation committed by Catholic clergy.

A letter sent Thursday by Aymond did not acknowledge the reason for replacing Jayroe and the three board members. The church has not responded to a request from Guardian reporting partner WWL…

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Mike Hoffman was married with children and active in his Chicago parish when a 2006 news article caught his attention: A priest of the archdiocese was facing a lawsuit for alleged sexual abuse decades earlier.

While other Catholics may have seen it as just one more distressing clergy abuse story, to Hoffman, the news was deeply personal. The priest named in the article was the same one who had also abused him when he was a child, he said, and the individuals who had come forward had been his contemporaries at his childhood parish.

Resurfacing old and painful memories, the article spurred Hoffman to begin sharing his own story and to seek healing.

Today, he and a group of other clergy abuse victim-survivors, academics, psychologists, restorative justice advocates, clergy and others — collectively calling themselves the National Catholic Restorative Justice Initiative, or NCRJI — are working on the development of…

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In a profound reflection delivered during Sunday’s Angelus prayer, Pope Francis emphasized how Jesus Christ reveals the ultimate criterion by which all history is judged: love.

“Whoever loves lives, whoever hates dies,” the pope told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Feb. 2, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

Drawing from the Gospel of Luke (2:22-40), which recounts Mary and Joseph bringing the infant Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem, the pontiff focused on three significant aspects of Christ revealed through Simeon’s prophecy: salvation, light, and a sign of contradiction.

“God is present among His people — not because He dwells within four walls, but because He lives as a man among men,” Francis explained, highlighting the radical newness of this moment in salvation history.

The pope noted how Mary and Joseph were “deeply moved and astonished” as Simeon identified Jesus through these…

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A battle is being waged across states about whether ‘retroactive laws’ reviving expired claims under previous statutes of limitations are constitutional.

When the Maine Legislature decided in 2021 to allow anyone to file a lawsuit over child sexual abuse regardless of how long ago it occurred, advocates said the state was ahead of the curve.

Maine had already removed the time limit on all future claims 20 years earlier.

But last week, Maine’s highest court deemed the transformational 2021 law unconstitutional. Elizabeth Ward Saxl, who directs the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said the ruling was a shock.

“We were on the front end of many of those changes in the nation,” Ward Saxl said. “We have been making slow, incremental, but steady progress in opening these paths to justice for survivors. This feels like a gigantic step backwards.”

Many states have been updating these laws…

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• Former Cape Cod priest Mark Hession’s retrial on a charge of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 has been delayed.
• Hession was found not guilty of two counts of rape in June, but the jury deadlocked on the assault charge.

A former Cape Cod priest facing an assault charge is set to next appear in Barnstable Superior Court in March.

In June, a jury found Mark Hession not guilty of two counts of rape alleged to have happened between 2005 and 2008. But the jury deadlocked on one count of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, alleged to have happened in 2002.

A second trial on that charge was expected to begin on Feb. 10, but that date has now been vacated and is no longer on the court calendar. The defense needed time to review additional discovery, according to the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s office.

…

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While the trial of two Spanish-born Jesuit priests, both of them formerly provincials of the Society of Jesus in Bolivia who were charged with covering up abuse cases, was rescheduled to begin in March, the Bolivian network of abuse survivors managed to promote a national encounter of victims and hopes they will be adequately invited by Justice to take part in the current procedure.

Father Marco Recolons and Father Ramón Alaix were provincials of the Jesuits during the time when dozens of cases of sex abuse were perpetrated by Father Alfonso “Pica” Pedrajas and failed to tell the authorities. Padre Pica, also born in Spain, was a missionary in Bolivia for decades and wrote about his crimes in his diary.

He abused at least 85 boys and died in 2009. Pica was never taken to the courts for his many crimes.

The trial was set to begin on Jan. 23….

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Nearly 15 years after “Carlos” was allegedly abused while in minor seminary and after countless complaints both locally and in Rome, a canonical process has finally been ordered against his apparent abuser, but with a few snags.

Among other things, “Carlos,” a false name, said that it took 15 years for a canonical procedure to be opened last spring, and even then, he was not informed that this step had been taken.

After finding out about it only in recent weeks, Carlos said he was shocked to see that the case is being tried in the ecclesiastical province of Toledo in Spain, where his abuser is from, and that the archbishop set to oversee the case and appoint judges is someone he has denounced for coverup in the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops.

Carlos said he was sexually abused as a minor by his spiritual director, Father Pedro Francisco Rodríguez Ramos,…

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