ABUSE TRACKER

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Attorneys representing sexual abuse survivors are vowing to fight a sudden move by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington on Wednesday to dismiss its two-year-old bankruptcy case, calling it an effort to avoid fair compensation.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington filed for bankruptcy to liquidate assets and help pay off settlements with sexual abuse survivors in 2024. Two years after filing, they are now trying to dismiss their own bankruptcy case.

Attorneys representing survivors call it a bad-faith move to dodge accountability. “The diocese made the choice to file for bankruptcy two years ago. The diocese does not get to just pull the plug because the case is not going in the direction it wants it to be going,” said Brittany Michael, an attorney representing abuse survivors.

He says they are just looking for fair compensation, rejecting the diocese’s settlement proposal of about $30…

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Statement of Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V.
September 30, 2026

As we begin to review the report issued by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, I am filled with sorrow over the historical account of incidents and practices reflecting the tragic failings to protect our most vulnerable, especially for the innocent victims who suffered, and continue to suffer, in so many ways. To all survivors of child sexual abuse, I am deeply sorry. We as a Church failed you when you were most vulnerable. As a Diocese we are firmly resolved to continue to do all we can to help you heal, to make certain we are accountable, and to protect our children so that no other child suffers as you have.

I want to assure the community that the healing of survivors and the enforcement of View Cache

In our 2022 diocesan report on child sexual abuse in the history of our diocese Bishop McManus writes: “As your bishop, I am profoundly sorry for the abuse of minors by priests within this diocese since its founding in March 1950. I continue in my commitment with the help of many collaborators to do everything we can to ensure such abuse does not happen again.”

Today the Attorney General has released a report following a grand jury investigation of our diocese along with that of Fall River and Springfield. 

We welcome the AG’s report for three reasons. 

First, after an exhaustive investigation in which we were fully cooperative, there were no charges filed. It is also worth noting that any complaints of allegations received since 2002 have been immediately forwarded to the local District Attorney’s office.

Secondly, the report validates our own report originally issued in 2004 and updated following…

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A state investigation found that more than 270 Catholic clerics abused nearly 1,000 children in Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester over a century. (Video by Danielle Dubois/Globe Staff. Photo by Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff.)

Priests were transferred from parish to parish despite their superiors’ knowledge of abusive behavior. Children were left unprotected despite credible accusations against priests. And church leaders withheld information from parishioners and fellow clergy.

The long-awaited report Wednesday on decades of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in three Massachusetts dioceses pointed to a web of institutional secrecy and denial designed to hide the scandal from the public.

The report by state Attorney General Andrea Campbell identified only a fraction of 270 priests that investigators linked with the abuse of nearly 1,000 children in the Worcester, Fall River, and Springfield dioceses, but some of the identified cases showed how church authorities avoided accountability and…

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — A Catholic Foundation executive has been arrested in Franklin County following an investigation into the online sexual abuse of a minor.

The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force confirmed the arrest of 49-year-old Scott Richard Hartman after executing a search warrant at his home on Wednesday.

Authorities said Hartman confessed to the allegations after being taken into custody.

The Catholic Foundation is a charitable and investment foundation that supports Catholic causes throughout the 23-county Diocese of Columbus. Hartman serves as the senior vice president and chief development officer for the organization.

Investigators said the case began in April when a teenage victim reported that she had engaged in an online relationship with Hartman to school counselors. Authorities said the relationship between the student and the suspect included text messages and video calls with video sex acts, along with the exchange of nude…

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Four weeks ago, I dropped off my younger daughter to start her freshman year at college. Parents of incoming freshmen at every school get versions of the same emails: about scheduling your kid’s move-in time and filling out forms for the health center and making sure to buy the extra-long sheets.

Parents of daughters get an extra assignment. It isn’t written down, but we all know what it is. In between buying shower caddies and LED lights, we have to give our girls a refresher course on Rape Prevention 101. Don’t leave your drink unattended at a party. Don’t walk home late at night by yourself. Make sure someone knows where you are. Watch out for your friends.

On move-in day, student volunteers wearing T-shirts in the school colors helpfully whisked my daughter’s suitcases, the single stuffed animal she brought to keep her company and her straining-at-the-seams IKEA bags up…

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BOSTON, MA, October 01, 2026 – A report released by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office has exposed decades-long systemic failures, institutional concealment and ongoing lapses in oversight, revealing that more than 270 Catholic clerics abused nearly 1,000 children across the three dioceses.

Launched in 2019, the investigation into child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester thoroughly reviewed every individual allegation alongside how diocesan leaders responded.

“We are deeply grateful to the courageous survivors who came forward to share their traumatic experiences with our office and made their voices heard in the pursuit of truth and accountability,” said Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.

The report demonstrates that rather than ensuring the safety, physical wellbeing and mental health of vulnerable children, diocesan leaders consistently prioritized protecting institutional reputation and offending clergy instead.

“No institution should ever put its own interests above the safety and…

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SPRINGFIELD – Bishop William D. Byrne released a statement following the long-anticipated release of the attorney general’s report on clergy sexual abuse Wednesday, Sept. 30. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell released the findings of a grand jury investigation into clergy sexual abuse in the dioceses of Springfield, Fall River and Worcester. The Archdiocese of Boston was previously the subject of a grand jury investigation in 2002 after media reports shed light on clergy sexual abuse.

The investigation, which began in 2019, found that in the three dioceses, more than 1000 children were victims of abuse, over a span of decades.

Bishop Byrne, who made transparency and the promotion of healing for survivors of abuse a priority since coming to Springfield in 2020, said he welcomes the recommendations of the attorney general’s office.

“Today’s report, released by the Attorney General’s Office is a humbling reminder of the need for continued…

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The state’s largest religious denomination filed its request after spending $2 million in legal fees — and before facing a related creditors’ lawsuit seeking access to an estimated $500 million in local parish assets.

Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese is marking this week’s second anniversary of its request for a Chapter 11 financial reorganization plan by asking a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge to dismiss its case, which so far has cost $2 million in legal fees “with no end in sight,” church lawyers said.

The state’s largest religious denomination had filed its initial call for help on Sept. 30, 2024, when it said a past series of nearly 70 priest misconduct settlements had reduced its monetary holdings by half — to about $35 million — with more than 100 other abuse claims dating as far back as 1950 yet to be resolved.

Two years later, attorneys for the…

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The lawsuit over an alleged brutal gang rape at Cornell University has sparked collective fury — and a recognition that, despite the #MeToo movement, decades of protest, and pledges from college administrators to do better, not enough has changed when it comes to addressing campus sexual assault.

“The problem doesn’t go away,” said Amanda Walsh, deputy director of external affairs at the Boston-based Victim Rights Law Center, “but the conversation does.”

Now, it’s back.

At many college campuses around the state, students, professors, and administrators are talking about the Cornell case. But while some conversations are out in the open, others are unfolding privately.

“Generally in classes, people are more hesitant to bring up things that are politically sensitive,” said Stella Lei, 22, a Harvard University senior in her last semester who cofounded Take Back Harvard, a digital archive that…

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An investigation by the state’s attorney general found decades of sex abuse of nearly 1,000 children over a century across three Massachusetts dioceses.

More than 270 Catholic clerics abused nearly 1,000 children over a century across three Massachusetts dioceses, according to a report released on Wednesday by the state attorney general.

Church officials in the three dioceses — Fall River, Springfield and Worcester — knew priests and other church personnel were sexually abusing children but didn’t do enough to prevent it or examine institutional failures, the report said.

Accounts of pervasive child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston rocked the Catholic Church in the early 2000s and led to years of scrutiny of priests who served in the archdiocese. But the new report looked beyond Boston to three other areas of the state, and the investigation found that the church continued to fall short of…

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Seven-year investigation probes priest sex abuse in dioceses of Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester

A scathing state report issued Wednesday chronicles a century-long nightmare of child abuse in Catholic parishes throughout Massachusetts, revealing how church leadership systematically concealed decades of predation by scores of priests, who victimized hundreds of children in nearly every corner of the state.

The report concludes an exhaustive, seven-year investigation by the state attorney general’s office, which found evidence that more than 270 Catholic clerics abused nearly 1,000 children over several decades in the dioceses of Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester. Church leaders enabled the abuse by shielding predators and concealing allegations, the report found.

Previous probes had revealed similar failures in the Archdiocese of Boston; this investigation, launched in 2019, offers the most comprehensive accounting yet of how Catholic dioceses…

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Summary

• Attorney general says dioceses long knew of abuse
• Most abuse occurred before 2002
• AG calls for end to statute of limitations for civil claims involving childhood sexual abuse

More than 270 Catholic clerics sexually abused ​nearly 1,000 children across three Massachusetts dioceses over decades, according to an investigative report the state’s attorney general released ‌on Wednesday.

The report, opens new tab provided what Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the first full public accounting of the abuse and institutional failures that allowed it to proliferate for more than half a century at the Catholic dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester.

Most of the abuse detailed in the report occurred before 2002, ​the year the clergy sex abuse scandal burst onto the international stage due to a Pulitzer Prize-winning report by the ​Boston Globe on how officials at the Roman Catholic…

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Andrea Joy Campbell’s office announced the findings of their investigation into child sexual abuse in the Catholic dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester.

Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell’s office released a bombshell report on Catholic diocese in Worcester, Springfield and Fall River.

A Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office investigation found evidence that more than 270 Catholic clerics abused nearly 1,000 children across the dioceses of Worcester, Springfield and Fall River over several decades.

Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell released the findings Wednesday following a seven-year investigation into clergy sexual abuse and how church leaders responded to allegations.

[CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL 203-PAGE REPORT.]

“Behind every one of those numbers is a child whose safety was violated, a family that was changed forever and a survivor who carried that abuse for years, and in many cases decades. They continue to carry this trauma even today,”…

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Hundreds of clergy members of the Worcester, Springfield and Fall River Catholic dioceses abused nearly 1,000 children over the course of decades, an investigation by the Massachusetts attorney general’s office found. 

The investigation, beginning in 2019, detailed evidence that 270 clergy members abused nearly 1,000 children across all three dioceses for around 70 years, with some cases dating as far back as the 1950s, Attorney General Andrea Campbell said at a press conference Wednesday. 

“For years, the dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester knew that children were being abused by priests, and they did not do what they should have done to stop it,” Campbell said during the press conference. “Instead, too often they protected the reputation of the church, rather than protecting children.” 

The report demonstrated repeated failure by church leadership to properly respond to allegations of child sexual abuse by their priests, in…

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The report details the institutional failures that allowed the widespread abuse, publicly exposed in 2002, to occur

Attorney General Andrea Campbell has released a new report detailing nearly 1,000 cases of child sex abuse allegedly committed by 270 clergy across the Fall River, Worcester and Springfield dioceses, first publicly exposed in 2002, and the institutional failures that allowed the abuse to occur and continue.

The report highlighted several institutional failures within the three Catholic dioceses as well as the Boston Archdiocese that allowed “widespread abuse” to occur. It also identifies remaining gaps in oversight, accountability, and transparency across the three dioceses.

Read the report here. 

“For decades, survivors of clergy sexual abuse, including those who are no longer alive, have carried the devastating consequences of abuse, while the institutions entrusted with their care too often failed to protect them. This report provides for the first time a public…

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A state investigation found evidence that more than 270 Catholic clerics abused nearly 1,000 children across the Catholic Dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester over the course of a century, the state attorney general’s office announced Wednesday.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell said the investigation, which began in 2019, identified instances in which diocesan leaders failed to act on allegations and warning signs or transferred accused priests to other parishes without disclosing the reasons for their transfers.

Campbell’s office said while previous probes had exposed institutional failures in the Archdiocese of Boston, the AG’s investigation is the “first comparable public accounting of the institutional failures within the Fall River, Springfield and Worcester dioceses.”

The attorney general did not bring charges against any of those mentioned, however, citing “significant barriers” from Massachusetts’ statute of limitations and other laws.

“This investigation was not about demonizing a faith…

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BOSTON (WPRI) — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has released an extensive report documenting decades of institutional failures, following a multi-year investigation into child sexual abuse allegations within the Catholic Dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester.

The 203-page report alleges more than 270 Catholic clerics abused nearly 1,000 children across the three dioceses over the course of a century and identifies instances in which leaders neglected to act on warning signs.

Based on the investigation’s findings, the Massachusetts AG’s Office is calling on the Fall River, Springfield and Worcester dioceses to make changes in order to protect children, increase transparency and bolster oversight. It also provides recommendations to strengthen state law and offer more avenues for survivors to seek justice.

While acknowledging reforms the Catholic Church has implemented…

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A total of 216 Catholic children of the Worcester Diocese were abused, according to Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office.

The Attorney General’s office on Wednesday released a long-awaited report detailing how more than 270 religious leaders in the Worcester, Fall River and Springfield dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church abused more than 1,000 children over a span of about a century. Of those accused leaders, 90 of them served in the Worcester Diocese, according to the report.

Beginning in 2019, the investigation into the three dioceses involved interviewing more than 100 people and reviewing more than 300,000 pages of documents. New criminal charges, however, won’t be brought forward due to legal limitations, Campbell wrote in her report.

In the wake of the report, the attorney general says she supports scrapping a $20,000 charitable immunity cap for civil claims…

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The Catholic Archdiocese of New York and the law firm representing 1,300 sex abuse survivors are floating a new deal that will have a carve out for less than 30 claimants in the proposed $800 million out-of- court global settlement fund.

In a bid to salvage its out-of-court global settlement, the Archdiocese of New York and the law firm representing 1,300 survivors of sex abuse from clergy are exploring a new deal with a carveout for a tiny number of victims who are not willing to sign onto the original proposal.

But if there are any more defections from the original class by Sept. 30, the Archdiocese will declare bankruptcy, which the law firm representing the class warned could tie up the settlement for years, according to a 37-page document viewed by this publication.

In a letter to members of the class, the law firm Jefferson Anderson &…

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InfoVaticana exclusively publishes the only known document in which Pope Francis refers in his own handwriting to the canonical process against Father Carlos Miguel Buela, founder of the Institute of the Incarnate Word. It is a brief handwritten note dated August 16, 2023, four months after the founder’s death, addressed to Father Martín Prado, IVE, with whom the Pontiff maintained a friendship for years. Father Prado has now circulated it among the members of the Institute, accompanied by a written reflection that we reproduce in full below.

The document is of historical significance because of the magnitude of what is at stake. The Religious Family of the Incarnate Word, born in San Rafael (Argentina) in 1984, is present in 45 countries and brings together more than 3,000 religious among the male branch, the Servants of the Lord and of the Virgin of Matará, and the Third Order Secular. Few charisms…

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The controversy that has arisen within the Institute of the Incarnate Word revolves around an apparently simple question: was Father Carlos Miguel Buela condemned? The answer requires distinguishing between what the courts decided, what was eventually published, and what the founder’s death left without effect. The documents released by the pontifical delegates in recent days allow each step of the case to be reconstructed with precision.

The court of first instance

On 14 May 2020, Cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló, then pontifical commissioner of the Institute, established by decree a Special Penal Tribunal to examine the complaints lodged against the founder. It was a collegiate tribunal delegated by the Holy See, not a diocesan tribunal or an administrative instance of the Dicastery.

After a procedure in which the accused, his lawyer and numerous witnesses were heard, the tribunal handed down its sentence on 20 July 2021. It found it proven…

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The congregation must undertake a process of institutional purification after a canonical process determined that its founder, Carlos Miguel Buela, committed abuse against multiple victims.

ROME — The Holy See has confirmed that Argentine priest Carlos Miguel Buela, founder of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), committed abuse against several individuals.

The Vatican reached this conclusion following a canonical process and has ordered the religious family, which has been under Vatican intervention for more than seven years and without self-governance, to undertake a path of renewal.

The decision was communicated during a meeting in Rome on Sept. 14 involving the pontifical delegates overseeing the menʼs and womenʼs branches of the congregation, provincial superiors of both institutes, and representatives of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The decision was made public Tuesday and…

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“We can no longer continue putting forward fallacious arguments that lead us away from the truth.”

Officials with oversight of the troubled Institute of the Incarnate Word underlined Thursday that Church tribunals reached “moral certainty” that the order’s late founder was responsible for abuse, amid ongoing denial from some members of the group.

A statement on the IVE’s official website, dated Sept. 24, said the clarification was intended to be both an act of justice toward those harmed by Fr. Carlos Miguel Buela’s actions and to accurately inform the institute’s members as the order undergoes reform.

The statement was issued after a Sept. 14 meeting in Rome between the pontifical delegates overseeing the IVE and its female counterpart, the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará, the provincial superiors of the two institutes, and officials from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of…

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Pope Leo XIV meets in Lourdes, France, with seven victims of clerical sexual abuse, and expresses his closeness to those who suffer the “wound of abuse.”

On Sunday evening, Pope Leo XIV met in Lourdes with four men and three women who suffered abuse by members of the clergy.

The seven victims endured abuse in parishes, boarding schools, congregations, or ecclesial movements.

Their different stories and life journeys first intersected on September 14, when they met to get to know one another and discuss the experiences, expectations, and requests they would share with the Pope.

The meeting took place at the bishop’s residence, a short walk from the Marian Shine of Our Lady of Lourdes, and lasted two hours, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Among those present was Bishop Gérard Le Stang of Amiens, president of the Council for the Prevention of and Fight against Paedophilia within the French Bishops’…

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[Click here to see video of the Pope’s remarks on YouTube,]

Question from Cyriac Zeller, I-Media:

Good evening, Your Holiness. Yesterday, during a press conference, the victims you met told us that you had acknowledged to them the systemic nature of sexual abuse in the church. Is that indeed the case? Could you explain your position on this? Do you consider sexual abuse in the Church to be systemic?

Answer from Pope Leo XIV:

I would say, without wanting to contradict anyone, as I think it is very important, I would first of all like to say that in meeting with those seven victims, I had asked them to also help me to express to other victims the willingness—myself and of the Church—to listen and to walk with them as they look for healing, recognizing the pain that has been caused in their lives because of situations of abuse.

…

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About 2,000 people have sought reparations from a French body addressing church abuse

PARIS — As Pope Leo XIV prepares to meet Sunday with survivors of sexual abuse by clergy in France, an independent body created to address decades of church abuse is wrapping up its work and taking stock.

France’s Independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation, or INIRR announced this week that about 2,000 people who reported being sexually abused by priests or other church representatives have sought reparations .

France’s Catholic bishops’ conference agreed to provide compensation after a 2021 report estimated some 330,000 children were sexually abused over 70 years by priests or other church-related figures in France. The report described a “systemic” cover-up by church officials and urged the French Catholic Church to respect the rule of law.

Here’s a look at how France addressed the abuse, by the numbers:

…

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On Sunday in Lourdes, Pope Leo XIV met seven survivors of clerical sexual abuse, who praised the meeting as helping to bring reconciliation — even if there is still a lot of work to be done fighting the scourge of sex abuse in the Church.

Five of the seven survivors spoke to journalists, including Vatican News, after the meeting, describing the pope as a man of “incredible empathy” and “deep listening.” The other two are women who have asked to remain anonymous.

Oliver Mardi, an activist and co-founder of Voix Libérées de Touraine, a group created to support and advocate for victims of clerical sexual abuse, explained that the meeting was initially supposed to be one hour but in the end it ran to one hour and fifty minutes.

“In his response, he expressed his commitment, speaking first about his emotions,” Mardi said.

“He said he was profoundly affected, deeply wounded. He…

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A meeting with seven victims of abuse, scheduled for one hour, lasted for almost two and ended with several praising the Pope for his ability to listen.

Pope Leo XIV spent a hectic third day in France on Sunday encouraging its hard-pressed bishops and priests, meeting victims of the sexual abuse scandal and defending the Church’s opposition to the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

In the Lourdes sanctuary known for reportedly miraculous cures, he said a Mass for 150,000 pilgrims on a field across from the grotto where Bernadette Soubirous said the Virgin Mary appeared to her in 1858.

The US-born Pope was enthusiastically received in the southwestern French town after two days in Paris, where he led a prayer vigil for 80,000 young people on Friday evening and saw an estimated 800,000 pack the Champs Élysées for his Mass on the Place de la Concorde on…

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[A nine-minute video interview with Pau University emeritus professor Marc Artzrouni of Ending Clergy Abuse, criticizing Pope Leo’s decision not to meet with representatives of survivors’ groups, and urging that the Catholic church adopt zero tolerance of clergy abuse as its global policy.]

After two days in Paris, where he drew hundreds of thousands of worshippers, Pope Leo XIV is continuing his visit to France in the southwestern pilgrimage town of Lourdes. There, he is due to meet privately with survivors of clergy sexual abuse. His four-day trip is the first official papal visit to France in nearly two decades. For more reaction, we can speak to Marc Artzrouni, the French representative for the global coalition “Ending Clergy Abuse”.

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Campaigners criticised the decision to see seven people privately at the pilgrimage site, rather than representatives of survivors’ organisations

The Pope met seven survivors of sexual abuse by priests on the third day of his visit to France, but campaigners accused him of shutting out groups pressing for wider reform.

The meeting came five years after an independent inquiry estimated that 330,000 children had been sexually abused by clergy or lay workers in the French church between 1950 and 2020. Its findings exposed decades of cover-ups and institutional failures to confront abuse.

Campaigners criticised Leo’s decision to meet seven people privately in Lourdes, a pilgrimage site, rather than publicly receiving representatives of survivors’ organisations.

Alain Esquerre, a spokesman for one survivors’ group, said: “We wanted a collective approach to speak for all victims and obtain two things from the Pope: to bear witness to the…

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Pope Leo met with seven survivors of sexual abuse by members of the French clergy this evening in Lourdes at the bishop’s residence in Lourdes, France. 

The pope spent almost two hours with the victims, in a meeting reportedly only planned to last half that time. According to a Vatican press communique, the pope first met each survivor individually to hear their stories and proposals for addressing and preventing abuse, then spoke with the full group for about 30 minutes. Some of the survivors spoke to a limited group of French journalists after the meeting, saying that the pope was sincere and seemed committed to continuing to work towards prevention and justice for victims.

One of the survivors, Jérôme Guillement, said on French TV station LCI (La Chaîne Info) after the group’s meeting with the pope, “There was something sincere about him. With him, every word was chosen, every…

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After meeting for two hours with Pope Leo XIV in Lourdes, seven survivors of clerical sexual abuse speak to the press about their experiences and the Pope’s empathy and concern for those who have suffered the scrouge of abuse.

An hour after meeting with Pope Leo XIV in Lourdes on Sunday evening, the seven survivors of clerical sexual abuse shared the emotions of their encounter with the Pope, whom they called a man of “deep listening” and “incredible empathy,” who was “struck” and “wounded” by the stories he heard.

Five of the seven victims who spent two hours in dialogue and prayer with the Pope in Lourdes on Sunday met this evening with a small group of international news outlets—including Vatican News—at a hotel in the Pyrenean town. They described their experience with Pope Leo XIV and the preparations for this important meeting.

A meeting planned with the Pope

“We…

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The pontiff “expressed his solidarity with them and, through them, with all those who have suffered and continue to suffer from the wounds of abuse,” the Vatican said.

Lourdes, France — Pope Leo XIV met seven French victims of clerical sexual abuse on Sunday, making a gesture of solidarity and reconciliation at a shrine world-famous for its healing waters.

The nearly two-hour encounter took place at the residence of the local bishop, where Leo is staying for his two nights at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Speaking to journalists after the meeting, one of the victims, Jérôme Guillement, said, “There was something sincere about [Pope Leo]. With him, every word was carefully chosen; every word had meaning. … There were a lot of emotions.”

According to the Holy See Press Office, Leo spent an hour and a half speaking to the four men and three women individually, before…

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On Sept. 27, Pope Leo XIV met with seven victims of sexual abuse suffered at the hands of Catholic priests and lay members of the church in France, which has had one of the most public reckonings of the clergy sex abuse in the world.

In the city of Lourdes, home to the Marian shrine that draws millions of pilgrims in pursuit of healing each year, the pope met individually with each of the seven victims — four men and three women selected by the Bishops’ Conference of France — before addressing them together as a group.

Though Leo had met with victims of clerical sex abuse at the Vatican and during his June trip to Spain, his 90-minute meeting with victims in France was especially high stakes due to the local church’s robust response to the sex abuse crisis. The response is sometimes…

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[This important investigation includes a very useful list of nearly 2,000 school-based cases filed during the New York initial lookback window, searchable by plaintiff, defendant, county, and school name, and with links to the court files for each case.]

74 Investigation: A law that opened a window for survivors to seek justice for past abuse also exposed how deeply schools enabled alleged predators.

This article was published in partnership with Mother Jones.

Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of child sexual abuse.

Going to high school in Dutchess County, New York, in the 1960s, there was no late bus. For one star athlete at Our Lady of Lourdes High School, that meant regularly hitchhiking the 25 miles between school and home after practice.

It was during those lonely treks, he said, that his new coach and gym teacher, Vincent Dutkowski, would stalk him in his car, offering…

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Pope Leo XIV waved at believers on his way to mass on Sunday in the French pilgrimage town of Lourdes where he is to meet victims of clerical sex abuse on a third day of an official visit to France.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is on a four-day trip to France, a secular country with deep Catholic roots, marking the first official papal visit there in nearly two decades.

The first US pontiff is expected to meet privately with seven victims after promising to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.

Domitille Bardoul, 26, woke up before dawn to wait for prayers in the southwestern town at the foot of the Pyrenees, after taking the train down from Paris.

“It’s very beautiful that the pope is going to listen to them,” she said of his meeting the…

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During the past several years, an increasing number of internationally respected evangelical and Pentecostal leaders have resigned or have been removed from office following allegations or confirmed cases of sexual misconduct.

Some cases involved abuse of minors, others involved sexual misconduct with employees or persons under spiritual authority. In still other cases, leaders themselves were not accused of abuse but lost credibility because they refused transparent investigations or attempted to handle allegations internally.

For many years, evangelicals often looked at the abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church as though it were primarily someone else’s problem. It is now painfully evident that it is not. Sin, abuse of power, and institutional self-protection are not denominational problems; they are human problems. Whenever spiritual authority becomes insufficiently accountable, the conditions for abuse exist.

The Catholic Church has paid an enormous price for decades of delayed reporting, internal handling of criminal allegations, lack…

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Summary

• Pope Leo says Church must heal wounds inflicted within its ranks
• Pope, visiting France, to meet victims of abuse by clergy
• Crushing 2021 report on abuse in French Church sparked nationwide shock
• Victims sceptical papal meeting will spur quick action

Lourdes, France – Pope Leo on Sunday urged the Catholic Church to admit its own ​failings and heal “deep wounds” inflicted within its ranks, hours before he was set to meet victims of child abuse by priests in France.

Leo, ‌addressing crowds stretching out over a large field near the famed Catholic shrine in Lourdes, said the Church must have the courage to face its past but did not directly reference abuse scandals in France that sparked nationwide shock.

“In order to heal the deep wounds, infidelities and painful errors that have occurred within (the Church), we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord’s purifying…

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Leo XIV is scheduled to meet with seven survivors of sexual abuse in Lourdes on Sunday. Although French bishops were once at the forefront on this issue, acknowledging the systemic nature of the abuse, associations now denounce a step backwards.

They all knelt before a red cross erected for the occasion at the foot of the Lourdes basilica. It was cold that Saturday in November 2021 in this town in the Pyrénées, which, since the nineteenth century, has become a major pilgrimage destination for Catholics from France and around the world.

Without liturgical vestments, simply dressed in black suits with Roman collars visible, bishops from every diocese in France bowed that day in a symbolic gesture to honor the victims of sexual abuse within the Church. For several days, French prelates, gathered for their semiannual conference, had discussed the systemic nature of these crimes. This was a global first for…

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Saint Bernadette auditorium at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes
Sunday, 27 September 2026

I am very pleased to meet you, dear brothers in the episcopate, in this blessed place, just a short distance from the grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette, and where you regularly gather for your plenary Assemblies.  By choosing this place, you clearly express your desire to place the Church in France under the protection of the Mother of God, the Immaculate Virgin, so that she may guide her more surely according to the Lord’s will.  Indeed, there is no better way to come to Jesus than through Mary. Everything about her leads us to her Son.

In this way, you carry forward the heritage you have received from your forefathers in the faith, stretching back to the earliest times of the evangelization of your country.  Indeed, devotion to the Mother of God…

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French bishops took “courageous” steps when faced with “the painful scourge of abuse of minors,” Pope Leo XIV told the high-ranking clerics before his scheduled meeting with survivors at the Catholic shrine of Lourdes.

Around 150,000 attended the Mass celebrated by Pope Leo at the shrine of Lourdes during the third day of his four-day visit to France.

The shrine is venerated by Catholics as a place of healing. Many victims of sexual abuse have also traveled to the site, located near the Spanish border, in recent years as they seek to recover from their trauma.

On Sunday, Leo urged respect for life, including for the sick and frail, in what was seen as veiled criticism of euthanasia and abortion.

“Your crutches, your wheelchairs and your hidden tears are not obstacles; instead, they are the very place where you are fully respected and welcomed,” Leo said. “Lourdes…

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Pope Leo has called on French bishops to root out the “scourge” of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church, telling them to “maintain the greatest vigilance”, ahead of a meeting with abuse survivors.

The Pope delivered the message to bishops during a private meeting at the Sanctuary of Our Holy Lady of Lourdes, a holy site in southern France, on the third day of his four-day official visit to France.

A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 people as children in France over 70 years.

The Pope said Mass in front of thousands of worshippers in Lourdes, before he was scheduled to meet survivors of abuse privately later.

Before giving Mass the Pope told the bishops: “You have faced with determination the painful scourge of abuse of minors committed by members of the clergy or within an ecclesial context.

“It…

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Catholic church must reckon with its ‘painful errors’, pontiff tells crowd in Lourdes during four-day tour

The pope has called on the Catholic church to heal “deep wounds” and “painful errors”, before a meeting with survivors of child sexual abuse as he continues his four-day visit to France.

Addressing a crowd in a large field near the Catholic shrine of Lourdes on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV called on the church to reckon with its past, without directly referencing sexual abuse scandals in France that affected at least 330,000 children over seven decades.

“In order to heal the deep wounds, infidelities and ⁠painful errors that have occurred within [the church], we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord’s purifying gaze,” the first US pope told the estimated crowd of 150,000 people.

Leo is due to privately meet seven survivors of child sexual abuse by French clergy on Sunday after…

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The idea for the chaplaincy, inspired by similar projects in Ireland, emerged from the “collective thoughts of survivors living in the Diocese of Plymouth.”

The Diocese of Plymouth is developing the first chaplaincy in the English and Welsh Catholic Church for survivors of sexual, spiritual, emotional and institutional abuse.

It will be a “pastoral ministry that seeks to offer faith-sensitive, independent and survivor-centred support,” explained the diocesan safeguarding team in their summer newsletter.

“This ministry recognises that survivors’ journeys are complex and that the Church has a responsibility to respond with humility, care and integrity,” said the team.

“This project is truly unique in the Catholic Church in England and Wales seeking to achieve meaningful change in the way the Church responds to and supports those who have suffered harm,” the letter continued.

Martin Christmas-Nelson, head of safeguarding for the diocese, told The Tablet the concept of the chaplaincy “was  born…

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[See also the text of the letter by the Rupnik victims.]

In an open letter addressed to Pope Leo XIV, five alleged victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Slovenian Father Marko Rupnik said the silence and lack of information regarding the artist’s canonical trial added to their suffering.

The letter, which was shared with OSV News Sept. 23 by their lawyer, Laura Sgro, said the “prolonged silence” they have experienced was “a further and ongoing form of violence that bears down like a heavy boulder on the violence we have already endured.”

“Sexual, physical, psychological, and spiritual violence; an enduring violence inflicted upon the soul, to which is now added this new and agonizing violence of silence and abandonment by the justice system,” the alleged victims said.

The letter was signed by Gloria Branciani, Mirjam Kovac, Sister Samuelle, Vida Bernard and an anonymous alleged victim using the…

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Mosaics by Marko Rupnik, a Slovenian priest-artist, were covered up after at least 20 women accused him of sexual and psychological abuse. He is now on trial.

Paris – The gold-flecked mosaics adorning the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary were installed in 2008 for the 150th anniversary of what the Catholic Church recognizes as miraculous apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes — one of the faith’s most sacred pilgrimage sites.

But when Pope Leo XIV visits on Saturday, the mosaics will be conspicuously covered. Their creator, Slovenian priest-artist Marko Rupnik, has been accused by at least 20 women — including current and former Catholic nuns — of sexual, physical and psychological abuse.

Rupnik, 71, is one the most prominent living Catholic artists, and the mosaics in Lourdes are among his many works housed in more than 200 churches across the globe. He was openly celebrated and championed…

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Court in Mendoza sentences former nun Kumiko Kosaka to 20 years in prison for her role in the sexual abuse of deaf children at a religious Instituto Próvolo in Mendoza Province.

A court in Mendoza on Thursday sentenced former nun Kumiko Kosaka to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing deaf children at a religious institute in western province.

Kosaka, 51, was initially acquitted in 2023 of sex crimes committed against children at the Instituto Próvolo in Luján de Cuyo between 2005 and 2016.

But last month, Mendoza’s Supreme Court overturned the acquittal and ordered that she be sentenced.

She was found guilty of two counts of sexual abuse as an accomplice and three as the principal offender.

Kosaka, who left the religious order after she was accused, appeared in court accompanied only by her lawyer.

She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, an AFP reporter observed.

After sentencing, she…

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A former Catholic nun was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in Argentina on Thursday over a notorious clerical abuse scandal involving a boarding school for hearing-impaired children.

Kumiko Kosaka, a Japanese national who is now aged 51, was convicted at her second trial of aggravated sexual abuse and of covering up for priests who abused children aged between four and 17.

The Provolo affair, so-called after the Antonio Provolo Institute in Mendoza, where dozens of children suffered horrific abuse for decades, rocked Argentina when it came to light a decade ago.

At the first trial held in 2019, two priests, a gardener and a former choir boy were given prison sentences of between ten and 45 years.

Revelations from those proceedings led to a second trial in 2023 of a group of nuns and female staff members accused of being complicit in, and of covering up the abuse.

All nine,…

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Pope Leo XIV on Friday arrives in France for a four-day visit – his fifth Apostolic journey since becoming pontiff last year – during which he hopes to repair the Catholic Church’s standing after sexual abuse scandals while also addressing issues such as the need to regulate AI. FRANCE 24 guides you through his visit.

• Motto for the visit: “That the world may have life.” The motto, The Vatican News writes, is a “a call to hope and communion, encouraging people to overcome divisions in order to share peace, reconciliation, and fraternity, signs of new life in the world”.
• Main themes: Europe, peace and unity
• Security: In Paris alone, some 14,000 police officers, gendarmes, and military personnel and 2,500 firefighters will be on duty while the pope moves around the city on Friday. That number will only be slightly lower during his Mass at the…

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The Pope is making the first official papal visit to France in 18 years, during which he is expected to meet survivors of sexual abuse, EU leaders and large crowds of worshippers.

Church bells will quite literally be ringing across France this Friday morning as Pope Leo XIV lands on the tarmac of Paris-Orly airport for the first official papal visit to the country in 18 years.

The Bishops’ Conference of France (CEF) described the decision to ring bells for seven minutes “as a simple and symbolic gesture” to mark the beginning of the Pope’s apostolic journey and allow people “to take part” from wherever they are.

From addressing EU leaders and meeting with victims of sexual violence within the Church to parading through Paris on his popemobile, the pontiff has a packed four days ahead of him.

The paternal grandmother of the Chicago-Born Pope Leo XIV — who is…

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In short:

Former Catholic priest Robert Hickman has been jailed in Western Australia for sexually abusing two girls in Perth in 1990.

The 81-year-old was previously jailed in New South Wales for similar offences.

In a statement to the court, one of the victims described her abuser as a “very evil man”.

A former Catholic priest and serial paedophile who sexually abused two young girls in foster care 36 years ago has been jailed for more than two years.

Robert James Hickman, 81, was previously imprisoned for sexual offences in New South Wales against multiple victims.

Hickman had pleaded guilty to sexual penetration of a child, and indecent dealing with a child in Perth in 1990.

WA District Court Judge Karen Shepherd described his actions as a “breach of trust” given his position, and too serious to justify a suspended term.

He was sentenced to two years and six months…

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Pope Leo XIV is to begin an official visit to France on Friday, with several thorny issues hanging over the trip, from clerical sexual abuse to the country’s new assisted dying law.

Here are some of the key issues the pontiff is expected to face while on the first official visit to France by a head of the Roman Catholic Church in 18 years:

Clerical abuse

The Vatican announced in August that Pope Leo XIV will meet victims of clerical sexual abuse during his visit.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has promised to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.

A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 people as minors in France, over the span of 70 years.

The Church’s reputation has since been hit by further scandals, including a…

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Wendy Little Bear is one of about 100 survivors of sexual abuse, including roughly 10 members of the Wabanaki Nations, who reached a recent multimillion-dollar settlement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

For decades, Wendy Little Bear, 56, struggled to cross the bridge leading to Indian Island. Just over the bridge to the Penobscot Nation’s reservation stands St. Ann’s Catholic Church.

When Little Bear sees the church, she remembers the year she spent living on Indian Island with her family at age 7 — the year she said both a priest and a nun sexually abused her. Her family moved away after her father discovered the priest’s abuse, she explained on a recent morning, but the memories stayed with her.

Little Bear is one of about 100 survivors of sexual abuse, including roughly 10 members of the Wabanaki Nations, who reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the Roman Catholic Diocese…

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It’s not clear when the Vatican will decide or whether the Vatican will reveal the results.

The interview phase of the Vatican’s investigation into how Baton Rouge Bishop Michael Duca handled an accusation of sexual misconduct by a priest has ended and the material has been sent to Rome, a witness told the Register.

Luke Zumo, who filed the complaint that triggered the investigation, said he received an email message Monday, Sept. 21, from New Orleans Archbishop James Checchio saying that the prelate has completed his report and sent it to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops. The archbishop was responding to an email message Zumo sent late last week requesting an update, Zumo said.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of New Orleans declined comment Tuesday afternoon. A spokesman for the Diocese of Baton Rouge contacted Monday night did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zumo told the Register…

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Addressing the scourge of sexual abuse, the archbishop of Panama requested the services of the Transparency Commission, a project sponsored by Notre Dame Law School and Madrid’s Villanueva University.

[See also the executive summary (in English) and the report (in Spanish).]

The archbishop of Panama, José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta, stated that “we cannot remain silent in the face of abuse” during his presentation of the report “Assessment of Institutional Responses (AIR) in cases of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable persons” within the Archdiocese of Panama between 2001 and 2025.

The report by the Transparency Commission (TC), a pilot project and the first from an interdisciplinary group of independent experts on addressing and preventing abuse within ecclesial settings, was presented on Sept. 22 at the Santa María La Antigua University auditorium in Panama City.

Speaking during the presentation, Ulloa emphasized:…

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Statute of limitations reform may finally come to Ohio, but the Catholic Church lobby and the insurance industry will likely push back, fearing lawsuits from decades-old childhood sexual abuse cases

The controversial case of former priest and confessed rapist Geoff Drew could result in another law change in Ohio: statute of limitations reform.

Ohio Sen. Bill Blessing, a Republican from Colerain Township, said he is willing to sponsor legislation to allow prosecutors to file criminal charges in childhood sexual abuse cases regardless of when it happened. This comes after prosecutors could not charge Drew for sexually abusing a second alleged victim because the statute of limitations had expired.

“This issue just continues to fester,” Blessing said. “It’s not going to get any better for anyone until we move beyond that, and that includes the church.”

Blessing also wants to eliminate time limits for victims to sue their abusers and the…

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A janitor at Our Lady of Lourdes who said she was sexually assaulted and raped multiple times in 2025, claimed Father David Sanchez dismissed her concerns.

Father David Sanchez, the pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes, has resigned amid a lawsuit accusing church leadership and the Archdiocese of Louisville of mishandling allegations of sexual abuse.

According to a letter obtained by WHAS11 and distributed by Archbishop Shelton Fabre, Sanchez resigned as pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes effective Wednesday.

“I am fully aware that the past few days have been a difficult time,” Fabre wrote. “While Sanchez remains a priest in good standing, he does not want to be the source of further unrest in the parish.”

Fabre said he accepted Sanchez’s resignation and placed him on administrative leave.

Father John Schwartzlose, the parish’s associate pastor, has been appointed temporary administrator.

“These appointments will likely continue until July of 2027…

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Facing concerned parents and calls for reform, St. Tammany Parish School Board members plan to launch a districtwide investigation into how schools and administrators are complying with rules for reporting child abuse after two Lyon Elementary administrators pleaded guilty for failing to do so.

During a seven-hour special meeting Monday evening at the CJ Schoen Administrative Complex in Covington, the board said it will vote next month to hire a third-party firm to probe all 55 schools and the district’s central office for “compliance with administrative processes, communications and mandatory reporting.”

The school system confirmed Monday that Lauryn Faciane, 50, the former principal of Lyon, and Tonya Barth, 55, who previously served as the school’s assistant principal, are no longer employed by the district.

Both were arrested in May and later pleaded guilty to charges of failure to report abuse of a child. Each had been on administrative leave and…

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About 2,000 people who reported being sexually abused by priests or other church representatives have sought reparations from a French independent body created to address decades of abuse, the organization said Tuesday as it prepares to end its five-year mission.

The Independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation, or INIRR, said its work extended beyond financial compensation to include psychological support.

INIRR’s report comes ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s four-day visit to France, beginning Friday, during which he is expected to meet privately with seven survivors of sexual abuse by priests and other Catholic personnel.

France’s Catholic bishops’ conference agreed to provide reparations after a 2021 report estimated some 330,000 children were sexually abused over 70 years by priests or other church-related figures in France. The report described a “systemic” cover-up by church officials and urged the French Catholic Church to respect the rule of law in France.

Here’s a…

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Two priests who served at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Springfield have been removed from ministry after separate allegations of improper relationships were reported to law enforcement, according to the Diocese of Springfield.

In a statement issued Friday, the diocese said the Rev. Paolo Bagattini was suspended July 22 after it received a report alleging improper behavior with a minor that began in late 2022 while he was serving at the parish.

“He remains suspended at this time,” the Diocese of Springfield said.

In an Aug. 30, 2026, church newsletter, Bagattini said he could not return to Springfield because of health issues.

He said he was experiencing macular degeneration in his left eye and a heart condition that had caused him to lose consciousness three times. The condition required him to slow down and avoid stress.

Bagattini said he was consulting with doctors and that…

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[See also the letter by the Rupnik victims.]

Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Lourdes this week will be key to his message of respect for human life in all stages and conditions, which is the theme of his Sept. 25–28 pastoral visit to France. Images of the pontiff meeting ailing pilgrims will complement the trip’s official motto: “That the World May Have Life.”

But the visit to the world-famous shrine will also be the moment where he will most directly address clerical sexual abuse, a crisis that has cast a shadow over the Church in France since a landmark abuse report in 2021.

Lourdes will be the setting Sept. 27 for the pope’s private meeting with sex abuse victims and a speech to the French Catholic bishops, who continue to deal with fallout from the abuse crisis. The shrine itself has been touched by controversy in recent years due…

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He trusted a Catholic priest with his secrets in the sacred space of a confessional, but at the same time, he claims the cleric was abusing him.

This, according to a 19-year-old man who recently disclosed that not one, but two priests at Our Lady of Mount Carmel church had taken advantage of him sexually during a particularly vulnerable period. The Republican does not identify alleged victims of sexual abuse.

One, the Rev. Paolo Bagattini, began abusing him when he was just 15, the victim alleges. He was the priest who took the boy’s confessions and sponsored him for his confirmation, an important rite of passage for Catholics.

The second, the Rev. Robert White, began abusing him only after he turned 18, according to the victim’s attorney.

“I have text messages from Father White to my client referencing coconut oil massages,” said Springfield…

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Saint Matthews KY – Louisville priest has resigned amid sexual abuse allegations against an employee at his Catholic church.

Gladis Garcia, who worked for Our Lady of Lourdes, claims in a lawsuit that she was raped and sexually harassed by her supervisor.

Her attorney, John Spalding, said when Garcia tried to report the abuse to the priest, he dismissed her claims and her employment was threatened.

“She went to the priest at Our Lady of Lourdes, Father David Sanchez, and reported it. And we allege that he didn’t do anything about it, that he did not believe her, that, in fact, he told her not to talk about it. Then he tried to silence her,” Spalding said.

“This case is about getting to the bottom of did they live up to their own standards, and if they did not, why not? and how can we prevent this from happening in…

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[This is a Google translation of the Italian text.]

Your Holiness,

We are five victims of Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik: Gloria Branciani, Mirjam Kovac, Sister Samuelle, Vida Bernard, and Pia—the last of whom has chosen to use a pseudonym due to a well-founded fear of reprisals.

We decided to write to you on the occasion of your trip to France—and specifically your visit to Lourdes, where you will meet abuse victims like us—at a place where Fr. Rupnik’s mosaics will no longer be visible on the basilica’s façade, following the decision by His Excellency Monsignor Jean-Marc Micas, Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, to cover them permanently. This was a powerful and courageous gesture that we deeply appreciated, not least because we have never experienced an atmosphere of solidarity; on the contrary, we have always faced significant opposition and hostility.

We know only from media reports that a trial against…

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[See also the Italian text of the letter.]

Five alleged victims of abuse by a former Jesuit priest in Slovenia have demanded justice from the Vatican ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s trip to France this week.

In a letter published in Rome on Wednesday by the women’s lawyer, the former nuns from Slovenia appealed to the head of the Catholic Church to conclude ongoing proceedings against the mosaic artist and former clergyman Marko Rupnik in a special Vatican court.

The 71-year-old, also from Slovenia, is suspected of having sexually abused more than 20 women, the majority of whom are former nuns, in his religious community over several decades.

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Rupnik co-designed the main doors of the Basilica of Our Lady at the Marian pilgrimage site of Lourdes, one of the cities which Leo is expected to visit during his trip.

However, he will not see the mosaics. By decision…

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The Archdiocese of Panama is in need of significant new procedures to both prevent and respond to incidents of abuse, said an international research group in a new assessment.

Among the recommendations contained in the assessment are improved procedures for listening to abuse victims, better record-keeping, reparation measures for victims, and clear codes of conduct.

The evaluation was a pilot project for the Transparency Commission, an international group of experts on clerical abuse, which hopes to carry out similar assessments in other dioceses.

The independent commission, which is funded by Notre Dame Law School and the Universidad Villanueva Foundation in Spain, consists of more than a dozen experts from eight countries, specializing in the areas of canon law, theology, accountability, communications, sociology, and other fields.

The Transparency Commission was tasked last year by Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta of Panama to evaluate the local Church’s management of abuse complaints over…

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Universities’ review of Panama Church abuse highlights underreporting, failures

[See also the report (in Spanish).]

The Catholic Church in Panama has recorded dozens of complaints alleging sexual abuse of minors and other vulnerable people by priests, according to a report released Tuesday.

Prepared by two Catholic universities at the request of the church, the report found 37 complaints for sexual abuse were filed against clergy members between 2001 and 2025.

The Archbishop of Panama City, Jose Domingo Ulloa, said in a presentation of the report that it sought to determine how the church had managed “this entire reality of sexual abuse against minors.”

He repeated an apology he made in 2023 to the victims and said five clergy members were defrocked after being convicted of sexual abuse.

Around the world, the Catholic Church has been tainted by scandals involving decades of child sexual abuse by pedophile priests.

The Panama…

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[See also the report (in Spanish).]

Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta of Panama reiterated the Church’s commitment to safeguarding and accountability after an independent inquiry he ordered revealed decades of negligent record-keeping and a system that prioritized perpetrators rather than victims.

At a Sept. 22 press conference at the Catholic University of Santa Maria La Antigua (USMA), Archbishop Ulloa said he didn’t request the inquiry “to defend ourselves, to justify past decisions, and much less to protect the image of our institution.”

“We have done it because we know that only by sincerely recognizing our successes, our weaknesses, and our mistakes can we strengthen a true culture of care, prevention, and protection,” he said.

The Transparency Commission, an international, multidisciplinary group of experts in canon law, theology, communications, clinical psychology, sociology, and institutional accountability, conducted the inquiry.

Led by Father Jordi Pujol, a canon lawyer and professor of…

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Five victims of ⁠alleged ⁠abuse by a prominent priest ⁠with Vatican ties urged Pope Leo on Wednesday to press ​for the conclusion of a nearly year-long Church trial of the cleric, saying a ‌lengthy and secret process was ‌denying them justice.

In an open letter ahead of Leo’s four-day visit to France, ⁠where ⁠the pope is hoping to repair the Church’s standing after abuse ​scandals there, victims of Rev. Marko Rupnik said their treatment reflects poorly on the Church’s commitment to helping victims.

“This is the message being conveyed … that it is useless to ​report abuse to ecclesiastical authorities, because nothing happens anyway and no one will ⁠be ⁠held accountable,” read the letter.

The ⁠victims ​said they had received no updates about the Church trial and had not been ​able to offer testimony. 

They ⁠urged Leo to press for a fair trial “so that the judgment and its outcome,…

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When an ailing Pope John Paul II visited the French shrine at Lourdes in 2004, on his last foreign trip, he delivered a forceful condemnation of abortion and euthanasia as he gasped for air during Mass.

Pope Leo XIV is expected to make a similar appeal to protect life when he visits France this weekend and also prays at Lourdes. One of Christianity’s most-visited pilgrimage destinations is especially popular for sick people because of its association with miraculous cures.

Leo’s message will likely land differently, since France’s National Assembly in 2024 enshrined abortion as a constitutional right and recently gave final approval to a bill allowing adults with incurable illnesses to receive lethal medication. It was the culmination of years of debate over end-of-life care in France and comes as other countries in Europe and the Americas have increasingly legalized assisted dying, though British lawmakers recently voted down a bill allowing it.

Catholic teaching…

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Pope Leo XIV, during his four-day visit to France beginning Friday, will meet privately with seven survivors of sexual abuse by priests and other Catholic personnel. The outcome will be closely watched by critics who say the church has not done enough to confront the problem.

The meeting is scheduled for Sunday in Lourdes, one of Catholicism’s most important pilgrimage sites. Some survivors’ groups have criticized the decision to select individuals rather than representatives of established organizations.

The seven survivors said in a joint statement last week that they do not claim to represent all survivors.

“Engaging in dialogue does not mean endorsing,” they said. “Being received does not mean abandoning our demands.”

“Each of us is taking part in this meeting in our own name, free to express our own views, convictions and choices,” they added.

The French Bishops’ Conference said the group includes people who were abused as minors…

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The charity arm of a cloistered New Zealand commune was stripped of its tax-exempt status Tuesday after an investigation found the trust’s funds enabled “serious wrongdoing” by the religious group, including the use of child labor and failing to report sexual crime.

Gloriavale, a conservative Christian sect, is based on a sprawling ranch on New Zealand’s South Island, where about 600 people live on land owned by the Christian Church Community Trust and work as volunteers at the trust’s businesses.

The government’s Charities Registration Board said Tuesday that the group’s charitable status will be revoked for three years beginning Sept. 23.

Funds provided by Gloriavale’s trust allowed the group “to operate in ways found to be unlawful and inconsistent with the wellbeing of trust beneficiaries,” the charities board said in a statement.

Calls to remove the group’s charitable status grew after the former leader Howard Temple was convicted in 2025 of sexually…

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• Summary

• Pope Leo leaves on Friday for three-city tour of France
• First US pope expected to address AI, future of Europe
• Trip five years after crushing report on abuse by French clergy
• Church has been ‘deeply wounded’ by scandals, bishop says

Pope Leo heads to France on Friday for the first formal visit by a pope in nearly 20 ​years, which Catholic leaders hope will repair the Church’s standing after a crushing 2021 report on child abuse by priests sparked nationwide shock.

Leo, who will meet abuse ‌survivors during the four-day trip, is also expected to draw large crowds for an outdoor Mass in central Paris and will address French, UN and European leaders in separate events on his whirlwind, three-city tour.

“Pope Leo’s visit to France has sparked a real tidal wave” of interest, retired French Bishop Marc Stenger told Reuters. Some 600,000 people…

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Ghislaine Magoarou, 65, was 9 years old when her teacher, Brother Gabriel Girard, pulled shut the curtains of their classroom in a fishing town in northwest France and raped her.

That incident marked the start of a months-long cycle of abuse at the now-shuttered Catholic school that eventually led Magoarou to attempt suicide by throwing herself ​into the sea.

“I had gone swimming with friends and simply let myself sink,” Magoarou recalled during a walk along the beach in Loctudy with three other survivors. “I ‌let the waves carry me away, and I had absolutely no desire to come back up. I felt at peace in the water, as if I were being cleansed.”

POPE DUE TO MEET FRENCH SURVIVORS

Magoarou is one of at least 330,000 French minors who were abused between 1950 and 2020 by priests, religious figures, or laypeople working in Church institutions. Those figures were revealed…

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Understanding Trauma Bonds in Spiritual Contexts:

A trauma bond is a strong emotional attachment that forms between a person who has been harmed and the person harming them.

Note: Please be aware that this article contains discussion of spiritual abuse and grooming, and their psychological effects. Readers who have experienced grooming or abuse in religious settings may find some content activating. If you are currently working with a therapist or psychologist, you may find it helpful to read this alongside that support. If you are not, and you find the content distressing, please consider reaching out to a mental health professional. Support is available through: Lifeline: 13 11 14 (24 hours) Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 (24 hours) 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732 (national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service, 24 hours). Full Stop Australia: 1800 385 578 (24 hours, formerly CASA). Beyond Blue online chat: beyondblue.org.au 1800RESPECT…

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Gemma Hoskins, Baltimore teacher who investigated murder of nun in Netflix’s ‘The Keepers,’ diesCayla HarrisMay 3, 2023
Gemma Hoskins, an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse, speaks during a press event for “The Keepers” in 2021. (Kaitlin Newman/The Baltimore Banner)

Gemma Hoskins, a former Maryland Teacher of the Year known for investigating the local murder of a nun in Netflix’s 2017 documentary series “The Keepers,” died Sunday.

Her death was announced on social media Monday morning by podcaster Shane Waters, a frequent collaborator with whom she co-hosted “Foul Play: Who Killed Sister Cathy?”

Hoskins was a student of Sister Cathy Cesnik at Archbishop Keough High School and spent years investigating Cesnik’s 1969 murder even before being featured as an advocate in the Netflix series. Hoskins and other students believed Cesnik’s murder may have been covered up by authorities because the nun suspected Father A. Joseph Maskell, a chaplain and counselor at…

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Former Broome Bishop Christopher Alan Saunders faces sentencing after a Western Australian jury found him guilty of 13 charges against Aboriginal men.

Christopher Alan Saunders, the former Catholic Bishop of Broome, faces immediate imprisonment after a Western Australian jury found him guilty of 13 sex offences against young Aboriginal men. The verdict establishes the 76-year-old as the highest-ranking Australian cleric to be convicted of sexual abuse.

The convictions, which follow a rigorous three-week trial in the Western Australian District Court, conclude a years-long investigation into Saunders’ systemic abuse of power between 2008 and 2019. Prosecutors successfully demonstrated that the bishop exploited his ecclesiastical authority and church resources to groom vulnerable Indigenous men.

The case marks a watershed moment for institutional accountability within the Australian Catholic Church. It also highlights the severe, enduring trauma inflicted upon isolated First Nations communities in the Kimberley region, where Saunders had operated with near-total impunity…

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The disgraced former bishop of Broome who used church funds and properties to target vulnerable Aboriginal men will learn his prison sentence next month.

Christopher Alan Saunders, 76, appeared in WA District Court on Monday after he was found guilty by a jury on 13 charges including unlawful and indecent assault and penetration without consent in August.

The trial, which ran for three weeks, found Saunders had committed the offences against two Aboriginal men who were devout Catholics and lived in the Kimberley diocese where he was the senior-most Catholic in the northern WA district.

The jury found Saunders had engaged in systemic grooming of the two victims, including instances where the bishop would use church funds and church-owned properties to have alcohol-fuelled “shirts-off” parties.

Saunders was set down to learn his fate on Monday morning, but District Court Judge Martin Flynn flagged early in the hearing he would not be…

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A diocesan bishop will usually undertake a lengthy investigation and administrative process when responding to misconduct or abuse allegations.

News headlines in recent years have periodically reported on Catholic priests accused of various types of misconduct, including financial crimes and sexual abuse, among other allegations.

Much of the public will only be aware of the beginning and the end of such controversies — when a clergyman is accused of a misdeed and when he is ultimately either found guilty of it or cleared of any wrongdoing.

But U.S. dioceses have complex and at times lengthy ways of addressing such allegations — processes that ensure both a full treatment of the alleged misconduct and the rights of priests to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

‘The smoke of truth’

Monsignor William King, JCD, serves as an assistant professor of canon law at The Catholic University of America. His academic expertise includes…

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Pope Leo XIV is set to begin an official visit to France on 25 September, with several thorny issues hanging over the trip, from clerical sexual abuse to the country’s new assisted dying law.

Here are some of the key issues the pontiff is expected to face while on the first official visit to France by a head of the Catholic Church in 18 years:

The Vatican announced in August that Pope Leo XIV will meet victims of clerical sexual abuse during his visit.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has promised to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.

A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 people as minors in France, over the span of 70 years.

The Church’s reputation has since been hit by further scandals, including a raft…

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REFLECTIONS

THE sexual abuse of Filipino children, especially those committed online, continues to spread; so is their exploitation by not only their parents and relatives but also executives, telecommunications companies (telcos) and the clergy. Children’s rights advocate Dr. Murray Heasley — about whom we will discuss later — is challenging clerical abuse. We need to take a cue from him and challenge telcos like PLDT, Globe Telecom and Dito Telecommunity, as well as other corporations, over their abuse. One of them, the Zambales II Electric Cooperative Inc. (Zameco II), is refusing to replace a busted transformer until our Preda children’s home in Nagbayan village, Castillejos town, agrees to pay P125,123 for it, which is illegal. Unless you agree to pay, you get no power, the electric cooperative (EC) seemed to say. That seemed like blackmail.

The EC has been rocked by consumer complaints of overcharging and other issues, as well…

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One of Father Rupnik’s victims accuses Portuguese Church of “complicit silence”

While the Portuguese Catholic Church is already receiving very negative PR from victims of sexual abuse as children, the case of a panel of mosaics, on display in the Holy Shrine of Fátima, created by a priest accused of sexually, psychologically and physically abusing around 30 women, is adding to the pressure – particularly as hopes are for a visit to Fátima next year by Pope Leo XIV.

Expresso explains the delicate situation. It came on the wings of a decision by a French bishop to completely cover Rupnik’s mosaics in the Holy Shrine of Lourdes, due to the Slovenian priest’s fall from grace – and a pending visit (on September 26) by the Pope. The bishop has stressed that the covering is “permanent”.

One of the many disturbing parts of this story appears to be that Rupnik is understood…

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“These are proven facts.”

Fabrizia Raguso has known Father Marko Rupnik for more than 30 years, and has come forward publicly to allege the priest spiritually and psychologically abused her.

Raguso moved to Portugal as a sister of the Loyola Community in 2000, and though she left the order in 2021 she continues to live in the Portuguese city of Braga.

Raguso believes the Shrine of Fátima must undergo a process of discernment regarding what to do with the 500 square-meter mosaic inside the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity. But as the question is deliberated, Raguso says she has not been contacted by Portuguese ecclesiastical authorities to share her experiences as a victim.

Rupnik is currently being subjected to a canonical trial at the Vatican, accused of abusing dozens of women sexually, spiritually and psychologically.

This interview was conducted in Portuguese and has been edited for length and clarity.

…

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A pastor of a Central Florida church was arrested, according to local law enforcement.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit arrested and charged 42-year-old Timothy Chaneyfield, the pastor at St. James United American Free Will Baptist Church in Central Florida.

According to law enforcement, he was arrested last month after the investigation began upon receipt of a cyber tip regarding inappropriate contact he was having with a child.

During an interview, the 14-year-old victim disclosed that he and Chaneyfield met on a dating mobile app, and then continued to chat via Instagram, which is where the National Center for Missing and Endangered Children tip was generated.

According to local law enforcement, Chaneyfield picked up the victim on three consecutive days at the entrance to the victim’s subdivision, then drove the victim to his house in Winter Haven, where he had sex with the victim each day. During a…

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A victim of Church sexual abuse in Spain, never answered after requesting an audience with Pope Leo XIV, asks why some survivors are received while others are met with silence.

Just a few months ago, I publicly wrote a letter during Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Spain. I did so as a victim of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and as someone who walks independently, without representing any association or claiming to speak on anyone’s behalf.

I had previously written to the Apostolic Nunciature (the Vatican’s diplomatic representation in Spain).

I had respectfully requested an audience. I had written a letter to the Holy Father explaining who I was, what I had suffered and why, for me, being heard for a few minutes could have profound reparative value.

When I received no response, I insisted. The response was silence. I was not the only one.

While the…

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The Diocese of Springfield has suspended two Stigmatine priests assigned to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish following separate reports of alleged improper behavior, including one involving a minor.Springfield man charged in connection with deadly Main Street shooting

The Diocese announced Friday that Stigmatine Father Paolo Bagattini was suspended after receiving a report in July concerning improper behavior with a minor that allegedly began in late 2022 and occurred during his time at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Springfield.

The Diocese said it immediately shared the report with civil authorities, including the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office, upon receiving it.

Bishop William D. Byrne suspended Bagattini’s faculties within the Diocese of Springfield on July 22, 2026. He remains suspended.

On Thursday, Sept. 17, the Diocese said it received a second report involving Stigmatine Father Robert White. The report was made by an adult and concerned an alleged improper relationship.

The…

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Former pastor Robert Morris pleaded guilty to five counts of child sex abuse last year after Cindy Clemishire accused him of sexually abusing her as a child in the 1980s.

Cindy Clemishire, the woman whose accusations against former Gateway Church leader Robert Morris led to his guilty plea to five charges of child sex abuse last year, will ask the Texas Supreme Court to review her defamation lawsuit against the church and Morris. 

Last month, the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas dismissed almost all of the claims in the lawsuit Clemishire first filed in 2025, citing religious liberty doctrine. Clemishire’s attorneys will ask the Texas Supreme Court to review the case in a filing Thursday, arguing that the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine does not give churches immunity from civil law that applies to other institutions. 

“Religious liberty is one of our most fundamental freedoms. But religious liberty cannot mean…

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Rep. Leach filed a petition after an appeals court dismissed nearly all of Clemishire’s defamation claims against Robert Morris and Gateway Church.

Attorneys for Cindy Clemishire say they’re seeking the Supreme Court of Texas’ input to continue the now-dismissed defamation case against Robert Morris and Gateway Church. 

Texas State Representative Jeff Leach, who represents Clemishire, said he filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Texas Thursday on her behalf in her defamation case against Robert Morris, Gateway Church and others.

The move comes after a state appeals court granted a motion in August to dismiss nearly all of Clemishire’s claims against Morris, Gateway Church and the elders who served on the church’s board when the abuse came to light.

The development also comes as Morris re-verified his registration on the Texas Public Sex Offender Website in Palo Pinto County on Tuesday.

In a press conference, Leach…

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Survivors launch Protestant Accountability, naming more than 2,700 people accused across 100-plus denominations.

A new multidenominational database aims to identify, track and expose abusers within the Christian church.

Named Protestant Accountability, the nonprofit database launched in August after merging with a similar resource, Baptist Accountability. Its mission is to reveal hidden abuse and misconduct and to “promote transparency, accountability and the protection of those at risk.” The database includes photos of those accused or found guilty of sexual abuse, along with their denomination, positions held and supporting documentation. It currently lists more than 2,700 people from more than 100 denominations, including nondenominational, Pentecostal and Methodist churches.

Dominique “Dom” Benninger, a co-founder of Baptist Accountability and a current board member of Protestant Accountability, said the database’s primary focus is on sexual abusers, but it also includes people who enabled abusive behavior or tried to cover…

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According to the lawsuit, the woman’s job and family were threatened if she reported the abuse.

A woman filed a lawsuit against her supervisor, a Catholic priest, a church, and the Archdiocese of Louisville Thursday after she was allegedly raped for months.

The woman accepted a janitor position with Our Lady of Lourdes in April 2025 and is in the United States on a green card, the lawsuit stated.

Shortly after she started working there, her direct supervisor started making sexual advances that quickly escalated to sexual assaults in the boiler and maintenance room, according to the lawsuit. He threatened her by saying if she reported the abuse, she would be fired.

The abuse happened so frequently that a delivery person walked in and saw the supervisor’s exposed genitalia in the lunchroom, according to the lawsuit.

She decided in June 2025 to report the abuse to the priest at the…

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has spent more than a decade cultivating a political alliance with Paul Pressler, the once-revered Southern Baptist power broker who was accused by at least eight men of sexually abusing them, and with the two men most closely tied to covering for him. Even after the allegations became public, Paxton kept taking their money, kept using their endorsements, and kept standing by them.

Pressler was one of the architects of the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the late 20th century and a mentor to a generation of Texas Republicans, including Ted Cruz and Paxton himself. But behind that reputation, according to Texas Monthly’s investigation, “abundant suspicions” about his relationships with young men circulated for decades, beginning in the late 1970s when he was quietly pushed out of a church youth ministry after an alleged incident at his home. Those…

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Prior to Pope Leo XIV’s arrival to Lourdes Sept. 26, the sanctuary covered the mosaics of Father Marko Rupnik, the spokesman of the sanctuary confirmed to OSV News, sharing pictures of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary with mosaics entirely covered.

They “will remain covered after the event,” David Torchala shared in the message sent to OSV News. “This measure is intended to be a long-term solution and not merely a temporary decoration” for the papal visit, he said, adding that “the search for a permanent solution will continue in consultation with the bishop and the committee that has been in place since 2024.”

Pope Leo will arrive in Lourdes in the evening of Sept. 26 and will concelebrate Sunday Mass Sept. 27 on the meadow facing the grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.  

Father Rupnik’s mosaics were — until fully covered Sept. 18…

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Next week (21-25 September 2026), the members of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) will gather in Montreal, Quebec, for the annual meeting of the Plenary Assembly. Through prayer, discussion, and decision-making, the Bishops will consider matters concerning the Church’s mission that benefit from their common reflection and action at the national level.

The following are among the principal agenda items and topics to be considered during the week, in a spirit of prayer and discernment:

• Celebration of the Eucharist – Each day will begin with the celebration of the Eucharist, the source and summit of the Catholic faith. The President of the CCCB and Bishops ordained since the last Plenary will preside at these celebrations. A celebration of the Eucharist in the Armenian Rite will also take place, presided by the Most Rev. Mikaël Mouradian.
• 500th Anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe – The Most Rev….

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