by Karine Perret Agence France Presse LOURDES, France (AFP) — French bishops on Saturday approved a program of payouts to victims of sex abuse by priests — but survivors have already objected that the Catholic Church has not gone far enough in admitting responsibility. Voting at the bi-annual Conference of French Bishops (CEF) in the southern city of Lourdes, a large majority of the 120 bishops approved the payments to those who had suffered […]
Tag: abuse
Twitter lets users sideline unwanted direct messages
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Twitter on Monday said it is rolling out a filter that will hide away unwanted direct messages, providing a new tool to stymie abuse. Twitter users who receive direct messages from people they don’t follow on the platform will be able to have such missives automatically routed to a secondary folder. “Unwanted messages aren’t fun,” Twitter tweeted in August when it began testing the filter that let users […]
France’s Catholic child abuse probe flooded with messages
PARIS, France (AFP) — A commission set up by the French Catholic Church to investigate allegations of child sex abuse by clerics received about 2,000 messages in its first three months, chairman Jean-Marc Sauve said Friday. The independent body, looking into abuse claims dating back to the 1950s, was set up last year in response to a number of scandals that shook the Church in France and worldwide. Composed of 22 legal professionals, doctors, […]
Cardinal Pell files High Court appeal against child sex conviction
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Disgraced Cardinal George Pell lodged an appeal against his child sex abuse convictions in Australia’s High Court on Tuesday, an official in Canberra said. It is the final avenue of appeal for the 78-year-old — who is serving a six-year sentence for sexually assaulting two choirboys in the 1990s — to get out of jail and clear his name. The former Vatican treasurer who once helped elect popes, last month […]
Disgraced Catholic Cardinal Pell of Australia loses child sex abuse appeal
by Holly ROBERTSON Agence France Presse MELBOURNE, Australia (AFP) — Disgraced Cardinal George Pell lost his appeal against child sex abuse convictions Wednesday, prompting relief from victims who fought to bring one of the Catholic Church’s most powerful men to justice. A former Vatican treasurer, Pell had been trying to overturn the verdicts and six-year sentence for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old choirboys at a Melbourne cathedral in the 1990s. The high-profile case pitted 78-year-old […]
Palace expresses alarm over fall to death of Chinese national trying to escape from his employer in Las Piñas
(Eagle News)–The Palace on Sunday, Aug. 11, expressed alarm over the death of a Chinese national who fell from his office window reportedly while trying to escape in Las Piñas City. In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo noted 27-year-old Chinese Yang Kang was handcuffed when he fell to his death from the sixth floor in Pamplona around 4 a.m. on Friday. Las Piñas police have said it was possible Kang was escaping from his […]
US to probe alleged abuse of migrant children by border agents
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — US authorities said Wednesday they are investigating allegations of abuse of migrant children by border agents, including the groping of a Honduran teenage girl, at a facility near the southern border with Mexico. The allegations were reported by NBC News, which cited official reports of the incidents — including the children’s accounts — at a Customs and Border Protection facility in Yuma, Arizona, where the migrants were held. […]
South Korean Olympians in sexual harassment incident
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — A South Korean Olympic short-track medallist sexually harassed another male Games podium-finisher, officials said Tuesday — prompting them to suspend the entire team. The offender — who has not been identified — reportedly forcibly pulled down the victim’s trousers, leaving him standing in his underwear in front of team-mates at the national training centre in Jincheon. In response coaches collectively punished the entire team — seven men and seven women […]
Disgraced Australian cardinal Pell faces new legal battle over failure to report abuse
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Disgraced Australian Cardinal George Pell is facing fresh legal woes after being named in a civil suit alleging he failed to protect victims of a priest he knew was abusing children. The civil case was filed in the Victoria state Supreme Court on Friday by a man who said he suffered abuse at the hands of Christian Brother Edward “Ted” Dowan when he was a student at a Melbourne college […]
Special Report: Top US cardinal accused of mishandling aide’s sex abuse case
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — When Cardinal Daniel DiNardo first met Laura Pontikes in his wood-paneled conference room in December 2016, the leader of the U.S. Catholic Church’s response to its sex abuse scandal said all the right things. He praised her for coming forward to report that his deputy in the Galveston-Houston archdiocese had manipulated her into a sexual relationship and declared her a “victim” of the priest, Pontikes said. […]
US Catholic abuse victims sue Vatican to name predatory priests
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Five Americans who say they were sexually molested by Catholic priests filed a lawsuit against the Vatican on Tuesday to compel the church to open its archives and hand over the names and details of abusive clergy. The plaintiffs “were harmed as a result of the Defendant Holy See’s practice and policy of not reporting suspected child abuse to law enforcement officials,” stated the lawsuit filed in US federal […]
Catholic Church’s Pope Francis changes Church law to make reporting sex abuse obligatory
by Ella IDE Agence France Presse VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Catholic Church’s Pope Francis on Thursday passed a landmark new measure to oblige those who know about sex abuse in the Catholic Church to report it to their superiors, in a move which could bring countless new cases to light. Every diocese in the world will now be obliged to have a system for the reporting of abuse, under a new law published by […]





