Tag: Catholic Church

Spain’s Catholic bishops apologise after report of 200,000 abused

Spain’s bishops apologised on Monday after a report estimated more than 200,000 minors had been sexually abused by the country’s Roman Catholic clergy since 1940. But the Spanish Episcopal Conference said the numbers mentioned in the report, by an independent commission, “do not correspond to the truth”. The paper published Friday did not give a specific number of abuse victims but said a poll of more than 8,000 people found that 0.6 percent of Spain’s […]

Bolivian Catholic Church admits was ‘deaf’ to abuse victims

LA PAZ, May 24, 2023 (AFP) – The Bolivian Catholic Church on Wednesday admitted having been “deaf” to the suffering of victims of pedophile priests amid a fresh scandal over the alleged abuse of dozens of children. Bolivia has been shocked by revelations that have emerged since confessions of abuse were found in the personal diary of a Spanish priest who died of cancer in Bolivia in 2009 after decades of service there. In the […]

‘Overwhelming’: Survivors reflect on pope’s Indigenous abuse apology

  MASKWACIS, Canada (AFP) — Some seemed far away, others wept or applauded: a great wave of emotion swept through the crowd on Monday in western Canada’s Maskwacis when the pope himself begged forgiveness for the “evil” done to Indigenous people. One way or another, they had all been affected by the decades of abuse against children in schools run by the Catholic Church, part of a system seeking to stamp out the Indigenous identity […]

Italy’s Catholic church orders child sex abuse study

by Clément MELKI Agence France Presse ROME, Italy (AFP) — The new head of Italy’s Catholic Church announced Friday a study into clerical child sex abuse over the last 20 years, but survivors said it fell short of an independent inquiry. Pope Francis had called for a transparent annual audit of efforts to protect minors, as he seeks to restore trust in the Catholic Church following a global scandal. “It’s our duty, faced with so […]

French Catholic Church to sell assets to settle sex abuse claims

  by Karine PERRET Agence France Presse LOURDES, France (AFP) — Catholic bishops in France agreed Monday to sell part of the Church’s extensive real estate holdings to compensate thousands of victims of child sex abuse at the hands of clergy. Church officials have been under intense pressure to recognise and indemnify victims after a landmark French inquiry confirmed extensive sexual abuse of minors by priests dating from the 1950s. An independent commission will evaluate […]

Canadian PM visits graves of indigenous school previously ran by Catholic church

Indigenous leaders still await apology from Pope; visit to Vatican in December set   Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a visit Monday, October 18, to the indigenous community of Kamloops where the remains of 215 children were found in May at a former residential school ran by the Catholic Church, apologizing for not coming sooner. The visit followed strong criticisms directed at Trudeau for ignoring an earlier invitation to the community on the first […]

Awful truth: Child sex abuse in the Catholic Church

  PARIS, France (AFP) — The Catholic Church has been repeatedly rocked by child sex abuse scandals over the last three decades. An independent inquiry on Tuesday found there were 216,000 victims of French clergy between 1950 and 2020. It is the latest in a series of landmark reports and investigations that have helped lift the “veil of silence” around the crimes. – Australia – After a series of scandals, Australia’s government set up a […]

French Catholic Church inquiry finds 216,000 sex abuse victims from 1950

  by Karine PERRET and Joseph SCHMID Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — An independent inquiry into alleged sex abuse of minors by French Catholic priests, deacons and other clergy has found some 216,000 victims from 1950 to 2020, a “massive phenomenon” that was covered up for decades by a “veil of silence.” The landmark report, released Tuesday after two and a half years of investigations, follows widespread outrage over a string of sex […]

Parish church in New Jersey receives food donations from Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC)

  NEW MILFORD, NEW JERSEY— Some 250 boxes of canned and dry food items were donated by the Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church Of Christ) to the Ascension Parish Church, a parish of the Catholic Church which serves the Bergen, New Jersey community as a food pantry. Members of the INC throughout the New Jersey district donated canned and dry food items as part of the “Aid To Humanity” program of the Church Of Christ. They […]

Former US cardinal pleads not guilty to sexually assaulting teenage boy

  NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Former US cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the most senior Roman Catholic official in America to face criminal charges in the massive clergy abuse scandal, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he sexually assaulted a teenage boy. McCarrick, 91, arrived at Massachusetts District Court in the town of Dedham walking hunched over with the aid of a walker, amid some boos, video shared on social media showed. McCarrick’s attorney, […]

Trudeau denounces vandalism, arson of Catholic churches, as history of abuse in residential schools unearthed

  OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday denounced a wave of vandalism across Canada that saw churches damaged and statues of monarchs splashed with red paint and torn down. These acts followed the recent discoveries of more than 1,000 unmarked graves at former indigenous boarding schools that has provoked anger and grief in indigenous communities, and beyond, along with a reckoning of the country’s colonial history. “It is unacceptable and wrong […]

Trudeau doesn’t rule out criminal probe of indigenous school graves

Canadian PM says he had spoken directly with Catholic Church’s Pope Francis, seeking an apology for the abuse   by Michel COMTE Agence France Presse Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized Friday for “harmful government policies” and did not rule out a criminal probe after hundreds of unmarked graves were discovered at a former indigenous residential school in western Canada. The public mea culpa for the policy of indigenous assimilation and other historical wrongs comes one […]