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SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australian police said on Wednesday they had charged a Catholic priest with indecent assault of a 15-year-old boy more than two decades ago, the latest member of the clergy caught in the church’s global sex-abuse scandal. The announcement comes a week after disgraced Australian Cardinal George Pell was sentenced in Melbourne to six years in prison for the sexual abuse of two choirboys. Police said the 61-year-old man, whose identity was […]
By Agence France-Presse MELBOURNE, Australia (AFP) — Angry protesters called Cardinal George Pell a “maggot” and a “monster” Wednesday as he arrived in court, possibly for the last time as a free man, in a last-ditch push for bail while he appeals his historic conviction for child sex crimes. Once one of Pope Francis’ closest advisors, Pell is facing up to 25 years in prison for five charges of sexual and indecent assault on […]
WARSAW, Poland (AFP) — A foundation supporting victims of pedophile priests in Poland on Thursday released a report documenting nearly 400 cases of sex abuse by clergymen in the staunchly Catholic country. The publication of the 27-page report, which activists presented to Catholic Church’s Pope Francis on Wednesday, coincided with the pontiff gathering the world’s top Catholic bishops at the Vatican at a summit on tackling clerical sex abuse. Images broadcast on Polish television […]
French director François Ozon’s “By the Grace of God,” about the real-life story of a priest accused of sexually abusing boy scouts, hits Paris cinemas, a day after its controversial release was approved by the courts. Moviegoers who saw the film reacted to the controversial movie that touches on a subject that has stirred wounds of sex abuse victims of the Catholic clergy, and also created awareness about the issue. Marcel Benbassat, one of those […]
by Ella Ide Agence France Presse VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope Francis on Thursday handed the world’s top Catholic bishops guidelines to shape the debate at a landmark Vatican summit on tackling clerical sex abuse. “As a help, I would share with you some important criteria formulated by the various episcopal commissions and conferences — they came from you and I have organised them somewhat,” he said as the meeting began. “They are guidelines to […]
by Lucie Peytermann Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — A US-based group that compiles data on sexual abuse by Catholic clerics and bishops accused of covering it up fears that a bid by Pope Francis to tackle the scandals is a case of too little, too late. Speaking ahead of a Vatican summit of bishops this week to discuss the crisis, Anne Barret Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, complained of a “disconnect” between the […]
French prosecutors said Friday they were investigating a sexual assault complaint made against the Vatican’s envoy to Paris in more unwelcome news for the Catholic church as it looks to turn the page on years of scandal. The Catholic Church’s Pope Francis has vowed that the church will no longer ignore abuse allegations, and he removed two prominent cardinals from his inner circle late last year after they were tainted by paedophile scandals. The […]
by Nova Safo Agence France Presse CHICAGO, United States (AFP) — The United States’ largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is facing a sexual abuse crisis after a bombshell report revealed hundreds of predators and more than 700 victims since 1998. The report by two Texas newspapers found some 380 church leaders and volunteers have faced public accusations of abuse, mostly of children as young as three years old. Some of the accused […]
by Nova Safo / with Javier Tovar in Los Angeles Agence France Presse CHICAGO, United States (AFP) — Catholic officials in the US state of Texas on Thursday released the names of approximately 300 clergy who have been accused of sexual abuse dating back 70 years. The revelations — which came on the same day that a law firm said that more than 80 priests sexually abused minors in a California diocese over a period […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — A former Catholic priest who had admitted to sexually abusing children in the US state of Pennsylvania was sentenced Friday to up to 14 years in prison — the second clergyman to be jailed in the wake of a damning statewide grand jury report. David Poulson, 65 — who served as a priest for four decades in the Diocese of Erie — had entered a guilty plea in […]
by Nova Safo Agence France Presse CHICAGO, United States (AFP) — Almost 700 clergymen in Illinois have been accused of child sexual assault, a far greater number than the Catholic church had previously disclosed, the Midwestern US state’s top prosecutor revealed Wednesday. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said the church’s revelations that 185 clergy members were credibly accused of sexual abuse fell short of the number her office has uncovered. The preliminary results of an […]
MANILA, Philippines (AFP) — An American Catholic priest wanted for allegedly sexually abusing Filipino altar boys as young as seven has been arrested in the Philippines and now faces deportation, officials said Thursday. Kenneth Bernard Hendricks, 77, was taken into custody Wednesday on the central island of Biliran after serving as a priest for 37 years in the predominantly Catholic Philippines. “We received information from US authorities regarding the alleged sexual exploitation of multiple […]
