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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 […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the United States’ largest Protestant denomination, published a 205-page list on Thursday of ministers and other church workers who have been accused of sexual abuse. The public release of the list comes days after an independent investigation said the church had for years suppressed reports of sexual abuse against priests and church staff. “This list is being made public for the first […]
ORAN, Argentina (AFP) — A retired Argentine bishop seen as close to Catholic Church’s Pope Francis was sentenced on Friday to four and a half years in prison for sexually abusing two seminarians. A court in the northwestern town of Oran, where Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta was bishop from 2013 to 2017, ordered his immediate detention. The 57-year-old Zanchetta, who had traveled from the Vatican for the trial, was convicted of “simple, continued and aggravated […]
by Alice RITCHIE / Ella IDE Agence France Presse VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Ex-pope Benedict XVI asked for forgiveness Tuesday for clerical child sex abuse committed on his watch, but aides rejected allegations of a cover-up while he was archbishop of Munich. “I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness,” the 94-year-old said in a letter published by the […]
by Peter HUTCHISON Agence France Presse NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — A defiant Ghislaine Maxwell said Friday that prosecutors had failed to prove her guilty of sex crimes, as her defense wound up in a trial that heard lurid claims she groomed minors for abuse by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. Speaking for the first time since her sensational trial opened late last month, the 59-year-old British socialite addressed the New […]
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 […]
VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope Francis on Wednesday expressed his personal shame and that of the Church at the sexual abuse of children by French Catholic clergy, after the scale of the problem was laid bare in a devastating report. “I wish to express to the victims my sadness and pain for the trauma they have suffered,” he said during his weekly audience at the Vatican. “And also my shame, our shame, my shame […]
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 […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — Thousands of pedophiles have operated inside the French Catholic Church since 1950, the head of an independent commission investigating the scandal told AFP, days ahead of the release of its report. The commission’s research had uncovered between 2,900 and 3,200 pedophile priests or other members of the church, said Jean-Marc Sauve, adding that it was “a minimum estimate”. The commission’s report is due to be released on Tuesday after two […]
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, […]
SANTIAGO, Chile (AFP) — The Jesuit congregation of Chile has acknowledged that its priests sexually abused 64 people, including 34 children, between 2005 and 2020, according to a report from the Catholic order obtained by AFP Tuesday. Eleven Jesuit priests were found guilty following an internal investigation of “abusive situations with a sexual connotation” involving underage victims, according to the report by the Society of Jesus, known colloquially as the Jesuits. Of the perpetrators, […]
by Isabelle LE PAGE and Deborah COLE Agence France Presse BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — An independent study commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church released Thursday has uncovered hundreds of cases of sexual violence allegedly committed by clergy and laymen in Germany’s top diocese. The long-awaited 800-page report on the Cologne diocese found 202 alleged perpetrators of sexual assault and 314 victims between 1975 and 2018, Bjoern Gercke, a lawyer mandated by the Church, told […]
