Over 400 sex abuse suits filed in New York as litigation window opens

The Roman Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, schools and hospitals, and the late financier Jeffrey Epstein are some of the targets named in a flurry of sex abuse lawsuits filed today in New York as the state began accepting cases once blocked by the statute of limitations. Hundreds of lawsuits were filed as plaintiffs rushed to take advantage of the one-year litigation window, created by state lawmakers this year to give people who say they were victims a second chance to sue over abuse that, in many cases, happened decades ago.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/over-400-sex-abuse-suits-filed-in-new-york-litigation-window-opens 

Over 400 sex abuse suits filed as one-year window opens for litigation in New York state

The Roman Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, schools and hospitals, the late financier Jeffrey Epstein are some of the targets named in a flurry of sex abuse lawsuits filed Wednesday in New York as the state began accepting cases once blocked by the statute of limitations. Hundreds of lawsuits were filed as plaintiffs rushed to take advantage of the one-year litigation window, created by state lawmakers this year to give people who say they were victims a second chance to sue over abuse that, in many cases, happened decades ago.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/08/15/world/crime-legal-world/400-sex-abuse-suits-filed-ny-litigation-one-year-window-opens/#.XVTlk0H7KUk 

CBS 21 Special Report | Abuse allegations against a nun

WARNING: This story contains graphic content and may not be suitable for some viewers. Since the Catholic Church Grand Jury Report was released in August, PA lawmakers have been looking at strengthening laws relating to child sexual abuse. This woman, Trish Cahill, was paid an out of court settlement by a New Jersey congregation.

https://local21news.com/news/local/cbs-21-special-report-abuse-allegations-against-a-nun 

Priest's accuser was an altar boy who said abuse happened more than once

The man who has alleged sexual abuse by Monsignor Craig Harrison said he was inappropriately touched on three separate occasions while he was an altar boy at St. Joseph Church in Firebaugh, according to new information released by the Firebaugh Police Department. The victim told police he was alone with Harrison when it happened.

https://www.bakersfield.com/news/priest-s-accuser-was-an-altar-boy-who-said-abuse/article_8b2a1ba4-6869-11e9-a557-170724aac5df.html

Serious charge: the Catholic Church wanted to bring criminologist Pfeiffer Silence

He is the most famous criminologist of the country, and should inform the abuse in the Catholic Church. The research project failed. Now, Christian Pfeiffer has been making some serious accusations against dignitaries of the Church, against whose abuse officer Stephan Ackermann. It’s hush money, threats, and cover-up.

https://www.ccdiscovery.com/serious-charge-the-catholic-church-wanted-to-bring-criminologist-pfeiffer-silence 

Put needs of survivors first, not strictly the law, panelists urge Church

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Amid the legal wrangling surrounding the long-standing clergy sexual abuse crisis, Barbara Thorp, a social worker who formerly led the Archdiocese of Boston’s office that supports and cares for abuse survivors, wants Catholic leaders to know that healing among survivors is a far more important path to pursue.

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2019/04/10/put-needs-of-survivors-first-not-strictly-the-law-panelists-urge-church/ 

Ex-Pope Benedict blames hippies for clerical sex abuse

Ex-Pope Benedict XVI says the sexual revolution of the 1960s is to answer for child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The former pope wrote in an essay that "absence of God" was behind acts of pedophilia. Former Pope Benedict XVI has blamed the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal on the 1960s sexual revolution, growing secularization and weak church laws that protected priests in an essay published Thursday.

https://www.dw.com/en/ex-pope-benedict-blames-hippies-for-clerical-sex-abuse/a-48294635 

Catholic Cardinals Starting to Feel the Heat

In the wake of French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin’s conviction for failing to report a known pedophile priest to police, the princes of the Catholic Church are under increasing scrutiny. Cardinal George Pell of Australia and the Vatican’s chief financial officer has been found guilty on charges that he molested children decades ago. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been kicked out of the priesthood.

https://losangeles.legalexaminer.com/legal/catholic-cardinals-starting-to-feel-the-heat/ 

Lafayette diocese sued for alleged cover-up

Three men are suing the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette, alleging that a priest molested them as children and that the diocese covered up the abuse and frequently reassigned the priest. The men allege in their lawsuits that they were 12 or 13 in the 1970s and 1980s when they met the Rev. James Grear at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, where he celebrated Mass in the suburban Indianapolis community of Carmel.

http://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/indiana/20190326/lafayette-diocese-sued-for-alleged-cover-up 

Editorial: Church policy on funerals fits a long pattern of concealment

Was it sensitivity to the victims of sexual abuse or another slap in their faces? The history of the Catholic Church and the Buffalo Diocese practically shouts the latter. And if it wasn’t, then it’s at least a lesson in the price of holding terrible secrets. The question is how the local church went about acknowledging the deaths of priests credibly accused of molesting children

https://buffalonews.com/2019/03/26/editorial-church-policy-on-funerals-fits-a-long-pattern-of-concealment/ 

Battling Catholic corruption: Local priest reflects on abuse in the church

Accusations of sexual abuse have rocked the Catholic church since 2002. In August 2018, the scandal intensified following an investigation in Pennsylvania that found more than 300 priests accused of child sexual abuse — leaving at least 1,000 survivors.

https://thedmonline.com/catholic-priest-localization/ 

News How Attorney Gregory Gianforcaro Grew into the Role of Victims' Advocate

Legislators are finally understanding that the playing field has to be leveled," said plaintiff attorney Gregory Gianforcaro of Phillipsburg, who by his own count has settled more than 200 cases of childhood sexual abuse by clerics within the Catholic Church. Monday’s scheduled vote in the Assembly on a bill to remove the civil statute of limitations on certain offenses of child sexual abuse caps a milestone.

https://www.law.com/njlawjournal/2019/03/24/how-attorney-gregory-gianforcaro-grew-into-the-role-of-victims-advocate/?slreturn=20190227044131 

Perth Catholics voice shock, disbelief at reports 'beloved' priest abused child

Perth's Catholic parishioners have reacted with shock and disbelief at media reports a priest who was found dead on Thursday was the subject of a police child abuse investigation. In hundreds of social media posts since news of Fr Joseph Tran's death was first reported on Friday, local Catholics described the Armadale-based priest as warm-hearted, kind and loving, with many expressing dismay at the allegation levelled against him.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/western-australia/perth-catholics-voice-shock-disbelief-at-reports-beloved-priest-abused-child-20190324-p5172y.html 

Time for states to address priest abuse

eadlines of abuse dominated news cycles in August 2018 after the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report released the names of hundreds of priests who had sexually abused children for more than seven decades. Since then, evidence of the global epidemic within the Catholic Church of sexual abuse of the innocent has continued to surface. The Associated Press publishes a new article nearly every week about new investigations, diocese reports, complaints by survivor advocacy groups and continued corruption.

https://xaviernewswire.com/2019/03/20/time-for-states-to-address-priest-abuse/ 

West Virginia Accuses Catholic Diocese Of Covering Up Clergy Abuse

Rachel Martin talks to West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who sued the Catholic diocese of Wheeling-Charleston Tuesday — saying it and its former bishop "knowingly employed pedophiles." It has become an all too familiar headline - allegations of a Catholic diocese that has systematically covered up sexual abuse. This time, though, authorities are taking a different approach to prosecute the crimes.

https://www.wbur.org/npr/705021448/west-virginia-accuses-catholic-diocese-of-covering-up-clergy-abuse 

McGinley Taught Child Psychology at GU, Abused Children for 30 Years

Anthony McGinley, a Catholic priest from Pennsylvania, sexually abused young boys for 30 years, according to a 2018 report on clerical abuse published by a Pennsylvania grand jury. For five of those years, he taught courses in child psychology at Georgetown University. From 1977 to 1981, McGinley taught graduate classes in orthodontic statistics each fall and child psychology each spring, according to the archived schedules of classes from those years. He is also listed as a lecturer in orthodontics in telephone directories from 1977 to 1987, the year the Church prohibited him from celebrating Mass.

https://www.thehoya.com/mcginley-taught-child-psychology-gu-abused-children-30-years/ 

‘Sex mad’ Catholic priest jailed in UK for abuse of six youngsters

AFTER a jury at Aylesbury Crown Court delivered a guilty verdict against a 75-year-old priest who sexually abused children the 1970s & 80s he was handed a sentence of nine years and 11 months. Father Francis McDermott, above, a former Buckinghamshire priest, was found guilty of 18 counts of abuse. McDermott, of Bideford in Devon, abused the children in his parishes in High Wycombe and Norwich and earlier in London when he was training for the priesthood.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thefreethinker/2019/03/sex-mad-catholic-priest-jailed-in-uk-for-abuse-of-six-youngsters/ 

Poland's Catholic Church says 625 minors abused by priests since 1990

Poland's Catholic Church leaders released a study on Thursday that said 625 minors have been abused by 382 priests from 1990 through June of last year — a revelation marking the first time officials have ever presented statistics about the scope of the child sex abuse problem there, the AP reports. Details: Officials found that 345 victims were under age 15, 280 victims between 15 to 18 and 58% of the victims were male, per the AP.

https://www.axios.com/polands-catholic-church-625-minors-abused-priests-0dfa9d9f-03e1-4653-9c27-153b32a3ca6a.html

Geoffrey Robertson QC: The clerical abuse of tens of thousands of children is a crime against humanity by any definition.

News of the conviction and remanding in custody of Cardinal George Pell, number three in the Vatican, for the rape of small boys in a sacristy came as a fitting end to a papal summit on child abuse which achieved nothing. It had begun with other cardinals attributing the problem to homosexuals in the priesthood. Of course, the reality is that priests abuse small boys, not because they are gay, but because they have the opportunity.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/geoffrey-robertson-qc-the-clerical-abuse-of-tens-of-thousands-of-children-is-a-crime-against-humanity-by-any-definition-37870894.html 

French court okays screening of film on priest’s abuse of boy scouts

A French court Monday approved cinema screenings of an award-winning director's new film about the real-life story of a priest accused of sexually abusing boy scouts, even though the case has yet to come to trial. The 73-year-old priest, Bernard Preynat, had argued that a public release of the film, "By the Grace of God", could prejudice his case. His lawyer, Emmanuel Mercinier, said the court issued its decision Monday morning

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/434026-french-court-okays-screening-of-film-on-priest-s-abuse-of-boy-scouts