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The Archdiocese of New York announced that it will continue to voluntarily compensate some survivors of clerical sexual abuse – EVEN SURVIVORS WHO HAVE NOT COME FORWARD PREVIOUSLY.

In October of 2016, the Archdiocese of New York instituted a confidential compensation program.  The program was initially available to only sexual abuse survivors who had previously reported the abuse they suffered to the Archdiocese.  Now, the program has been extended to include sexual abuse survivors who have not previously reported to the Archdiocese.  In other words, survivors who have been…

Yesterday, it was announced that for the first time ever known, a Catholic clergyman has been convicted of child sexual abuse in Mexico. Father Gerardo Silvestre Hernandez, a priest in the Archdiocese of Antequera Oaxaca, was sentenced to 16 years and 6 months in prison for plying child victims with alcohol, showing them pornographic films and then sexually abusing them. The National Catholic Reporter, reported Hernandez was arrested in 2013 and had been detained since then. According to World Religion News, 81% of Mexican adults are Catholic and Mexico has the second highest number of Catholi…

Recently, the Woodbury Police Department received a disturbing report of child sexual abuse involving a school bus aide from the South Washington County School District. Harvey Kneifl was charged with six (6) counts of Second Degree Sexual Assault involving the inappropriate touching of six (6) pre-school aged students after he was observed on video abusing the children on a school bus. As the Washington County Attorney stated, “What this defendant is alleged to have done is totally abhorrent to society.” Kneif’s actions are in stark contrast with what he was supposed to be doing and that’s pr…

Every morning as we prepare our children for another school day, we want to believe that the institution and teachers that work with our children have their best interests at heart. Unfortunately for several children at Lincoln Center Elementary in South St. Paul, this was not the case. Former teacher and trusted mentor, Aric Babbitt, preyed on the innocence and vulnerability of several students in the South St. Paul school district. Ten survivors have now come forward alleging sexual abuse by Babbitt and his husband Matthew Deyo. When a brave, young 16 year-old boy reported Babbitt and Deyo t…

In 2013 the Minnesota legislature passed the Child Victims Act. Since then, hundreds of sexual abuse survivors have stepped out of the shadows of secrecy, silence and shame, to seek justice for the abuse they suffered as children. Because of the Child Victims Act, at least 200 sexual predators were exposed to the public, making our communities safer for our children. In July 2013, The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis released a list of 33 priests credibly accused of child sexual abuse. That list has more than doubled and now stands at 69 with more names to come. The Diocese of Duluth…

Today the Attorney General charged 3 priests of the Franciscan, Catholic Religious Order in connection with their role regarding notorious predator Fr. Stephen Baker. Religious Order Priests are associated with a particular Catholic Order (i.e. Franciscans) and can move more freely from Diocese to Diocese and Jurisdiction to Jurisdiction.  This jurisdictional mobility allows Religious Order priests to likely be the most unreported group of clerical sexual abusers in existence.  Often a particular Diocese claims to not have authority or information regarding a Religious Order..

A letter arrived at my house last week that, right away, caught my attention. Now I don’t know about you, but there’s something about an attorney’s return address on an envelope addressed to me that makes finding out what’s inside a lot more important than the latest missive from Publisher’s Clearinghouse. So I stood there, barely in the door, coat still on and read, “We are sending this letter to anyone who may have attended a parish or school in the Diocese of Winona …”The letter was from Jeff Anderson & Associates…

A letter arrived at my house last week that, right away, caught my attention. Now I don’t know about you, but there’s something about an attorney’s return address on an envelope addressed to me that makes finding out what’s inside a lot more important than the latest missive from Publisher’s Clearinghouse. So I stood there, barely in the door, coat still on and read, “We are sending this letter to anyone who may have attended a parish or school in the Diocese of Winona …”

The letter was from Jeff Anderson & Assoc…

The impact Spotlight has made on the child protection movement became
even more apparent yesterday when the movie won Best Original Screenplay
and Best Picture at the Academy Awards.  This is in addition to several
other awards claimed by the movie this year.  Based on a true story,
Spotlight portrays the Boston Globe’s uncovering of the clergy abuse
scandal in the early 2000s.  It is a powerful film exposing the global
concealment and cover-up of sexual abuse by Catholic officials for
decades at the expense of children.

Spotlight, the movie directed by Thomas McCarthy, chronicles the investigation undertaken by a team of investigative reporters from the Boston Globe.  Their investigation uncovered a decades long cover-up of sexually abusive priests by the Archdiocese of Boston.  The passion and tenacity of not only the reporters but the others who had already been laboring against the injustice including attorneys, whistleblowing priests and the survivors themselves can be viscerally experienced by the audience.  The movie is quite simply one of the most important and compelling films of our ti…