News & Events

The Catholic Diocese of Joliet will release as part of a lawsuit settlement more than 7,000 internal documents that reportedly show every bishop since the 1950s has been aware of diocese priests sexually abusing children.The documents include personnel files and other items related to 15 diocese priests accused of sexual abuse over a 50-year period ending in the 1990s. They will be released by plaintiff David Rudofski through his Chicago lawyer, Terrence Johnson, as part of his settlement with the diocese.Rudofski was 8 years old and making his first confession at St. Mary’s Church in Mokena w…

A top midstate legislator said Monday he will not support efforts to create a temporary “window” for victims of long-ago child sex abuse cases to bring new civil suits against their alleged abusers or the institutions that employed them.House Judiciary Committee Chairman Ron Marsico’s statement, coming after closed-door party caucuses on two amendments to create the so-called window, immediately cast doubt on whether supporters can force their proposal through the General Assembly this session.A Republican from Lower Paxton Township, Marsico cited Constitutional concerns with revoking existing…

The sickening pattern is right there on our homepages and front pages almost every day: universities, schools, teams, and leagues have fostered the perfect conditions for numerous children to be abused.   We knew what it took for this to happen due to the massive example from the Catholic Church hierarchy’s misdeeds: (1) treat reports of child sex abuse as a nuisance, rather than a disaster; (2) let abusers have free rein within the system to get access to more children; and (3) vigorously, even ruthlessly, protect the organization’s “brand” and reputation.   Until recently…

Adults abused as children decades ago in New York could file civil lawsuits against their abusers and the institutions that employed them, if a national surge of legislative reform reaches Albany. Advocates for child sex abuse victims say that this year, the prospects look good for a bill that sank four times previously following strong opposition from Catholic and ultra-Orthodox groups. If passed, the legislation could ease the way for a slew of lawsuits against Jewish and Catholic institutions accused of failing to report accounts of child sex abuse to law enforcement authorities.“I’ve ne…

Pope Benedict XVI bears personal responsibility for not holding sexually abusive priests in the Catholic Church accountable, alleges the director of a new documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.”

MORTAL SINS receives its third starred trade review, this time from Kirkus: “The author weaves a captivating tale of legal drama set against the backdrop of an intransigent ecclesiastical hierarchy. The real-life characters of the story range from colorful to tragic; flamboyant lawyers, alcoholic clerics and activist abuse survivors all help make the story a true page-turner. Yet, while entertaining as a work of legal drama, readers are struck on every page by the horror behind the history. D’Antonio presents the terrible facts of underage sexual abuse, though without ma…

News ReleaseMarch 6, 2013 Accused Priest remains in ministry despite charges that he abused boys while at Damien Memorial in Honolulu Honolulu men file lawsuit – say Fr. George DeCosta sexually abused them at Damien High School in 1960’s (Honolulu, Hawaii) Working with the Oahu-based law firm of Mark Gallagher, nationally prominent clergy abuse law firm Jeff Anderson& Associates, announced today the filing of a civil lawsuit on behalf of two Honolulu men who say they were sexually abused in the 1960’s by Christian Brother priest Father George DeCosta at Damien Memorial High School in …

 ST. PAUL, Minn. — It was the sound of teenage boys screaming that jolted teacher Seth Hedderick out of his apartment one night in a dormitory at Shattuck-St. Mary’s. What he uncovered would remain a secret for years until it surfaced in criminal charges against one of the Faribault boarding school’s most beloved teachers. On that night in the fall of 2000, Hedderick said, he went downstairs to investigate. He passed several boys on the stairs. “What’s going on down there?” he asked. “N-D-P,” one boy said. The term meant nothing to Hedderick, who had worked at the school for just a fe…

In Rome, where 115 cardinals are gathering to elect a new pope, the conclave will include these luminaries: Cardinal Roger Mahony, former archbishop of Los Angeles, who in the 1980s plotted with an adviser to conceal child molesting priests from law enforcement. Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland’s church, who failed in the 1970s to follow up on incriminating evidence against a priest, who went on to become a notorious serial molester. Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the former head of the Belgian church, who once advised an adult victim of 13 years of childhood abuse against making “…

Working with the Oahu-based Law Office of Mark Gallagher, the nationally prominent child sex abuse law firm of Jeff Anderson & Associates, announced today the filing of a civil lawsuit on behalf of a Honolulu man who says he was repeatedly sexually abused in the 1980’s by a Hakalau farmer who was his adoptive father.  The plaintiff, who is identified in the complaint as John Roe No. 8 to protect his privacy, claims that in approximately 1983 Jay …

U.S. Speedskating began an investigation Friday into the report of a female skater accusing former Olympian and organization president Andy Gabel of sexual abuse in the 1990s.

You can’t get more red-blooded American macho than Al Chesley. Now 55, he is still — at 6 feet 3 inches and at least 250 pounds — a bear of a man, a former NFL middle linebacker nicknamed “Mad Dog” who played on a Philadelphia Eagles team that went to the Super Bowl.
But at age 13, he was but a child — putty in the hands of a larger-than-life and revered neighborhood police officer who loosened him up with booze, showed him porn flicks, then molested and raped him for nearly five years.
“He told me that he wanted to teach me how to become a man — how ironic,” Chesley said this week about…

Rabbi George Finkelstein was quietly forced out of Yeshiva University High School for Boys in 1995 because of inappropriate wrestling with students that some of them considered abusive. But the Forward has learned that the wrestling did not stop after his departure from Y.U. It continued during Finkelstein’s next two posts, as dean of a Jewish school in Florida and as director general of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue in Israel, where he worked until abruptly resigning this past December. The most recent wrestling incidents documented by the Forward were in 2009. Finkelstein, 67, has been a …

Scandal-plagued Cardinal Mahony heading to select next Pope causes outrage among some Catholics. Casey Wian reports.