TOLEDO, Ohio — About 50 more people have come forward to say they were sexually abused at Catholic schools in Pennsylvania and Ohio by a Franciscan brother who killed himself in January, said an attorney who settled 11 alleged abuse cases against the friar. Brother Stephen Baker, 62, stabbed himself in the heart at a western Pennsylvania monastery on Jan. 26, a little over a week after the disclosure of financial settlements in alleged abuse cases in Warren, Ohio. A coroner told the Altoona Mirror that Baker left a short note apologizing for his actions. The new accusers have alleged in rec…
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VATICAN CITY (AP) Popular pressure is mounting in the U.S. and Italy to keep California Cardinal Roger Mahony away from the conclave to elect the next pope because of his role shielding sexually abusive priests, a movement targeting one of the most prominent of a handful of compromised cardinals scheduled to vote next month. Amid the outcry, Mahony has made clear he is coming, and no one can force him to recuse himself. A Vatican historian also said Wednesday that there is no precedent for a cardinal staying home because of personal scandal. But the growing grass-roots campaign is an indicati…
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, will be deposed on Wednesday afternoon by lawyers representing hundreds of people who say they were sexually abused by priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, where Cardinal Dolan served before his appointment to New York in 2009. Cardinal Dolan is one of two American cardinals who are being deposed in sexual abuse lawsuits this week, and who plan to travel to Rome next week in advance of the proceedings to elect the successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who stunned the world last week with the announcement that he was resi…
MOUNT CALVARY — Fr. Dennis Druggan, president and rector of St. Lawrence Seminary High School in Mount Calvary, has been removed from public ministry due to an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct. The allegations involve a minor in Montana more than 25 years ago, according to a statement from the Capuchin Province of St. Joseph and reported by the Fond du Lac Reporter. Druggan, OFM Capuchin, had been on administrative leave since he was informed of the initial complaint in July. A second complainant came forward after the initial complaint, according to the statement. There h…
(Reuters) – A U.S. Catholic group has launched an online petition to keep a cardinal linked to a sex abuse scandal from attending the Vatican conclave that will select a new pope. Catholics United, a non-profit, non-partisan organization, says that former Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony should refrain from attending the papal conclave and recuse himself from voting. The petition launched last week had more than 5,000 signatures as of Tuesday representing a tiny fraction of the roughly one in four Americans who are Catholics. “Please do not bring further scandal to our Church that has alr…
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Childhood victims of sexual abuse would no longer face a time limit to sue their abusers under a proposed bill announced at the Capitol Wednesday. The Minnesota Child Victims Act would eliminate the requirement that victims file civil suits within six years of becoming an adult. It would not affect the statute of limitations in criminal cases. Proponents of the Minnesota Child Victims Act say that it can take decades for people who were sexually abused as children to overcome the shame and secrecy surrounding those events to come forward. By then, it’s too late. Civi…
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has quietly added two dozen priests and brothers to its list of clergy accused of child molestation. Though the church deems the allegations against the men credible, the archdiocese has declined to release information about the complaints, including the number of accusers, the dates of the alleged abuse and the parishes where the men worked. The names were disclosed in a two-page report posted on the archdiocese’s website last month alongside 12,000 pages of internal records related to its handling of abuse claims. The document was discovered recently by Bish…
Pope Benedict directed the church’s response to decades of abuse by its priests. CNN’s Nic Robertson reports.
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Pope Benedict’s reign started at the height of sex scandals in the Catholic church. Eight years later, as he steps down, the issue still plagues him as much as it does the victims. “He didn’t finish his job,” Bob Schwiderski said Monday after he learned about the resignation. Schwiderski was an altar boy for St. John’s Catholic Church in Hector more than five decades ago. It was there he said he was sexually abused repeatedly by a priest. “I was 7-years-old the first time,” he said. The abuse continued until he was 11. He didn’t tell anyone until he was in his 30s and onl…
Rome (CNN) — The spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI, surprised the world Monday by saying he will resign at the end of the month “because of advanced age.” It’s the first time a pope has stepped down in nearly 600 years. “Strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me,” said Benedict, 85, according to the Vatican. Read more: Who is Pope Benedict XVI? The news startled and shocked the Catholic world and …