News Story of the Day

After months of publicly discrediting and denying sexual abuse allegations against prominent priests and a diocesan employee, documents obtained by the Times Free Press suggest the Diocese of Knoxville may have known about those allegations for almost a year before suspending the accused employee.

Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would give survivors of childhood sexual assault a "look back window" to address previously unreported claims. It would allow them to open cases with an expired statute of limitations for one year.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City is opposing a bill that requires clergy to report disclosures of abuse to law enforcement to investigate.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — In the 1980s, the Boy Scouts discovered a dirty little secret about one of their Scoutmasters: he was an accused child molester.

Now we know that Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger is more than bankruptcy curious. The leader in charge of Buffalo’s Catholic diocese told a Buffalo News reporter on Monday that filing for Chapter 11 protection is probable as the diocese faces an onslaught of lawsuits from individuals making claims of clergy sex abuse.

In June, as the last days of the legislative session ticked away, the Rhode Island Senate and House, almost unanimously, passed a new law extending the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sexual abuse. It was promptly signed into law by Gov. Gina Raimondo. The bill’s consideration was a thoughtful and deliberative process undertaken to bring justice to survivors of childhood abuse, and to protect children from previously unnamed perpetrators.

For most of the 20th century, the Catholic Church in the U.S. minimized the damage wrought by pedophile priests by covering up the abuse. When the bishop of the Davenport, Iowa, diocese was told in the mid-1950s that one of his priests was sexually abusing boys at a local YMCA, he kept it secret. “It is consoling to know that no general notoriety has arisen, and I pray none may result,” he wrote to a priest, capturing the strategy of the era.

SALT LAKE CITY -- A bill made public ahead of the 2020 legislative session would remove the "priest-penitent" privilege when it comes to reporting abuse cases.

A Catholic priest who served in a Brighton parish decades ago has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two children during the 1970s in Suffolk County, according to prosecutors.

Henry Lee Porter, 72, pastored the church he incorporated in 1971 for 45 years before stepping down in June 2016.

A former bishop and founder of the Westcoast Center for Human Development was arrested Thursday by Sarasota Police after multiple investigations “demonstrated more than four decades of children and adults suffering sexual abuse by Henry Lee Porter Sr.,” according to a probable cause affidavit.