News Story of the Day

A priest from Cincinnati, a Philippine village, and decades of secrecy

TALUSTUSAN, Philippines  — The American priest's voice echoed over the phone line. "Happy days are gone," he said in the 2018 call, recorded by a young man whose accusations would shake this little island village and reveal how allegations of sex crimes by priests are still ignored, sometimes for decades, in one of the world's most Catholic countries. "It's all over."


Federal prosecutors find a way to revive abuse-related case against defrocked Philly priest

Six years ago, prosecutors in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office filed child-abuse charges against a Catholic priest, Robert L. Brennan, only to see their case collapse in less than a month after his accuser was found dead from an accidental drug overdose.


Buffalo bishop preached transparency. Secret recordings made by a whistleblower suggest a different agenda

Bishop Richard Malone, the embattled spiritual leader of the Diocese of Buffalo, is back on the defensive after a second whistleblower came forward on Wednesday, armed with hours of secret recordings that show the bishop navigating what he called “a true crisis situation” for his administration.


Lawmakers push to require clergy to disclose confessions of child abuse

SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Legislators in two Western states are pushing measures that would require clergy members to report confessions of child sex abuse to authorities.


A letter to the Protestant church about sex abuse: We are not safer

Many Protestants have expressed righteous sadness at the sexual crimes in the faith traditions around us, namely the Catholic Church, while remaining indifferent to similar crimes within our congregations. We believe our churches are safer. We are wrong.


Survivors demand US investigation of Mississippi abuse deals

JACKSON, Miss. — Catholic sex abuse survivors in Mississippi and Wisconsin on Thursday demanded that federal authorities investigate allegations from three black Mississippi men who say they were molested by Franciscan friars during the mid-1990s, when they were as young as 9 years old.


Group calls on church to send accused former Wyoming bishop to remote Kansas friary

A national group of victims of priest abuse called on the Catholic Church on Monday to send former Wyoming Bishop Joseph Hart to a friary in rural Kansas, which would mean expelling him from his diocese-owned home in Cheyenne.


Jesuit Prep grad sues Dallas school saying former president molested him as a teen

A graduate of Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas filed a lawsuit Monday against the school and the Catholic Diocese of Dallas, saying he was sexually abused by a priest and former school president on the church's “credibly accused” list while he was a student.


In Mississippi Delta, Catholic abuse cases settled on cheap

GREENWOOD, Mississippi (AP) — A famed Catholic religious order settled sex abuse cases in recent months by secretly paying two black Mississippi men $15,000 each and requiring them to keep silent about their claims, The Associated Press has found.


Yeshiva University hit with sexual abuse lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) — Thirty-eight former students of an Orthodox Jewish school in New York City operated by Yeshiva University sued Thursday over claims they were molested by two prominent rabbis in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.


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