News Story of the Day

The national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is supporting a Vermont bill that would eliminate the state’s six-year statute of limitations for filing civil claims of child sex abuse.

It's a documentary that Windsorite director Matt Gallagher has been aspiring to create for about 15 years — and now, his film Prey about sexual abuse by Catholic priests will premiere at Hot Docs, Canada's largest documentary film festival later this month.

When the first Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis erupted in the early 2000s, Wilton Gregory led hundreds of defensive and divided bishops in passing the most aggressive action on abuse in U.S. church history. But Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke remembers something else about Gregory, who was selected this month by Pope Francis to head the prestigious D.C. archdiocese.

The names of an additional 27 Catholic priests accused of misconduct emerged this week in leaked Buffalo Diocese documents showing that a review board examined allegations against the priests.

For years, Elaine Montoya would type the name of the man she said had abused her into an internet search engine to check if he had died.

When Patricia Cahill was 15, a nun who taught at a nearby Catholic high school invited her to perform at a hootenanny mass. “This was the 60s, you know, Peter Paul and Mary and all that,” said Cahill, now 67. “I didn’t really play guitar, but a nun — a nun! — asked me to come to mass and play guitar.”

Ten months after a police complaint, and five years after the crime allegedly took place, ex-Bishop of Jalandhar diocese Franco Mullakkal was formally charged with the crime on Tuesday.

In March 1997, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the nonprofit organization that oversees the Jehovah’s Witnesses, sent a letter to each of its 10,883 U.S. congregations, and to many more congregations worldwide. The organization was concerned about the legal risk posed by possible child molesters within its ranks. The letter laid out instructions on how to deal with a known predator: Write a detailed report answering 12 questions—Was this a onetime occurrence, or did the accused have a history of child molestation? How is the accused viewed within the community? Does anyone else know about the abuse?—and mail it to Watchtower’s headquarters in a special blue envelope. Keep a copy of the report in your congregation’s confidential file, the instructions continued, and do not share it with anyone.

The Vatican permanently removed Anthony S. Apuron as Guam's archbishop, stripped him of his title as bishop, and banned him from ever returning to the Archdiocese of Agana for sexual abuse of minors.