News Story of the Day

By Joshua J. McElwee, Heidi Schlumpf, July 28, 2018, National Catholic Reporter

Retired Washington Archbishop Theodore McCarrick has renounced his position in the College of Cardinals, leaving the global Catholic Church's most symbolic and powerful group in the wake of revelations that he sexually harassed or abused several young men during his meteoric rise to become one of the U.S. church's most senior prelates.

The move, announced in a press release from the U.S. bishops July 28, is without precedence since the founding of the American church with the creation of the diocese of Baltimore in 1789. While several U.S. cardinals have come under scrutiny in recent decades for their handling of abuse cases, none prior had set aside their red cardinalatial robes.

By Jay Tokasz, July 25, 2018, The Buffalo News

The former head of the Buffalo area's largest AIDS prevention organization is being accused of molesting three brothers from a South Buffalo family when he was a Catholic priest in the 1970s.

West Seneca resident and author P.A. Kane wrote a first-person essay accusing Ronald Silverio of being the young parish priest who molested him when he was a parishioner of Holy Family Church in South Buffalo.

By Ivey DeJesus, July 17, 2018, PennLive

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday is expected to release the latest salvo in a last-ditch effort to amend what is expected to be a blistering report on the Catholic Church statewide.

The court is slated to release the response of state Attorney General Josh Shapiro to efforts by at least two dozen priests seeking to revise the report from the 40th Statewide Grand Jury. The priests, current and former, whose names have been redacted from the report, have petitioned the court seeking to revise or block the release of the forthcoming 800-plus page report.

By Laurie Goodstein and Sharon Otterman, July 16, 2018, NY Times

As a young man studying to be a priest in the 1980s, Robert Ciolek was flattered when his brilliant, charismatic bishop in Metuchen, N.J., Theodore E. McCarrick, told him he was a shining star, cut out to study in Rome and rise high in the church.

Bishop McCarrick began inviting him on overnight trips, sometimes alone and sometimes with other young men training to be priests. There, the bishop would often assign Mr. Ciolek to share his room, which had only one bed. The two men would sometimes say night prayers together, before Bishop McCarrick would make a request — “come over here and rub my shoulders a little”— that extended into unwanted touching in bed.

By KU`UWEHI HIRAISHI, JUL 12, 2018, Hawaii Public Radio

A new law in Hawaiʻi now gives survivors of child sexual abuse more time to file claims against their abuser. Reforms to the state’s statute of limitations have been key in exposing the extent of child sexual abuse at various institutions, most notably the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.

Nearly 60 priests associated with Hawaiʻi’s Roman Catholic Church have been accused of child sexual abuse. That’s according to a recent report by attorneys of abuse victims.

By: Brigette Namata, July 11, 2018, KHON2

By Nathaniel Lash & Craig R. McCoy, July 10, 2018,  The Inquirer

New filings in a suit to stop the release of a Pennsylvania attorney general’s report on clergy sex abuse offer a window into who is seeking to keep the report secret and why.

The documents were made public Friday by the state Supreme Court, which blocked the release of the grand jury report until the appeals could be heard.

By The Inquirer Editorial Board, July 10, 2018, The Inquirer

For decades, the Roman Catholic Church has gone to extremes to ignore, cover up and downplay the widespread sexual abuse and rape of boys and some girls across the world. So it comes as no surprise that nearly two dozen current and former priests are seeking to block the release of a grand jury report detailing serial sexual abuse in Catholic dioceses across Pennsylvania.

Fight, deny, and delay have been the Catholic Church’s playbook when it comes to clergy sexual abuse. When all else fails, the church quietly pays confidential settlements to sweep cases under the rug.