Media Statements

Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop Tomé Ferreira da Silva, who oversaw a diocese in Sao Paulo state, less than a week after a sexually explicit video, purported to be the bishop, hit social media outlets. Fifteen years shy of the normal retirement age for bishops, Bishop Ferreira da Silva has reportedly been under investigation by the Catholic Church since 2015. The bishop is said to have ignored reports of abuse and exchanged sexual messages with an adolescent, as well as taking a large amount of money from the Church and giving it to someone with whom he allegedly had a romantic relationship.

Toolkits to help survivors understand their rights and guide them through the empowering but challenging process of filing a civil lawsuit.

A priest who is currently listed as a professor at a Detroit seminary was sued last week for alleged child sex crimes. For the safety of children, we call on Michigan church officials to immediately suspend the cleric.

Following the release of the bombshell Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018, 22 states opened their own independent investigations into the abuse of Catholic children by clergy. As more information about the true scope of the problem has been uncovered over the past three years by those probes and by civil windows, we urge the remaining states to open probes of their own. We are confident that the scope and scale of investigations nationwide into cases of abuse by the clergy, nuns, brothers, lay employees, and volunteers will yield hundreds, if not thousands, of new victims coming forward and will reveal the names of countless "hidden predators."

Aaron Nowicki, a former priest from the Catholic Diocese of Marquette who was removed from ministry in 2019, has been arrested in a sting operation for allegedly attempting to meet children for sex. We are grateful for this arrest, and we hope this will encourage others who may have been harmed by Nowicki or anyone else in the Diocese to come forward and make a report to law enforcement.

Over 900 claims of child sexual abuse have been filed against the Diocese of Buffalo, a number that is reported to be the largest number of claims ever filed against a single Catholic diocese in bankruptcy. These staggering numbers will surely rock the public.

The sheer number of claims reported is mind-boggling. However, we believe this will become a common theme across the country as ‘windows to justice’ continue to be passed by state legislatures. Sadly, given what we have seen over the course of our history, we are not surprised at the numbers, nor are we surprised at the content and description of these claims.

Earlier today a former parishioner of St. Charles Borromeo Church in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, came forward publicly to reveal that in 1977 he confronted the Rev. Daniel L. Gill, the assistant pastor at the parish, about a 14-year-old girl's report of sexual molestation by the priest. Russell G. Powell also said that he informed Fr. Gill's superior of the accusation and of the priest's admission of guilt. Fr. Gill subsequently disappeared from the parish, Russell said, and later was transferred to another Catholic church in Brimfield.

A priest who was in charge of four Catholic schools on Florida's gulf coast is being sued for the first time for alleged child sexual abuse.

The text accompanying the "Safe and Sacred Safe Environment Training" video put out by the Catholic Diocese of Fresno reads, “Report sexual abuse of a minor by a priest, deacon, church/school volunteer or church/school employee by calling the Victim Assistance Hotline Number – 559-488-7400. Reports are held in strictest confidence.”

Since the Fresno Diocese explicitly acknowledges that Church volunteers and lay employees can abuse, we wonder why its list of the "credibly accused" only includes religious brothers? Were there no reports of abuse by nuns, teachers, and other lay employees or volunteers? We would find that hard to believe since every Catholic diocese that has been investigated by secular authorities has uncovered abusers in those categories. We hope that Bishop Joseph Brennan will clarify this. The list should either be expanded or the Bishop should state unequivocally to the public he has no reports that a nun, Catholic school teacher, lay employee, or volunteer has ever been accused of abusing a child in Fresno. 

We are approaching the three-year anniversary of the Pennsylvania Attorney General Grand Jury report, a scathing document that demonstrated systemic issues with childhood sexual abuse and a decades-long campaign to cover up child sex crimes in every Roman Catholic Diocese within the Commonwealth. Let us take a moment to examine the best of what has come from the release of this report and then focus on where we have fallen short of protecting future generations of Pennsylvania children from sexual assault.