Richard Tollner knows firsthand what the people who have sex abuse claims against the Buffalo Catholic Diocese are going through as the diocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case plods unresolved toward its fifth year.
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NJ Catholic diocese used secret court hearing to block investigation of clergy sex abuse
A statue of the Virgin Mary adorns the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Camden. A challenge filed by the Camden diocese led to a court ruling that short-circuited New Jersey's plans to investigate the Catholic church and sexual abuse. Courier-Post Photo by Jim Walsh
February 5, 2025
By Deena Yellin
When New Jersey's attorney general announced an investigation into decades of alleged sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, survivors in the state hoped they would finally see the public reckoning they had long sought.
Nearly seven years have passed since then, but there's been little sign the Attorney General's Office is close to finishing the probe. The agency has been tight-lipped about its progress, if any, despite receiving hundreds of tips from alleged victims.
Court documents obtained by The Record and NorthJersey.com offer one explanation for the delay: One of New Jersey's five Catholic dioceses succeeded in quashing a key part of the investigation at a secret hearing almost two years ago.
At a May 25, 2023, court session attended by representatives of all five dioceses, state Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw sided with Camden. He ruled that the state judiciary, which oversees grand juries, would "not take any action which enables the process of preparing such a presentment to move forward."
The ruling at the Mercer County Courthouse was ordered sealed at the request of the diocese. It was upheld a year later by a state appeals court, though that court also denied a motion to keep the decision private. Until recently, however, the legal maneuverings were not widely known outside the circle of lawyers involved.
Long Island diocese's exit from bankruptcy may signal future path for Buffalo Diocese
Feb 1, 2025
Buffalo News
Tollner filed a Child Victims Act lawsuit in 2019 accusing the Rev. Alan Placa of sexually assaulting him in 1975 when he was a 16-year-old student at St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary in Uniondale, which is part of the Town of Hempstead, Long Island. After the Diocese of Rockville filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2020, Tollner was appointed chairman of the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, helping represent more than 600 people with sex abuse claims against priests and other employees of that diocese.
Tollner said he couldn’t discuss the committee’s deliberations, but he believes one of the lynchpins to the Long Island diocese’s recent exit from bankruptcy was the threat of some abuse lawsuits reaching a trial in state court.
North Carolina Supreme Court upholds law that allowed 2 more years for child sex abuse suits
North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby addresses the audience at the North Carolina Medal of Valor Ceremony at the Legislative Building in Raleigh, N.C., on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Makiya Seminera, File)
January 31, 2025
By Gary D. Robertson
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s highest court upheld on Friday a law that gave adult victims of child sexual abuse two additional years to seek civil damages, rejecting arguments that the temporary window violated constitutional protections for those facing claims that otherwise could no longer be pursued in court.
In a case involving a local school board sued by three former students years after an ex-high school coach was convicted of crimes against team members, the state Supreme Court ruled the General Assembly was able to enact a key provision within the 2019 SAFE Child Act that was also signed by then-Gov. Roy Cooper.
Before the law, victims of sexual abuse before age 18 effectively had until turning 21 to file such civil claims against perpetrators. Now such victims have until they’re age 28. But the issue before the court in the Gaston County case was the provision that gave other child sex abuse victims whose time period to sue ended the ability to file valid lawsuits for damages from January 2020 through December 2021.
Supporters of the provision said it allowed victims to ensure their abusers and institutions that allowed abuse to happen pay for the damage, and that abusers are called out publicly. At least 250 child sex abuse lawsuits were filed in North Carolina under that one-time lookback period, according to a board legal brief.
Toledo abuse case in Spain further illustrates snags in seeking justice
Primatial Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo, Spain. (Credit: Wikimedia.)
By Elise Ann Allen
Jan 31, 2025|Senior Correspondent
ROME – Nearly 15 years after “Carlos” was allegedly abused while in minor seminary and after countless complaints both locally and in Rome, a canonical process has finally been ordered against his apparent abuser, but with a few snags.
Among other things, “Carlos,” a false name, said that it took 15 years for a canonical procedure to be opened last spring, and even then, he was not informed that this step had been taken.
Filipino priests accused of sex abuse
‘Philippine bishops feel entitled to their silence,’ says Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org
January 29, 2025
By Paterno R. Esmaquel II
MANILA, Philippines – A US-based watchdog launched a database on Wednesday, January 29, exposing dozens of Filipino clergymen accused of sex abuse.
The database by BishopAccountability.org lists “82 priests and brothers with ties to the Philippines who have been publicly accused of sexually abusing minors.”
BishopAccountability.org is a research group founded in 2003 that maintains the largest online library of sex abuse cases involving Catholic priests. The database launched on Wednesday is the first publicly known list of Philippine-related cases. It is now available and accessible to the public.
The new database includes the following:
- “Filipino priests accused of sexually abusing minors in the Philippines”
- “Filipino priests who served part of their priesthood in the Philippines but who are accused of sexually abusing minors while working in the US”
- “Accused clergy from other countries – specifically, the United States, Ireland, and Australia – who served part of their priesthood in the Philippines”
“The theme today really is about the deep sense of entitlement by Philippine bishops to withhold information from the public,” said BishopAccountability.org co-director Anne Barrett Doyle in a press conference at the University Hotel of the University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City.
Indiana lawsuit: Archdiocese, diocese, Catholic school, staff failed to report pornography manipulated to resemble students
Liebgp / Wikimedia Commons
January 27, 2025
By Hannah Hiester
CV NEWS FEED // The parents of four female high school students are suing an Indiana Catholic school, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, and school employees they claim failed to notify police about pornography created by students that exploited their daughters.
Local NBC affiliate WTHR reported that three male students at Bishop Luers High School in Fort Wayne searched online for explicit images and videos of girls and women who resembled several of their female classmates. They then created pornographic montages that superimposed their female classmates’ names over the explicit content. According to the Jan. 21 complaint, the male students used the names of 38 former and current female students, most of whom were minors at the time.
They then began selling and distributing the videos to other students at Bishop Luers and surrounding high schools. According to the complaint, the videos were also potentially circulating on the internet, “such that any on-line search of the [victims’ names] could yield a search result that included these shocking videos and images.”
The complaint stated that the pornography could have begun circulating as early as 2022. One of the girls victimized by the content discovered one of the videos Sept. 19, 2023, and brought it to the school’s attention.
However, the complaint alleges that James Huth, who was then the principal at Bishop Luers; Kevin Mann, who is dean of students and athletic director at the school; and David Maugel, who was assistant superintendent and then acting superintendent of schools within the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, had known about the videos as early as February 2023. They allegedly failed to report the pornography to the authorities, the school board, and the victims’ parents, violating an Indiana code that mandates reporting child abuse.
Once powerful Peru cardinal denies allegations of sexual abuse
Archbishop of Lima Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne celebrates Mass Jan. 18, 2001, in Lima, Peru. (Credit: Martin Mejia/AP.)
By Elise Ann Allen
Jan 27, 2025|Senior Correspondent
ROME – Peruvian Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani has denied a report that alleges he sexually abused a minor in the 1980s, calling the accusations false, but acknowledged that restrictions were placed on his ministry.
On Saturday, Jan. 25, the influential Spanish newspaper El Pais published an article titled, “The first cardinal of Opus Dei, archbishop of Lima, was removed by the pope in 2019 after accusations of pedophilia.”
Fort Kent woman sues Jehovah’s Witnesses, alleging child sex abuse
Shannon Simendinger, 45, previously testified against one religious leader in a criminal trial 2 years ago. He was found guilty of sexual assault.
Shannon Simendinger, at age 9, holding her cat. Simendinger says she was abused by several people within the Jehovah’s Witnesses church in Fort Kent as a child in the 1990s. Photo courtesy of Shannon Simendinger
January 24, 2025
By Emily Allen
While she was growing up in Fort Kent in the late 1980s, the local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses was Shannon Simendinger’s world.
“When that’s all you know, you get close to the people and they become your family,” Simendinger said in a phone interview Thursday. “You get attached to them, and trust them.”
But it wasn’t just tight-knit — Simendinger feels now that she was isolated, discouraged from speaking with people outside her religion. That includes the time that Simendinger said she tried to get help after she was sexually abused by her religious leaders.
“I never put anything that happened behind me. It was always there, I just had to suppress my feelings in order to function,” Simendinger said. “You weren’t allowed to bring it up in the organization. You had to keep quiet, to move along like it never happened.”
Simendinger, now 45, filed a civil complaint in Aroostook County Superior Court this month against the Fort Kent Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation, as well as the national nonprofit that oversees all Jehovah’s Witnesses, known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
Seton Hall renews support for school president in wake of POLITICO report
Joseph Reilly was highlighted in an internal investigation on abuse — and then named to lead the university.
Monsignor Joseph R. Reilly is Seton Hall University president. | Seton Hall University via PRWeb
January 23, 2025
By Dustin Racioppi
Seton Hall University is vigorously defending its new president after POLITICO reported he was implicated in a secret report on sexual abuse.
The findings about Monsignor Joseph Reilly prompted calls for his resignation in recent weeks from state lawmakers, and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy urged the Catholic university to release its internal report on Reilly.
But in a university-wide email on Thursday, the chair of Seton Hall’s Board of Regents said the university’s governing board “continues to stand by” its president.
Sodality of Christian Life reports it made reparations to 83 victims of abuse
By Eduardo Berdejo for CNA
Lima Newsroom, Jan 22, 2025 / 17:15 pm (CNA).
The Sodality of Christian Life has reported that between May 2016 and December 2024 it provided reparations to 83 people who were victims of sexual, psychological, and power abuse through out-of-court settlements.
According to the report published Tuesday on its website, of the total number of cases given reparations, 15 were for the sexual abuse of minors between ages 11 and 17, 18 were for the sexual abuse of adults, and 50 were for other types of abuse.
