News Story of the Day
Update from Rome: SNAP's Mission to Protect Survivors and Hold the Church Accountable
Dear SNAP members and supporters,
We are writing to you from Rome, where three representatives from our community have been dispatched to advance our mission of protecting children and holding the Catholic church accountable for its handling of clergy abuse. Our presence here is critical during this time of a potential papal transition — and we want you to know exactly what we are doing and why.
New Jersey Supreme Court to consider whether grand jury can hear clergy abuse allegations
Credit: tglegend/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Mar 7, 2025 / 15:45 pm
A New Jersey diocese this week faced a significant setback in its ongoing court battle related to a clergy abuse investigation as the state Supreme Court announced it would consider whether decades of abuse allegations can be presented to a grand jury.
The high court said it would hear from both the state attorney general and the Diocese of Camden in the years-old controversy. Oral arguments are scheduled for April 28-29.
After a Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018 found allegations of decades of clergy sexual abuse in that state, former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal convened a “Clergy Abuse Task Force” to investigate allegations of abuse.
Editorial: Hold clergy to duty to report child abuse
Teachers, health care providers and others must report suspected abuse. Clergy should as well.
Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle. (Washington State Standard)
March 5, 2025
By The Herald Editorial Board
There are few areas of lawmaking as fraught with the competing tensions between rights and responsibilities than those involving religion, a necessary result of the constitutional freedom that the First Amendment guarantees for Americans’ exercise of faith.
That tension between rights and responsibilities has been on painful display this legislative session as state lawmakers again consider a bill that would add clergy to the list of those who are considered mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect.
State law outlines an extensive list of people — with varying levels of contact with children — who are required to report child abuse or neglect to law enforcement or the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families. Among those mandatory reporters are teachers, coaches and other school employees, law enforcement, health care providers, counselors, guardians and others.
Washington state, however, is one of only five states that does not require mandatory reporting for members of the clergy. Efforts in the Legislature to include clergy as reporters go back several years, but most recently with proposals from state Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, who has identified herself as a victim or child sexual abuse.
Seton Hall failed to disclose key report to lawyers in Catholic abuse lawsuit
The 2019 report, which says the university’s president didn’t properly report allegations, could become public in a separate church abuse case.
A state Superior Court judge in Essex County, New Jersey, has ordered Seton Hall to produce the 2019 report and related documents to her by Feb. 19, but the school is fighting to keep it all private. | Julio Cortez/AP
Seton Hall University has ignored calls by New Jersey’s governor, three state lawmakers and a member of Congress to release a report critical of its new president’s failure to report allegations in a major sexual abuse scandal more than five years ago.
Now it could be a judge who forces the storied Catholic university’s hand.
French clergy acknowledge responsibility in school sexual abuse scandal
The Congregation of the Fathers of Bétharram has acknowledged responsibility in widespread sexual abuse at a Catholic boarding school it oversees near the town of southwestern town of Pau, where Prime Minister François Bayrou has been mayor since 2014. Meanwhile a prosecutor has dismissed complaints alleging Bayrou failed to act on the abuse when he was education minister in the 1990s.
Issued on: 04/03/2025 - 15:26
RFI
Since last year, police have received more than 150 complaints of violence, sexual assault and rape against former religious figures and lay personnel at the Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram boarding school. The alleged abuse occurred between the 1950s and 2010's.
A judicial investigation was opened on 21 February for rape and sexual assault. Only one of the three men placed in police custody was indicted – the other two benefiting from the statute of limitations, some dating back 70 years.
Rupnik and his companions occupy convent near Rome. Cardinal De Donatis is director
The convent of Montefiolo, in Sabina, where the Pope's former Vicar for Rome has built a luxurious apartment, will become the new headquarters of the former Jesuits of the Aletti Centre. With the relative expulsion of the nuns who live there. Our report.
March 3, 2025
By Riccardo Cascioli and Luisella Scrosati
With the collaboration of Patricia Gooding Williams
"The nuns have gone out, there's nobody here at the moment, I'm just passing through and can't let you in," answers a woman's voice over the intercom. "But can't we just visit the church and the grounds, we’ve heard it's beautiful?" we ask. "No, there's no one here. But we know there are priests... Silence, the conversation abruptly ends. It's Thursday 27 February, and we're standing outside the large metal gate of the convent of the Benedictine Sisters of Priscilla in Montefiolo, in the municipality of Casperia, a small village in the Sabina hills, in the province of Rieti.
We came here because we had been told that Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, the former Jesuit expelled from the Order and accused of the serious sexual abuse of women and nuns, has been residing here for several weeks. Not only that, but he is together with other former Jesuits from the Aletti Centre, once the headquarters of Rupnik and his followers until the abuse scandal broke.
Montefiolo is just a hilltop and the only building is the ancient, majestic convent, which originally belonged to the Capuchin Friars.
It was bought and restored in 1935 by Monsignor Giulio Belvederi. The then Secretary of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology opened the monastery to a group of women who wished to lead a religious life and who, in 1936, founded the Benedictine Oblates Regular of Priscilla, later to join the Benedictine Congregation. But now, shrouded in a mysterious conspiracy, it is passing into the hands of the small group of former Jesuits, favoured by its location. In fact, surrounded by a high wall and a wood, which separates it from the main road, it is an perfect residence for those who wish to live in secrecy.
Man sexually abused by priest at Irvine Catholic primary school awarded £627,000 in damages
3 Mar 2025
By Mitchell Skilling
A man who was sexually abused by a priest at a Roman Catholic primary school when he was five or six and developed Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of that and other abuse has been awarded £627,000 in damages by the Outer House of the Court of Session.
The anonymous pursuer, F, argued that significant weight ought to be ascribed to his experiences at the school in assessment of damages. The action came to proceed solely against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Galloway, originally convened as second defender, which argued that other abuse the pursuer suffered later in life was an equal contributor to his mental health issues.
The case was heard by Lord Clark. Milligan KC and McCaffery, advocate, appeared for the pursuer and Primrose KC and Rolfe, advocate, for the second defender.
Washington Senate passes bill to make clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse
Lawmakers on the floor of the Washington state Senate in Olympia. (Photo by Albert James)
February 28, 2025
By Albert James
The state Senate passed a bill Friday afternoon to make religious leaders mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect. Supporters say the move is crucial to protecting children from harm, especially sexual abuse, while opponents argue the bill could end up doing more harm.
Senate Bill 5375 would make “members of the clergy” mandatory reporters like doctors, teachers and other people who work with kids. Under the law, religious leaders would be required to tell law enforcement or the Department of Children, Youth and Families if they suspect any harm has been done to a child. They must do so even if they learned that information during a confession or other penitential communication.
This is the third time in recent years that making clergy mandatory reporters has been attempted, with exemptions for reporting information learned in confession being a sticking point in the past.
Spain's Catholic Church Says Abuse Victim Fund Started
Feb 27, 2025, 12:16 pm EST
Spain's Catholic Church, long criticised for lacking transparency about its handling of sexual abuse committed on its watch, on Thursday said its contested scheme to compensate victims had started.
Pressure on the Spanish Church to compensate victims amplified after a damning 2023 report estimated that Roman Catholic clergy and lay people sexually abused more than 400,000 minors since 1940.
The Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), which groups the country's leading bishops, presented its own compensation plan last year but without providing details on when or how it would be implemented.
CEE secretary general Francisco Cesar Garcia Magan told reporters the plan "is working... cases presented by congregations, by dioceses or directly by victims are being handled".
Abuse reported to church 17 years before police told
Anthony Pierce, pictured in 2002, admitted five counts of historical indecent assaults earlier this month
By Emilia Belli
An allegation of sexual abuse against a priest who went on to become a bishop appears to have been reported to "senior figures" in the church 17 years before it was passed to police.
The alleged victim of Anthony Pierce, believed to have been under 18 at the time, had died by the time the church contacted the police in 2010.
This meant the allegation of sexual assault made in 1993 could not be investigated. It only came to light after the former bishop of Swansea and Brecon admitted five counts of indecent assault on a child in another case.
