PARIS (FRANCE)
La Croix International [Montrouge Cedex, France]
December 13, 2024
By Matthieu Lasserre
An internal investigation report commissioned by the Paris Foreign Missions Society revealed 63 allegations of sexual violence perpetrated by the congregation’s priests between 1950 and 2024. However, the number is most likely greater.
An internal investigation report commissioned by the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP) yielded an initial yet incomplete assessment of how sexual abuse was addressed within the missionary organization.
Published December 12 by the MEP, the report was conducted by GCPS Consulting, an independent British firm specializing in safeguarding against sexual abuse. It highlighted the urgent need for concrete measures to prevent sexual violence within the MEP.
December 11, 2024
By David Hammer
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For decades, one of the oldest and most powerful Catholic institutions in the country shielded one of the most notorious pedophiles, Monsignor Lawrence Hecker. Instead of choosing accountability, the Archdiocese of New Orleans chose silence.
But that silence was shattered in August of 2023, when Hecker openly admitted to me and our partners at the Guardian that he sexually molested underage boys.
To watch the entire report, go here.
Hillcrest School in Jos, Nigeria
Christianity Today December 10, 2024
By the time Barbara Jo Jones went away to a missionary boarding school at age six, she could speak two languages. But as a missionary kid born and raised in Nigeria, she didn’t have the words to describe the ordeal of a school employee sexually abusing her. And if she did tell someone, she knew she would get in trouble and risk her parents’ ministry.
So she stayed silent.
Now, 60 years later, that silence around the abuse at Hillcrest School in Jos, Nigeria, may be finally, fully broken. Eight Christian organizations have agreed to fund a third-party investigation of all the allegations against the school from its founding in 1942 to the present. Victor Vieth of the Minnesota-based Zero Abuse Project will lead the inquiry.
Victims of child sexual abuse were treated in a heartless, hostile and cruel way by monks on a remote island, a safeguarding review has found.
One survivor said the way she had been treated since her time on Caldey Island, off Pembrokeshire, has made the effects of the abuse "a million times worse".
The review said frequent allegations of abuse had been made but not followed up on or reported to police, and the lack of challenge had enabled a monk to abuse children over four decades "in plain sight".
Justice scales, books and wooden gavel. Getty Images.
Sexual assault and rape survivors and those who support them came forward last week to urge lawmakers to pass a bill that would criminalize “grooming,” which they said could have saved lives had it existed years ago.
House Bill 322 creates the crime of “grooming” in Ohio, which would be charged as a first or second degree misdemeanor, except in circumstances where the victim is younger than 13 and other offenses are also committed, such as supplying alcohol or drugs to the victim or having a previous sexually oriented offense conviction. The combination of the crimes would result in felony charges, according to the bill.
An elderly priest’s guilty plea exposes the church’s history of shielding predators in its midst for decades
Ramon Antonio Vargas in New Orleans
In the case of serial child molester and retired Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker, the cover-up failed.
But it wasn’t for lack of trying by a coalition of high-ranking church officials and sympathetic judges, who prioritized the predator’s comfort above justice for his innumerable victims until the evidence against him was so overwhelming that – rather than stand the humiliation of a public trial – he pleaded guilty last Tuesday.
The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Center at 20 W. Ninth Street, Kansas City, is pictured in a Google Maps Street View image. Google Maps
December 05, 2024
By Kendrick Calfee
One man among a group suing the Archdiocese of St. Louis for allegations of sexual abuse, and its cover-up, has dismissed his claim that a man alleged to now be a Kansas City deacon abused him in the 1980s, online court records show.
However, Ralph Wehner, a Kansas City deacon, remains suspended from ministry while church officials investigate the claim, a Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese spokesperson said. A man identified as W.C. in court documents dismissed his claim of abuse by Wehner on Nov. 21.
...
The Missouri chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has called on the diocese to be transparent with church members throughout its investigation into the sex abuse claim.
David Clohessy, the organization’s Missouri director, said SNAP has urged church officials to make clear appeals to the public to share any information about known or suspected crimes or cover ups. Thus far, church officials have failed to do that, Clohessy said.
“Church officials should do this now, reminding their flock that ‘the truth shall set you free’ and that they have a moral and civic duty to help protect kids and help unearth the facts,” Clohessy said.
Bishop Emeritus John S. Cummins, center, speaks during a mass and memorial for former Bishop O’Dowd High School President Dr. Stephen W. Phelps at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018. Phelps, president of the school since 2005, died of complications after heart surgery at St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco on Dec. 26. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
The Mercury News
December 4, 2024
By Jason Green
OAKLAND – John S. Cummins, the second and longest-serving bishop of Oakland, died Tuesday. He was 96.
The Diocese of Oakland confirmed Cummins’ death, writing in a statement that the retired bishop emeritus “leaves a legacy of service to God through his priesthood and episcopacy.”
“Our diocese has lost a father, grandfather, shepherd and true priest of Jesus Christ,” Bishop Michael C. Barber said. “May Christ the Good Shepherd welcome Bishop John into the eternal reward prepared for him who served the flock of Oakland so well.”
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Cummins’ tenure was not without controversy. In a 2022 letter, defrocked Oakland priest Tim Stier expressed dismay that Barber, the current bishop, had not held Cummins accountable for his role in allegedly enabling sexual abuse by credibly accused priests in the diocese, this news organization reported at the time.
ROCKVILLE CENTRE (NY)
New York Daily News
December 4, 2024
By Joseph Wilkinson
A years-long legal battle between Long Island’s Catholic diocese and hundreds of alleged sex abuse victims came to an end Wednesday, with a bankruptcy judge in Manhattan approving a plan that finalizes a $323 million settlement.
As part of the settlement, the Diocese of Rockville Centre will begin making payments next year to nearly 600 victims of child sex abuse in the church.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Martin Glenn said he was “extremely pleased” with the deal, according to Newsday.
Updated 7:54 PM EST, December 3, 2024
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A disgraced 93-year-old New Orleans priest pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges involving the sexual assault of a teenage boy in 1975.
Lawrence Hecker, who left the ministry in 2002, had been scheduled to stand trial Tuesday. Hecker’s eyes were focused on the ground as a sheriff’s deputy pushed him toward Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Nandi Campbell’s courtroom, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.
Hecker entered his plea to aggravated kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature, first-degree rape and theft before Campbell, moments before jury selection was scheduled to begin, multiple news outlets reported. Sentencing was set for Dec. 18. He faces life in prison.
