News Story of the Day
Catholic Church Admits Prov. School Aide Arrested for Sexual Assault Worked at Cathedral
GoLocalProv News Team and Kate Nagle, Wednesday, January 13, 2016, GoLocalProv.com
A teacher's aide at a Providence Middle School who was arrested for sexually assaulting a minor had been working part time at the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul in Providence, GoLocal has learned.
Another judge criticizes Jehovah’s Witnesses’ court tactics
By Trey Bundy / January 11, 2016, Reveal, the Center for Investigative Journalism
A panel of judges in Philadelphia has ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses used an “abusive tactic” to delay a trial in which a woman accused the religion’s leaders of covering up her abuse as a child.
Victim of priest waits for Phila. Archdiocese to help him before he dies
Mike Newall, Inquiry, January 10, 2016, Philadelphia Inquiry
Brian McDonnell lies in his small, dark room under the crucifix on his wall, praying Hail Marys on his blue plastic rosary beads. Symbols of a church that had forsaken him, but one that he has never abandoned.
He worries that he is dying. It is all he thinks about.
Even death doesn't diminish former bishop's arrogant legacy
By David Rutter, January 8, 2016, Chicago Tribune Lake County News-Sun
In 2005, this was a snippet of Bishop Joseph Imesch's then-sealed sworn deposition detailing two decades of child sexual abuse by Joliet Diocese clerics under his management:
Imesch: "As far as I can remember, I think (priest) Gary (Berthiaume) admitted to me that he had done it before the conviction."
Arrest warrant issued for priest who admitted sex with teenage boy
By Mark Mueller, January 7, 2016, NJ.com
An arrest warrant has been issued for a suspended New Jersey priest who admitted to a reporter in August that he engaged in a sexual encounter with a teenage boy 13 years ago.
Jesuits to pay 281k to settle lawsuits against former SLU president Daniel O'Connell
By Danny Wicentowski on Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 6:00 am, Riverfront Times
In the late 1960s, while Daniel O'Connell was a "very popular" professor at Saint Louis University, a female undergraduate alleges that he used his position to sexually abuse her during counseling sessions. Years later, in 2012, the woman filed a lawsuit claiming that O'Connell held her on his lap while he masturbated and told her that sex would bring her closer to God.
Ex-pastor pleads guilty to child porn charge
A Louisville Roman Catholic priest was taken into custody Monday after pleading guilty to a single felony count of accessing child porn.
Stephen Pohl, 57, a former pastor at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, admitted to accessing the pornographic images of nude underage boys on computers at the church rectory and office between January and August 2015.
After criminal charges, attention turns again to Cosby's honorary degrees
BY LAURA BENSHOFF, December 31, 2015, Newsworks
In the wake of felony sexual assault charges against comedian Bill Cosby in Montgomery County, public pressure is increasing on area universities to revoke honorary degrees granted to the famous television dad.
On Wednesday, the Montgomery County district attorney's office filed three felony charges against comedian Bill Cosby, stemming from an alleged 2004 sexual assault.
Controversial Joliet bishop laid to rest
By Nick Swedberg and Erin Gallagher, December 30, 2015, Chicago Tribune
Bishop Joseph Imesch spent nearly three decades as a dedicated shepherd to the members of the Joliet Diocese.
In that time, he forged deep bonds of friendship, and fought hard for major changes to the church he believed were due.
