News Story of the Day
Survivor who ignited US Catholic church’s reckoning with abuse killed in Louisiana
Scott Anthony Gastal, who at age 11 had testified in court in the 1980s that his priest had raped him, was beaten to death
The Catholic diocese in Lafayette, Louisiana. Photograph: Google Maps
The Guardian
March 14, 2025
By Ramon Antonio Vargas
The clergy abuse survivor who effectively ignited the US Catholic church’s reckoning with clerical molestation when – at age 11 – he testified in the 1980s that his priest had raped him was recently beaten to death in south-west Louisiana.
Scott Anthony Gastal, whose later life was marked by legal struggles after enduring child sexual abuse at the hands of notorious clergy predator Gilbert Gauthe, was 50.
“Like all other sexual abuse victims, Scott surely lived a tortured, troubled and difficult life, having been robbed of his youthful innocence,” said a statement from attorney Cle Simon, whose late father, J Minos Simon, represented Gastal’s family in civil litigation involving Gauthe.
Simon said that his own involvement in other Catholic church-related sexual abuse cases has convinced him “that there is probably no end in sight to the number of innocent children that were subjected to clergy sexual abuse and horrible consequences resulting therefrom”.
Gateway Church founding pastor Robert Morris indicted on 5 counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child in Oklahoma
March 12, 2025
By S.E. Jenkins
Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway Church, a megachurch in Southlake, Texas, has been indicted on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, stemming from alleged incidents dating back to the 1980s, the Oklahoma attorney general's office announced Wednesday.
Morris resigned from Gateway Church last year following allegations that he had sexual relations in Oklahoma with a then 12-year-old girl, Cindy Clemishire, four decades ago.
"After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child," Clemishire said in a statement Wednesday. "Now, it is time for the legal system to hold him accountable. My family and I are deeply grateful to the authorities who have worked tirelessly to make this day possible and remain hopeful that justice will ultimately prevail."
Bill to protect child sex abuse victims makes progress in Missouri House
Posted: Mar 9, 2025 / 10:37 AM CDT
Updated: Mar 9, 2025 / 10:37 AM CDT
MISSOURI – A Missouri House committee voted to advance a bill hoping to help minors who have been sexually assaulted.
House Bill 709 makes non-disclosure agreements unenforceable in child sex abuse cases. This means victims can speak out and tell their stories if they choose to.
The bill was introduced in response to the abuse scandal at Kanakuk Sports Camp in the Branson area. Brian Seitz, who represents the area, says that while there is still much more to be done before the bill becomes a law, this is progress nonetheless.
“We should be hearing House Bill 709 on the House floor as early as next week,” says Rep. Seitz. “Let’s get it to the governor’s desk. Let’s help the now adult victims of child sexual abuse heal.”
Former Southern Baptist pastor, a convicted felon, avoids jail time in feds' abuse inquiry
The Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Court House in Manhattan, where Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced former Southern Baptist pastora and seminary professor Matt Queen following a federal abuse-related investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention. Michael M. Santiago, Getty Images
Liam Adams
A former Southern Baptist pastor and seminary professor won’t serve jail time after lying to federal investigators in the first and potentially only felony conviction to emerge from an abuse-related investigation into the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
The Department of Justice began investigating the Southern Baptist Convention in late 2022 following a third-party report on clergy sexual abuse, leading to scrutiny into a January 2023 incident at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas where administrators reportedly mishandled an abuse report. Matthew Queen, a former professor and administrator at the school, faced charges in May for his involvement and pleaded guilty in October.
At Washington installation, Cardinal McElroy calls for hope, mercy and human dignity
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests also called McElroy’s installation in Washington “deeply troubling,” saying that the move left victims “feeling retraumatized.”
“Survivors deserve more than a church hierarchy that rewards those who have enabled such harm; they deserve accountability, transparency, and genuine healing, not the continued empowerment of those who have failed them,” the group told RNS.
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.
