News Story of the Day

The sexual abuse scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein is especially outrageous inasmuch as he used his political connections (and money) to escape prosecution for so many years. But if it’s outrageous when money and power enable impunity for horrible crimes, shouldn’t it be even more outrageous when the pretense of moral authority enables someone to commit even worse crimes? I ask because an ongoing sexual abuse scandal with a more significant number of victims has been swept under the rug through the assumed holiness of its perpetrator.

About 260 sexual abuse lawsuits were paused when the Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa filed for bankruptcy in 2023. That has been a frustration for survivors who want the actions of their abusers, and the failings of the powerful institution that obscured the crimes, dragged into the daylight.

Now, it looks like a few of those survivors may have their days in court.

The judge in the bankruptcy, Charles Novack of the Northern District of California, recently put a small set of lawsuits on the path to trial, where they are expected to set a baseline for the diocese’s potential financial liability.

Delivering a historic verdict that could ripple through the religious and legal communities, a jury in Morristown awarded $5 million in compensatory damages on Oct. 8 to a former Delbarton School student who said he was sexually assaulted at the elite Catholic prep school in 1976.

The jury at the Morris County Courthouse was unanimous in determining that the assault had occurred, but found that the order of Benedictine monks that operates Delbarton was not negligent for allowing the Rev. Richard Lott to commit the abuse.

Nonetheless, jurors unanimously determined Lott to be 35% liable for the damages suffered by the plaintiff, who was 15 at the time of the incident; they declared the order 65% liable.

NILES, Mich. -- ABC57 Anchor and Investigative Reporter Brian Conybeare uncovers allegations of "Unholy Acts" at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Niles, MI.

Five priests who served there over the years, were named by the Michigan Attorney General or the Catholic Church itself as having accusations against them.

Two survivors came forward to share their stories and push for a package of bills known as "Justice for Survivors" under consideration by Michigan lawmakers.

If approved, those bills would allow child sex abuse victims to sue churches, schools and more in civil court for up to $1.5M.

We want to take a moment to recognize and congratulate French survivors for their courage in speaking out, which has led to the removal of Fr. Dominique Spina as chancellor of the Archdiocese of Toulouse. 

Clergy sexual abuse is not confined to any one faith, denomination, or country—it is a global crisis rooted in power, secrecy, and institutional self-preservation. In this conversation, survivors, advocates, clergy, legal scholars, and researchers confront the patterns that allow abuse to persist and the systemic enablers who shield perpetrators from accountability. From the misuse of spiritual authority to the failure of church leadership to act, their testimonies reveal both the depth of the harm and the urgent need for reform. Together, they ask the questions that religious institutions have long avoided—and challenge the structures that have turned sacred spaces into sites of betrayal.

A Peruvian woman assaulted by a priest alleges Pope Leo XIV, while he was a bishop in Peru, neglected to investigate her case.

Ana María Quispe Díaz of Chiclayo, Peru, appeared publicly for the first time in downtown Chicago alongside advocates from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a group representing survivors of clergy abuse.

“I have been quiet since the pope was elected, but I am not planning on being quiet forever,” Díaz, 29, told reporters Thursday through a translator.

CHICAGO (AP) — A Peruvian survivor of clergy sex abuse brought her public campaign for reforms to the American hometown of Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, saying he failed in investigating her case when he was a bishop in her home country and needs to step up now as leader of the world’s Catholics.

“I’ve been quiet since the pope has been elected,” Ana María Quispe Díaz said in Spanish at a news conference in downtown Chicago. “But I’m not planning to be quiet forever.”

She appeared with members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. The advocacy group sent a letter to the pope on Thursday renewing demands for more accountability on clergy sex abuse complaints and released documents related to Díaz’s case.

Archbishop Guy de Kerimel said he had “chosen the path of mercy”. Abaca Press / Alamy

The Tablet

July 14, 2025

By Bess Twiston Davies

‘People like this should absolutely not be in any position of responsibility,’ said Fr Dominique Spina’s victim. ‘In any other role, if you commit acts like this, you do not come back.’

The Archbishop of Toulouse appointed a priest who served a prison sentence for raping a minor as diocesan chancellor and episcopal delegate for marriage.

Archbishop Guy de Kerimel said that by appointing Fr Dominique Spina to the post he had “chosen the path of mercy”.

In 2006, Spina was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting a 16-year-old student while serving as his spiritual director in the 1990s at Notre-Dame de Bétharram school at Lestelle-Bétharram, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department of south-west France.

In a statement last week to Agence France-Presse, Archbishop de Kerimel said: “It is true that Fr Spina served a five-year prison sentence, including one year suspended, for very serious acts that took place nearly 30 years ago”.

The Rockford Diocese priest organized the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus in 1968 and was floated as a candidate for Archbishop of Washington.

Fr Herman A. Porter, center, with members of the Bishop Muldoon Council of the Knights of Columbus at a ceremony honoring him in May 1964. (The Observer, Diocese of Rockford)

Black Catholic Messenger

July 11, 2025

By Nate Tinner-Williams

The late Fr Herman A. Porter, an African-American Catholic priest who served in the Midwest and in 1968 organized the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, has been added to the Diocese of Rockford’s list of clergy credibly accused of child sex abuse.

The diocese released the updated list earlier this year, as noted in a February bulletin from one of Porter’s former parishes, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Sterling, Illinois.

“Per diocesan policy, parishioners at parishes where Father Porter served, even though briefly, were notified and his name has now been added to the Diocese of Rockford's list of priests against whom an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor has been substantiated,” the bulletin stated.

Born in the mid-1910s in Greenville, Mississippi, Porter was raised there at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, an African-American parish operated by the Society of the Divine Word. He later attended Loyola University Chicago and felt a call to the priesthood, becoming the first African-American member of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (the Dehonians) in 1942. He was then known as Herman A. Martin Porter.

After obtaining a master's in English from the University of Notre Dame, Porter was ordained in Milwaukee in 1947, celebrating first Masses at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Chicago and at Sacred Heart in Mississippi. He later taught at his order’s minor seminary, Divine Heart in Donaldson, Indiana, while serving at parishes in what was then the Diocese of Fort Wayne.

Porter authored a 1952 article, “Color Line in Catholic Churches,” which circulated widely in the Catholic press. It advocated for desegregating the U.S. priesthood and religious life, which were still largely closed to African Americans.