A secretive Archdiocese of San Francisco panel tasked with reviewing child sexual abuse allegations against priests has over the past decade returned more than half of accused clergy to their ministerial duties, including a priest who faced five abuse complaints, according to documents ordered released by a federal judge.
News Story of the Day
Once-secret records show how S.F. Archdiocese handled priests accused of child sex abuse
A panel that reviews abuse allegations against priests returned more than half of accused clergy to ministerial duties, including a priest who faced five complaints, documents show.
Margie O’Driscoll, who filed a lawsuit saying she was sexually abused during her senior year at Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield in 1976, stands for a portrait in San Francisco on April 15, 2025. Yuri Avila/For the S.F. Chronicle
The San Francisco Chronicle
April 16, 2025
The archdiocese has long been one of the most opaque Catholic branches in the country. But the once-confidential Independent Review Board minutes it released provide an unprecedented window into the powerful committee, while raising questions about whether its oversight — designed as a measure to prevent abuse by priests — truly protected its youngest parishioners.
The church turned over the 175 pages of records on Tuesday after a federal bankruptcy judge ordered the release against the wishes of the archdiocese.
“As a Catholic, Easter is the celebration of light and today, reading these documents, you see darkness and evil,” said Margie O’Driscoll, a 64-year-old San Francisco resident who has sued the archdiocese over allegations she was sexually abused by her former teacher at Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield. “Over and over again, you see the archdiocese protecting priests more than the children.”
Final ruling issued in fight between survivors of St. Anne's residential school and Canada over disclosure
Judge says Canada has met its obligation to survivors who have concluded the claims process
Theodore McCarrick, ex-cardinal disgraced in abuse scandal, dies at 94
"McCarrick was never held accountable for his crimes," the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a victims group, said in a statement after the former cardinal’s death. "While he was eventually removed from public ministry, defrocked, and stripped of his red hat, he never stood trial for the vast harm he inflicted on children, young adults, seminarians, and others under his power. … The McCarrick story is not just about one man. It is about the system that enabled him.”
Six cardinals accused of covering up sex abuse in Catholic Church
Six senior cardinals, including two considered strong contenders to be future popes, have been accused by campaigners of covering up sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.
A bombshell dossier of complaints compiled by groups representing survivors of clerical sex abuse has been handed to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state and number two to the Pope.
The allegations were made public on Thursday as it emerged that the 88-year-old Pope Francis, who was discharged from hospital on Sunday after five weeks of treatment for double pneumonia and other infections, is still having difficulty talking.
I Made It My Mission To Find The Priest Who Molested My Brother. Here's What Happened When I Finally Did.
"I learned that he’d be starting a new position at a school in a little farming community I knew well."
The author in her third-grade school photo/Courtesy Nancy Brier
HuffPost
March 27, 2025
By Nancy Brier
My fingers trembled when I dialed the phone. It was the early ’90s, back before texting or email. In fact, I’d just replaced my beige wall phone with a chunky wireless. Four rings in, I was about to hang up when my brother’s voice finally answered. I sputtered out what I needed to say: When I was a little girl, one of our family members sexually molested me. The abuse went on for years.
My therapist thought it would be healing for me to tell my family. She warned me that sometimes families can react in unpredictable ways. They might call me a liar, say that I’m crazy or sever the relationship. She told me that in her practice, she’d seen people written out of inheritances, banished from their homes and blamed for having been victims. I guess she just wanted me to be prepared.
On a wooden chair under a dim overhead light, I stared at the burn mark on my dining room table. I was 28 years old and struggling. I’d already told my two sisters about what happened, but opening up to the guys in my family was harder. After I gushed out my news, there was silence. At first, I wondered if we’d been disconnected, but I could feel my brother’s attention on the other end of the line. I could picture him taking in the secret I’d kept all my life. My fingers were white from clutching the phone, and I waited for him to say something.
“Just like me,” he said, finally. “Just like what Father Sean did to me.”
The phone fell from my grip, clattered on the hardwood floor. I picked it up, my breath gone.
“Oh,” I said, the sound barely coming out.
Catholic Church sex abuse survivors launch database vetting cardinals’ records
ROME (AP) — A network of clergy sex abuse survivors on Tuesday announced a database of Catholic cardinals’ records on the handling of such cases in a bid to influence the next papal conclave, while urging Pope Francis in a letter to adopt a worldwide zero-tolerance policy following the U.S. church example.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests unveiled “Conclave Watch,’’ a database on cardinals’ records on clergy sex abuse that it hopes will put the issue at the center of consideration whenever the next pope is chosen.
Robert Morris’ Alleged Victim Urges Texas Lawmakers to Pass Law Nullifying NDAs for Child Sex Abuse
By Josh Shepherd
March 19, 2025 6:34 pm CDT
On Mar. 19, 2025, Cindy Clemishire testified at the Texas House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence at the State Capitol in Austin, Texas. (TRR Graphic / Photo of Capitol: Wally Gobetz / Video screengrab)
The woman, whose report of abuse by Gateway Church Founder Robert Morris led to his arrest on child sex charges, today urged Texas lawmakers to approve a bill nullifying nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) for child sex abuse.
Speaking through tears, Cindy Clemishire, 55, recounted that for decades, Morris made her feel like she had done something wrong. Meanwhile, Morris became the pastor of one of the biggest megachurches in the country.
Greetings from Rome - A Call to Action for SNAP Members
Dear SNAP Members,
We want to share an update from our time here, as we've had a productive weekend speaking with members of the press. Yesterday, we had conversations with journalists from CNN and Reuters, and today we are scheduled to meet with representatives from the Associated Press, The New York Times, and The Washington Post in preparation for a press conference this Thursday.
Jury finds former North Texas pastor liable for $124M in damages to sexual assault accuser
"People are fed up with pastors who pray in tongues and prey upon children,” said attorney Brian Butcher.
6:50 PM CDT March 14, 2025
6:51 PM CDT March 14, 2025
FORT WORTH, Texas — A multimillion-dollar civil judgment has been levied against a Fort Worth pastor in a sexual assault civil case that had already cost the pastor’s church its entire Rosemont neighborhood campus.
Jose Francisco Bernal was arrested and indicted in 2017 for the alleged sexual assault of two girls in the youth department of his congregation at Tabernaculo de Vida-Iglesia Pentecostal Church. The women, now adults, claimed they had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by Bernal since they were as young as 7 years old.
The Catholic Church’s legal loophole for abuse
The Saturday Paper
March 15, 2025
By Judy Courtin
The Catholic Church is at it again.
The decision in Bird v DP has the privileged, affluent and braggadocious church publicly thanking the High Court for a ruling that pierced the hearts of thousands of survivors who were, as children, raped or sexually assaulted by Catholic clergy.
The Bird who gave the case its name is Paul Bird, the current bishop of the Diocese of Ballarat in Victoria.
DP is the pseudonym of a man who was sexually abused in 1971 at the age of five by Father Bryan Coffey, the assistant parish priest at Port Fairy.
The Catholic Church insists that its clergy members are not employees. In Bird v DP, not only did the High Court agree with this, it held that the relationship between a clergy member and the institution is not even akin to an employment relationship. As such, the church cannot be found liable for the sex crimes of its clergy members.
