News Story of the Day

LIMA, Peru — Pope Francis’ promise of a more humble, tolerant Catholic Church may have earned rave reviews around the world, but in Latin America, a string of child sex scandals has left some wondering what's really changed in the Vatican.

"Be loving critics and critical lovers of the institutional church."

Jennifer Haselberger first heard that phrase while she was an undergraduate student at the College of St. Catherine (now St. Catherine University) in St. Paul, Minn. When she returned home in 2008 to take the position of chancellor of canonical affairs for the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese, the phrase returned with her. Responsible for its records and archives, she discovered unreported allegations of clergy sex abuse and lapses in investigations

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) - A weekend benefit is set to honor a former Mount St. Mary's Academy employee who was fired last year for failing to report sexual assault.  The "going-away" party for Kathy Griffin, the all-girls school former athletic director is now coming under fire by two national sex abuse advocacy groups – one of which is asking the Arkansas Catholic Diocese to step in.

University of St. Thomas professor Michael J. Keating told a fellow priest in 2006 that a teenage Italian girl had "seduced" him and he was worried that his colleague might get the wrong impression.

Some wounds, if closed too quickly, can appear to heal on the surface while festering deep below the skin. When that happens, it can be necessary to reopen the wound, to expose and remove the infection.

Minnesota's Catholic church is at such a point. The infection, in this case, is a list of alleged sex offenders among the clergy in each diocese in Minnesota.

A St. Paul priest and University of St. Thomas professor was named in a lawsuit Monday by a woman who said he abused her when she was a minor.

Archbishop John Nienstedt was in the middle of a heated political fight over same-sex marriage in February of last year when he learned of a disturbing secret, hidden in the basement of the chancery — pornography from a priest's computer, some of which appeared to depict children.

California Senate Bill 131, otherwise known as the The Child Victims Act, was passed by the state Legislature earlier this year–but it’s still sitting on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. He has until October 13 to sign the bill, veto it or let it pass into law without signing.

A “dossier" accusing papal nuncio Archbishop Josef Wesolowski of sex abuse of minors was sent to Pope Francis sometime in July by Santo Domingo Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez. The pope found the information credible enough to dismiss Wesolowski, nuncio to both the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, on Aug. 21 via confidential letter N.2706/PR to the bishops of both countries.

HACKENSACK – Newark Archbishop John J. Myers visited the Bergen County Courthouse on Thursday, months after a local priest was arrested on seven counts accusing him of violating a lifetime ban on ministering to children, charges that were referred to a grand jury.

The priest, the Rev. Michael Fugee, a former assistant pastor of a Wyckoff parish, was found guilty in 2003 of groping a teenage boy, but the conviction was overturned three years later because of a judicial error. He and the archdiocese later signed an agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office that barred him from working with children. He was returned to the ministry in 2009.