News Story of the Day

Many reports about priest preceded boy’s suicide, parents say

Local Catholic officials received numerous reports alleging inappropriate behavior by a priest before a 14-year-old boy took his life in 1983, a motion filed this week by the boy’s parents says.

But the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese failed to act on the reports about Monsignor Thomas O’Brien, the motion alleges, and Brian Teeman committed suicide after suffering repeated sexual abuse by the priest.


To Understand the Catholic Hierarchy's Troubles, Look to Newark's Scandal

Often lost in the shadow of the Archdiocese of New York, and its larger-than-life cardinal, Timothy Dolan, the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., is attracting national attention these days for all the wrong reasons. It is now the site of one of the more pathetic episodes in official Catholicism's sex abuse scandal, a case so badly mishandled that it reveals, by example, why the hierarchy can't seem to ends its long running crisis.


Support group urges parishioners to report any alleged abuse by priest

A support group for clergy sex-abuse victims wants two New Jersey Catholic bishops to reach out to parishioners and get them to report any allegations of abuse by a priest who once confessed to touching an underage boy.


Newark archbishop allows priest who admitted groping boy to continue working with children

Six years ago, to avoid retrial on charges that he groped a teenage boy, the Rev. Michael Fugee entered a rehabilitation program, underwent counseling for sex offenders and signed a binding agreement that would dictate the remainder of his life as a Roman Catholic priest.


Minnesotans in new book on Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal

ST. PAUL, Minn. — As the state Legislature nears a vote on a controversial bill that would give victims of sexual abuse more time to sue, a new book chronicles the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, including some key characters and cases from Minnesota.


Priest Abuse Case Inches Through Discovery

(CN) - A man who claims that he was sexually molested in the first grade by a priest cannot challenge the scope of discovery in his claims against the Diocese of Camden, N.J., a federal judge ruled.


Altoona-Johnstown diocese launches abuse investigation

ALTOONA — Facing several lawsuits, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown is conducting its own investigation into events surrounding allegations that a Franciscan friar sexually abused some Bishop McCort students in the 1990s and early 2000s.


Pope Francis orders overhaul of U.S. nuns to continue

VATICAN CITY — Nearly a year after the Vatican announced a makeover of the largest umbrella group for American nuns, Pope Francis has directed that the overhaul of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious continue.


Lawmakers debate child sex abuse laws

HARRISBURG — A computer system that does not track child abuse complaints among counties. Hospital lawyers who keep doctors from sharing medical information on children they suspect are abuse victims. Low pay and high burnout for young, inexperienced social workers.


Argentina Bishops Delayed Abuse Plan

As the new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Francis pledged Friday to forge ahead with measures aimed at stemming sexual abuse in church ranks. But as the church's most powerful official in Argentina, he didn't comply with a Vatican call to create guidelines for handling sexual-abuse allegations in the country.


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