News Story of the Day

"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.

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.

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.

"People are fed up with pastors who pray in tongues and prey upon children,” said attorney Brian Butcher.

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.

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”.

CBS News

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."  

by: Jared Henry

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.”

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