Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandals - Network For Church Monitoring

Should People and Governments Shun the Totalitarian Catholic Church?

Posted by N4CM Belief, Freedom of the presss, Opinion 6 Jan 2012

Source: AlterNet. When a totalitarian regime aids and abets the rape of tens of thousands of children one would expect it to be shunned by governments and citizens alike. And any statements it might issue on matters of morality accorded no respect. Why should we make an exception when the regime is the Catholic Church? That the Roman Catholic Church is totalitarian is undeniable. Church law itself makes this clear.

Thousands of children abused in Dutch churches over 65 years, inquiry says

Posted by N4CM Abuse in the Church 16 Dec 2011

Source: The Huffington Post. Thousands of children suffered sexual abuse in Dutch Catholic institutions over the past 65 years, and church officials knew about the abuse but failed to stop it or help victims because they feared sparking scandals, according to a long-awaited report released Friday. The report also estimated that one in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of sexual abuse more broadly in society.

Catholic church liable for priests charged with abuse

Posted by N4CM Abuse in the Church 8 Nov 2011

Source: Channel 4 News. The ruling, which has far-reaching consequences, now means that victims of abuse can sue the church itself, rather than being forced to pursue the individual priests. The Catholic church has always argued that it is not “vicariously liable” for the actions of priests. In a three-day hearing in July before Mr Justice Alastair MacDuff, the church argued that priests are not employees.

Charge against Catholic bishop unprecedented in sex abuse scandal

Posted by N4CM Abuse in the Church 15 Oct 2011

Source: Los Angeles Times. In charging the bishop of Kansas City with failure to report child abuse, prosecutors in Missouri have done something unprecedented in the long, troubling saga of the sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church: hold a member of the church hierarchy criminally accountable for the alleged crimes of a priest. What remains to be seen is whether the indictment of Bishop Robert Finn [...]

Hague Is Asked to Investigate Vatican Over Abuse

Posted by N4CM Abuse in the Church, News 13 Sep 2011

Source: The New York Times. Human rights lawyers and victims of clergy sexual abuse filed a complaint on Tuesday urging the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate and prosecute Pope Benedict XVI and three top Vatican officials for crimes against humanity for what they described as abetting and covering up the rape and sexual assault of children by priests. The formal filing of nearly 80 pages [...]

Church Shaken by Sexual Abuse Allegations in Africa

Posted by N4CM Abuse in the Church 11 Aug 2011

Source: Spiegel Online. The man in the picture made a pitiful impression. He had white hair, a white beard and bushy eyebrows and was sitting on a spare tire in the rear of a police vehicle, at the mercy of the photographer. His name is Father Renato Kizito, 67, and he is “Kenya’s probably best-known priest,” as the mass-circulation newspaper Daily Nation puts it. He had been arrested once again, after his longtime secretary [...]

Vatican row over sex abuse scandal reveals emergence of a new Ireland

Posted by N4CM Abuse in the Church, News, Top Stories 11 Aug 2011

Source: The Guardian. When Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, dared to attack the Vatican’s role in the alleged cover-up of child abuse, he unleashed an unprecedented row between the Catholic church and the Irish state, with Rome recalling its ambassador to Dublin, and one priest even comparing Kenny to Adolf Hitler. But Kenny’s speech last week has also won him thousands of letters of support, and revealed how [...]

Human rights report lists Vatican for failure to protect children

Posted by N4CM Abuse in the Church 14 May 2011

Source: The National Catholic Reporter. Amnesty International named the Vatican in its annual report on human rights’ concerns for not sufficiently complying with international mandates on protecting children from abuse. It marked the first time the Vatican was named in the group’s Annual Report on the state of human rights around the world. The 2011 Annual Report covered human rights in 157 countries, looking particularly [...]

NW Jesuits to pay $166 million to abuse victims

Posted by N4CM Abuse in the Church, Top Stories 27 Mar 2011

Source: The Seattle Times. The abuses spanned decades and states, from remote Alaskan villages to boarding schools on Northwest tribal lands. Hundreds of victims, most of them Native American or Alaska Natives, were sexually or physically abused as children by Jesuit priests or people the priests supervised. On Friday, the victims received some justice.

The Tangled Web Tightens for the Vatican

Posted by N4CM Abuse in the Church 13 Feb 2011

Source: Patheos. Headlines around the world this week have reported that Irish broadcaster RTE obtained a 1997 letter from the Vatican that instructed Irish bishops not to report child sex abuse by priests to the police. According to the letter, “the situation of ‘mandatory reporting’ gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature.”