“I think we’ve learnt a lot of things about what is appropriate behaviour and what’s not appropriate behaviour.”

One Australian bishop’s monstrously banal response to 26 suicides attributed to priestly abuse.

Following Kenny speech, Vatican withdraws envoy from Ireland

A nation with an 87 percent Catholic population no longer has an ambassador to Rome. Via Irish Times: The Vatican has recalled its envoy to Ireland following Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s trenchant criticism of the Holy See’s role in covering up cases of clerical child sex abuse. Deputy Vatican spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini said Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, [...]

Vatican obstructed abuse investigations as late as 2007

Via the Irish Times: [Roman Catholic parliamentarian and leader of the conservative-Christian democratic Fine Gael party] Taoiseach Enda Kenny today told the Dáil the Cloyne report exposed an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate the inquiry into clerical sex abuse. Addressing the House, Mr Kenny said: “The rape and torture of children were downplayed or [...]

Priest served on board of Dutch NAMBLA-like group

Via the reliably yellow Daily Fail Mail, so take it with a grain of salt: The Dutch Catholic Church and the Salesian order are investigating revelations that a Salesian priest served on the board of a group that promotes paedophilia with the full knowledge of his boss. The order’s top official in the Netherlands, Delegate Herman [...]

Priest from parish of pope’s advisor on child abuse arrested for child abuse

Via Time: The latest sex-abuse case to rock the Catholic Church is unfolding in the archdiocese of an influential Italian Cardinal who has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests. Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was [...]

Milwaukee Archdiocese (again) accussed of moving funds to put off abuse victim payments

Via Rick Romell of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the committee representing its unsecured creditors agreed Tuesday to postpone arguments over proposed payments to 22 sex-abuse victims who settled with the archdiocese before it filed for bankruptcy protection in January. The archdiocese wants court approval to pay the victims a total [...]

After promising it wouldn’t, Catholich Church opposes abolition of CT stature of limitations in sex abuse cases

Via Mary E. O’Leary of the New Haven Register: Despite saying last year that it had no objection to a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations on the sexual abuse of minors going forward, a representative of the Catholic Church Monday at a public hearing said it could not agree with the concept. [...]

Northwest Jesuits will pay $166 million in abuse settlement

Via Oregon Live: The Northwest’s Jesuits and their insurers have agreed to pay $166.1 million in a bankruptcy settlement aimed at compensating nearly 500 people with active claims of sexual abuse by priests.  The payout is one of the largest ever made by a religious organization in the United States to abuse victims. The settlement, [...]

Conflicting numbers in clerical sex abuse

In my discussions of Roman Catholic clerical sex abuse in the last year, I’ve been citing a survey of American insurance companies which suggests priests are no more likely to abuse than the general population. However, this weekend I was made aware of an analysis of Belgian rape cases that found priests in that country [...]

Archbishop Timothy Dolan accused of hiding $130 million to skirt abuse payments

Archbishop of New York and President of The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who already has a record suggestive of compliance in rape coverup, has been accused by a Wisconsin lawyer of taking $130 million in church funds off the books to avoid paying sex abuse victims. in  Via the NY Times: The lawyer, Jeffrey R. Anderson, who represents [...]