Pope Leo holds first meeting with survivors of Catholic sexual abuse
Pope Leo met with survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy for the first time on Monday, participants said, days after the Vatican's child protection commission accused senior Church leaders of being too slow to help victims.
Leo held a meeting with Ending Clergy Abuse, an international coalition of survivors, the group said. The encounter, which included four victims and two advocates, lasted about an hour with "a significant moment of dialogue," they said.
An unusually critical report from the Vatican's own child protection commission, issued on Thursday, faulted senior bishops for not providing information to victims about how their reports of abuse were being handled, or whether negligent bishops had been sanctioned.
Survivors said he told them he was still coming to grips with the enormity of the Church's scandals.
"I think he is still in a phase where he is trying to find out how to best address these issues," said Matthias Katsch.
https://www.reuters.com/world/pope-leo-h...025-10-20/
Scharfenberger resigns as bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany
Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of Bishop Edward Scharfenberger.
The Vatican made the announcement Monday morning. Mark O'Connell, auxiliary bishop of Boston, has been named Scharfenberger's successor.
It also follows Friday's news of an $8 million settlement in a child sex abuse lawsuit against a priest. That case was filed in 2020 as part of New York's Child Victim's Act.
In March 2023, the Diocese filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Earlier this year, it announced plans to realign or relinquish up to a third of its properties.
https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/scharf...l-pope-leo
Man who fought the State to reveal name of priest who raped him sues religious order
Jonathan Randall (50) was four years old on when he was violently raped as a child while on holiday in Bettystown, Co Meath.
In 2021, gardaí told the Dubliner they had identified his abuser, who is now dead, but they were not permitted to release the cleric’s name.
Mr Randall initiated legal action to force the State to reveal the name of his rapist.
The Chief State Solicitor’s Office told Mr Randall’s lawyer last year the man identified as having raped him was Joseph Michael Steele.
The Belfast-born priest was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in 1996 for “systematically” abusing 10 children over the course of 14 years in the North.
Mr Randall’s legal representative, solicitor and senior counsel Stuart Gilhooly, confirmed to the Sunday Independent that his client initiated a civil action last week against the Spiritan Order, which Steele was attached to.
Mr Randall said he hopes the legal action is “progress” towards receiving accountability from the religious order, as well as financial compensation, for the attack which he says stymied his childhood and still impacts his life today.
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/man-...93103.html
Catholic priest exploited family deaths to abuse disabled boy
A Roman Catholic priest in New Orleans positioned himself as a mentor to a young disabled boy grieving two family deaths – and then exploited the proximity to abuse him for years, police allege.
Ford, 64, made an initial court appearance on Wednesday as he became the latest figure to come under scrutiny during the New Orleans Catholic church’s longstanding clergy molestation scandal.
Ford is one of several men who have worked as Catholic clergymen in New Orleans to have been arrested by authorities in connection with child sexual abuse allegations both before and after the city’s archdiocese filed for federal bankruptcy protection in 2020. That bankruptcy filing was designed to limit the archdiocese’s financial liability with respect to hundreds of claims of clergy molestation, mostly victimizing children, over several decades.
The New Orleans archdiocese has agreed to pay at least $230m to collectively settle with abuse survivors whose claims are tied up in the bankruptcy. Those survivors have until 29 October to vote on whether or not to approve the settlement.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...use-arrest
Allegations of sex abuse, misused church dollars against WA priest divide parish
Emily Chapman could feel a pressure rising inside her. In the gym at Our Lady of Fatima, the Catholic church where she works, the Spokane Diocese was recapping how a leader of the parish, Father Miguel Mejía, had allegedly abused his powers as a priest to have “consensual and nonconsensual sex” with multiple women.
They said he stalked a woman. That he gave money and gifts to women in exchange for sex. That he paid to have phone sex with a woman in jail — potentially misusing parish funds to do it.
At least five women had come forward about the priest’s behavior. Eight members of a review board tasked with looking at sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Diocese of Spokane had concluded that “overwhelming evidence” backed the women’s accounts.
https://www.investigatewest.org/allegati...de-parish/
Pope Leo met with survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy for the first time on Monday, participants said, days after the Vatican's child protection commission accused senior Church leaders of being too slow to help victims.
Leo held a meeting with Ending Clergy Abuse, an international coalition of survivors, the group said. The encounter, which included four victims and two advocates, lasted about an hour with "a significant moment of dialogue," they said.
An unusually critical report from the Vatican's own child protection commission, issued on Thursday, faulted senior bishops for not providing information to victims about how their reports of abuse were being handled, or whether negligent bishops had been sanctioned.
Survivors said he told them he was still coming to grips with the enormity of the Church's scandals.
"I think he is still in a phase where he is trying to find out how to best address these issues," said Matthias Katsch.
https://www.reuters.com/world/pope-leo-h...025-10-20/
Scharfenberger resigns as bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany
Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of Bishop Edward Scharfenberger.
The Vatican made the announcement Monday morning. Mark O'Connell, auxiliary bishop of Boston, has been named Scharfenberger's successor.
It also follows Friday's news of an $8 million settlement in a child sex abuse lawsuit against a priest. That case was filed in 2020 as part of New York's Child Victim's Act.
In March 2023, the Diocese filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Earlier this year, it announced plans to realign or relinquish up to a third of its properties.
https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/scharf...l-pope-leo
Man who fought the State to reveal name of priest who raped him sues religious order
Jonathan Randall (50) was four years old on when he was violently raped as a child while on holiday in Bettystown, Co Meath.
In 2021, gardaí told the Dubliner they had identified his abuser, who is now dead, but they were not permitted to release the cleric’s name.
Mr Randall initiated legal action to force the State to reveal the name of his rapist.
The Chief State Solicitor’s Office told Mr Randall’s lawyer last year the man identified as having raped him was Joseph Michael Steele.
The Belfast-born priest was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in 1996 for “systematically” abusing 10 children over the course of 14 years in the North.
Mr Randall’s legal representative, solicitor and senior counsel Stuart Gilhooly, confirmed to the Sunday Independent that his client initiated a civil action last week against the Spiritan Order, which Steele was attached to.
Mr Randall said he hopes the legal action is “progress” towards receiving accountability from the religious order, as well as financial compensation, for the attack which he says stymied his childhood and still impacts his life today.
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/man-...93103.html
Catholic priest exploited family deaths to abuse disabled boy
A Roman Catholic priest in New Orleans positioned himself as a mentor to a young disabled boy grieving two family deaths – and then exploited the proximity to abuse him for years, police allege.
Ford, 64, made an initial court appearance on Wednesday as he became the latest figure to come under scrutiny during the New Orleans Catholic church’s longstanding clergy molestation scandal.
Ford is one of several men who have worked as Catholic clergymen in New Orleans to have been arrested by authorities in connection with child sexual abuse allegations both before and after the city’s archdiocese filed for federal bankruptcy protection in 2020. That bankruptcy filing was designed to limit the archdiocese’s financial liability with respect to hundreds of claims of clergy molestation, mostly victimizing children, over several decades.
The New Orleans archdiocese has agreed to pay at least $230m to collectively settle with abuse survivors whose claims are tied up in the bankruptcy. Those survivors have until 29 October to vote on whether or not to approve the settlement.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...use-arrest
Allegations of sex abuse, misused church dollars against WA priest divide parish
Emily Chapman could feel a pressure rising inside her. In the gym at Our Lady of Fatima, the Catholic church where she works, the Spokane Diocese was recapping how a leader of the parish, Father Miguel Mejía, had allegedly abused his powers as a priest to have “consensual and nonconsensual sex” with multiple women.
They said he stalked a woman. That he gave money and gifts to women in exchange for sex. That he paid to have phone sex with a woman in jail — potentially misusing parish funds to do it.
At least five women had come forward about the priest’s behavior. Eight members of a review board tasked with looking at sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Diocese of Spokane had concluded that “overwhelming evidence” backed the women’s accounts.
https://www.investigatewest.org/allegati...de-parish/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
