Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Investigation Into Child Sexual Abuse Among Catholic Clergy

Alexandra Silets | June 6, 2023 7:30 pm

Survivors of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests and clerics are speaking out about the Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s explosive multi-year investigation that’s put Chicago’s archbishop on the defensive.

That comprehensive investigation details abuse by Catholic clergy and names 451 Catholic clerics and religious brothers who reportedly abused at least 1,997 children. The Catholic dioceses of Illinois had publicly listed only 103 substantiated child sex abusers.

https://news.wttw.com/2023/06/06/attorney-general-kwame-raoul-investigation-child-sexual-abuse-among-catholic-clergy

‘Red flags everywhere’: high court asks Catholic church why it didn’t investigate priest’s abuse 50 years ago

Christopher Knaus Thu 8 Jun 2023

The high court has pressed the Catholic church to explain why it didn’t have an adequate opportunity 50 years ago to investigate the extent of a priest’s abuse of children, given there were “red flags everywhere” about his crimes.

The court on Thursday began hearing a key case about a legal tactic now routinely being employed by the church and other institutions to permanently shield themselves from abuse survivors’ civil claims for compensation.

Institutions are now regularly seeking permanent stays, or a permanent halt to proceedings, by arguing the death of alleged perpetrators and the inability to obtain their response to a survivor’s allegations leaves them unable to receive a fair trial.

The approach has infuriated survivors and their advocates, who say the church is now effectively using the passage of time to avoid trial, despite the fact the church systemically and deliberately concealed abuse for decades in dioceses across Australia.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/08/red-flags-everywhere-high-court-asks-catholic-church-why-it-didnt-investigate-priests-abuse-50-years-ago

Settlements end $100M class action lawsuit by alleged Manitoulin Island abuse survivors

Darren MacDonald Published June 8, 2023 11:08 a.m. EDT

A $100 million class action lawsuit launched on behalf of alleged victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy on Manitoulin Island has been abandoned after the victims reached individual settlements with the church.

All of the 29 alleged victims are from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and attended Holy Cross Mission, run by the Jesuit Fathers of Upper Canada.

The suit was launched in 2015 and named several defendants, including the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Sault Ste. Marie, the Estate of Father George Epoch and the Estate of Brother O’Meare.

"The action was brought on behalf of all persons who were abused as children by clergy or staff of the Holy Cross Mission in Wiikwemkoong (and) all parents, spouses, children and siblings of the abused persons," court documents said.

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/settlements-end-100m-class-action-lawsuit-by-alleged-manitoulin-island-abuse-survivors-1.6432678

Abuse claims and outrage mount as Jesuit order and church in Bolivia undergo a tectonic shake

Mexico City — June 8, 2023

Revelations of rampant sexual abuse by deceased Jesuit Fr. Alfonso Pedrajas have prompted dozens of people in Bolivia to come forward with similar accusations of atrocities in the South American country, where the Catholic Church confronts a reckoning over the criminal acts of pedophile priests.

An investigation by Bolivian newspaper Página Siete found more than 170 victims of clerical sexual abuse being raised since early May, when the Spanish newspaper El País published its exposé into Pedrajas – a Spanish Jesuit who kept a record of his abuse of children by writing a diary.

"What El País has achieved has been the victims connecting with each other, interacting with each other, daring to speak out. Many of the victims are more than 50 years old," Raphael Archondo, an academic and former director of Fides, a news outlet supported by Bolivia's Jesuits, told OSV News.

"There's a wave of complaints and it's opened a lot of spaces for complaints to be filed," he said.

The bishops' conference has condemned the actions of pedophile priests, while acknowledging they failed victims, who "found a church deaf to their sufferings."

The Jesuit province in Bolivia apologized and expressed "shame" and "regret" for what happened and promised to seek justice for the victims. The Jesuits have suspended eight former provincials who failed to act against Pedrajas.

The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) opened a "listen and care" channel for receiving complaints in May it allows for complaints to be received via email or WhatsApp messages but said in a June 4 statement it had received only four accusations, one each against a pair of deceased Jesuits and two against a priest in the Diocese of Tarija.

The statement identified the Jesuits as Pedrajas whose diary contained descriptions of sexual abuse over four decades of working in Bolivian and Latin American schools along with Fr. Jorge Vila, who was accused of abusing a 13-year-old student at a Jesuit school in the early 1990s.

The Jesuits died in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Vila had become known in Bolivia for his defense of children's rights, according to an obituary. He was a founder of Defensa de Niños y Niñas Internacional (DNI Bolivia – Defense of Children International).

The unidentified priest in the Diocese of Tarija was not a Jesuit, but the Jesuits said they have "supported the handling of two other cases of sexual abuse against a priest from the Diocese of Tarija, since for now it is the only channel of its kind that operates in the Bolivian church and cannot neglect the victims of persons from other ecclesial settings."

https://www.ncronline.org/news/abuse-claims-and-outrage-mount-jesuit-order-and-church-bolivia-undergo-tectonic-shake

Illinois Catholic Church Sex Abuse Investigative Report Released

Legal Examiner Staffer June 8, 2023

A recent report released by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office found that child sex abuse claims against Catholic clergy members amounted to more than 1,900 survivors in Illinois. This report was released after a five-year comprehensive investigation into sexual abuse cases in the Catholic dioceses in Illinois. The almost 700-page report contains shocking details about the nature of the widespread abuse and the clergy and lay religious brothers who committed these heinous acts.

The investigation began in 2018 by former attorney general Lisa Madigan. At the time, the six Catholic dioceses in the state only had confirmed 103 clergy as child sex abusers. Attorney General Raoul continued the investigation when he was elected in 2019. As the investigation concluded and with the release of its findings, an additional 348 clergy members were confirmed as child sex abusers, bringing the total to 451. The cases of child sexual abuse took place between 1950 and 2019. Of the 451 clergy members identified in the report, 330 have died.

Illinois Is Not Alone In Widespread Clergy Sex Abuse

The Illinois investigation began in 2018 after a Pennsylvania grand jury was presented with evidence that more than 300 priests sexually abused over a thousand children, potentially more, for 70 years. One of the revelations of this grand jury was evidence of how Catholic Church leaders protected clergy accused of sexual abuse. The files presented to the grand jury highlighted a playbook on how to conceal the truth about sexual abuse. Additionally, secret archive files were stored in the church, where the only key to access these files remained in the hands of the bishop. Many files contained euphemisms for the word rape and child sex abuse. When there were accusations of sexual abuse made, it was nearly impossible for the survivor to achieve justice.

After an extensive four-year investigation, a 2019 report about sexual abuse by the Archdiocese of Baltimore priests was released in April. Like the Illinois state investigation, the report is lengthy at nearly 500 pages but contains much of the same key information as Illinois and other states’ investigations. Church leaders worked carefully and diligently to cover up accusations. Survivors were rarely able to seek justice or believed by the Catholic Church. In many cases, the abusers were transferred to other dioceses. The Baltimore Archdiocese is the country’s oldest Roman Catholic diocese.

The release of this report also drew attention to how prevalent the abuse was. “The staggering pervasiveness of the abuse itself underscores the culpability of the Church hierarchy,” said the report.

The Baltimore Archdiocese report was kept private for several years until a Baltimore Circuit Court ruled to release a redacted version. It was kept confidential because it contains detailed information from grand jury subpoenas. In the redacted version, 37 accused abusers were removed. The court admitted that it may consider adding additional names at a later date.

A common thread continues to emerge throughout the investigations of the Illinois Catholic dioceses and other Catholic dioceses across the country. Clergy members were accused of sexual abuse and rarely punished. In many cases, those accused of these crimes kept their positions of power, careers or were simply transferred to a neighboring diocese.

https://www.legalexaminer.com/legal/sexual-abuse/illinois-catholic-church-sex-abuse-investigative-report-released/

Maryland, Maine, Vermont completely remove statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases

By Zoey Khalid Last updated Jun 9, 2023

Maryland, Maine, and Vermont have become the only three states in the U.S. to remove statute of limitations for lawsuits alleging child sex abuse.

Statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases were repealed as more people alleged that they were sexually assaulted by priests when they were young kids.

Repealing all time limits on when sex abuse lawsuits need to be filed allows survivors to seek delayed justice.

Ann Allen loved going to church and the after-school social group led by a dynamic priest back in the 1960s.

The giggling fun with friends always ended with a game of hide and seek. Each week, the Rev. Lawrence Sabatino chose one girl to hide with him. Allen said when it was her turn, she was sexually assaulted, at age 7, in the recesses of St. Peter’s Catholic Church.

https://globeecho.com/news/north-america/united-states/maryland-maine-vermont-completely-remove-statute-of-limitations-for-child-sex-abuse-cases/