Archbishop Paul Russell, a Detroit auxiliary bishop, is the subject of a sexual abuse lawsuit filed in Massachusetts. The lawsuit stems from sexual abuse that occurred when the survivors was a 12-year-old parishioner at Saint Mary of the Sacred Heart Parish in Lynn in 1989…
The U.S. Supreme Court is keeping the door open for victims of clergy sex abuse to file claims in California. On June 21, the high court rejected an attempt by Catholic bishops and archbishops seeking to overturn a California law allowing people to sue over…
In June, More than 8,000 members of the Southern Baptist Convention met in Anaheim, California for their annual meeting. That meeting was overshadowed by the May release of an independent report by Guidepost Solutions which revealed that church leaders had covered up sex-abuse claims for decades.…
It was recently revealed that the FBI has opened an investigation into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans going back decades, on the grounds that the accused men could have violated a federal anti-sex trafficking law by crossing state lines. This…
This past Thursday three sexual abuse lawsuits were filed against the Diocese of Portland in Maine. These are the first lawsuits filed that are a direct result of Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed a law last year that allowed victims to bring civil lawsuits about…
Last month, the 86-member executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention released a 288-page independent report by Guidepost Solutions that found that church leaders had covered up sex-abuse claims for over two decades. The report revealed that the church had long maintained a secret database…
In April the Diocese of Camden, which encompasses six counties in southern New Jersey on the outskirts of Philadelphia agreed to pay $87.5 million to settle claims involving clergy sex abuse with some 300 alleged victims in one of the largest cash settlements involving the…
For years after leaving the priesthood and marrying, Richard Sipe became a leading authority on Catholic Church priest abuse. He interviewed thousands of abuse survivors, researched the historical roots of the issue, and advocated on behalf of survivors. Most notably, he was an early critic…
Professor Kevin Lewis O’Neil is the Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies and Professor in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. A cultural anthropologist, his work focuses on the moral dimensions of contemporary political practice in…
The Diocese of Camden and a bankruptcy creditors committee has come to an agreement to settle pending sexual abuse cases in bankruptcy court for $187.5 million. The approximately 320 abuse survivors were forced into federal bankruptcy court after the Diocese of Camden declared bankruptcy in…
