clerical sex abuse

Those who spend their time accusing the Church show themselves to be friends and family of the devil, Pope Francis said Wednesday.

Pope Francis opened the landmark Vatican summit Thursday morning by urging his fellow bishops to “hear the cry of the little ones who plead for justice.”

The Catholic League has criticized attempts by the New York Times and others to downplay or even deny the homosexual roots of the Church’s clerical sex abuse crisis.

French author Frédéric Martel said Tuesday that homosexual priests, bishops, and cardinals in the Vatican make up a “silent majority,” insisting he was aided in researching his upcoming book on homosexuality in the Church by a clerical “gay network.”

ROME — A group devoted to rooting out clergy sex abuse has called for the defrocking of more bishops in the wake of the laicization of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick this week.

A second alleged victim has filed a complaint against the papal nuncio in France for homosexual abuse after the Paris public prosecutor opened an investigation into charges that the archbishop repeatedly molested a junior mayoral aide sexually during a speech last month.

Pope Francis has asked Catholics to pray for an upcoming Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse, saying he intended to convoke the meeting as an act of “forceful pastoral responsibility.”

French author Frédéric Martel alleges in a new book that Pope Francis had been informed that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had been having sexual relations with seminarians and priests but considered this fact “insufficient to condemn him.”

The former papal nuncio to the United States has declared that the upcoming Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse seems doomed to failure because of an unwillingness to address the root causes of the crisis, notably the extensive homosexual network in the Church.

The Vatican announced Saturday that former-cardinal Theodore McCarrick will be laicized after finding him guilty of serial homosexual abuse.

The Paris public prosecutor has opened an investigation into charges that the Vatican nuncio to France, Archbishop Luigi Ventura, repeatedly molested a junior mayoral aide sexually during a speech last month.

The Vatican hosts “one of the biggest homosexual communities in the world,” alleges French journalist Frédéric Martel in an upcoming book on the Catholic Church and homosexuality.

A new report on clerical sex abuse in Belgium has revealed that 76 percent of priests’ victims were males, echoing patterns of chiefly homosexual abuse in other countries.

The Vatican’s doctrinal office is preparing to reduce former cardinal Theodore McCarrick to the lay state for his serial homosexual abuse including that of minors, according to reports Friday.

A prominent American Jesuit priest said Friday he believes that an upcoming Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse “will fail” because it will not deliver what abuse survivors, the media, and the faithful are hoping for.

A prominent German cardinal has accused critics of Pope Francis of exploiting the clerical sex abuse crisis in order to oust him from the papacy.

A former papal nuncio to the United States has called on archbishop Theodore McCarrick to “repent publicly” of his “sins, crimes, and sacrileges” before it is too late.

The diocese of Pittsburgh revealed Thursday that Washington D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl was aware of accusations of sexual misconduct against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick as far back as 2004, despite Wuerl’s insistence that he had heard nothing about them until 2018.

The Vatican is now investigating three separate charges of homosexual abuse against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the latest of which was reported less than three months ago and has just become public.

Pope Francis has urged the United States bishops to stop pointing fingers at one another over clerical sex abuse and, instead, unite in a common effort forward.

Pope Francis offered his “heartfelt thanks” in a lengthy speech on Friday to members of the media who helped expose sexual abusers within the ranks of the Catholic clergy.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has accused the Catholic Church of withholding the names of hundreds of priests accused of sexual abuse, a claim challenged by a Catholic watchdog group.

A Melbourne court has reportedly convicted the Vatican’s finance chief, Cardinal George Pell, of sexually abusing two choir boys in the 1990s when he was archbishop of Melbourne.

It is a mistake to downplay the seriousness of homosexuality, Pope Francis said in an upcoming interview book, insisting that homosexuals have no place in the priesthood.

Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich is denying a report that he and Washington, DC, Cardinal Donald Wuerl collaborated to formulate an alternate plan for bishop accountability in abuse claims ahead of a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

In ordering the U.S. bishops to abstain from voting on measures aimed at addressing clerical sex abuse, Pope Francis may have inadvertently performed the most consequential and costly act of his papacy.

Pope Francis’s plunging approval ratings are primarily a reflection of how he has handled the clerical sex abuse crisis, said the director of the Pew Research Center Monday.

The former papal nuncio to the United States has written to the U.S. bishops gathered in Baltimore, telling them to be courageous in dealing with clerical sex abuse, after Pope Francis ordered them not to vote on new measures.

Pope Francis has temporarily suspended efforts by the United States bishops to address the issue of clerical sex abuse, ordering them to wait until he can meet with them in February together with the presidents of other national bishops’ conferences from around the world.

The archdiocese of New York has removed auxiliary bishop John Jenik from public ministry, following “credible allegations” that he abused a teenage boy in the 1980s.