Cardinal George Pell welcomed Australia’s highest court clearing him of child sex crimes Tuesday and said his trial had not been a referendum on the Catholic Church’s handling of the clergy abuse crisis.
Read moreThe federal judge who holds the key to secret records concerning the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein refused Tuesday afternoon to approve a monthlong delay in the case.
Read moreParents sued Peoria, Ariz., its unified school district and former teacher Ricky Ordway, 44, who has been accused of 11 counts of child molestation of students at Sun Valley Elementary School, in Maricopa County Court.
Read moreTwo lawsuits accuse a bus driver for Citizens Acting Together Can Help, LogistiCare Solutions, et al. of duct-taping children’s arms, legs, feet, hands and mouths while taking them to treatment, in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.
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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, six months after disclosing it had paid millions of dollars to people sexually abused as children by its clerics.
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The New Orleans Saints head to court Thursday to try to block the release of hundreds of confidential emails detailing the behind-the-scenes public relations work the team did for the area’s Roman Catholic archdiocese in its sexual abuse scandals.
Read moreA woman seeks punitive damages from La Luz del Mundo, claiming she was “enslaved, trafficked, and sexually abused by (its) leaders,” and that the religious organization “has made the economic and sexual exploitation of children and others a centerpiece of its operations for decades,” in L.A. Federal Court.
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French police on Thursday searched the home of a writer accused of raping a minor and who repeatedly described relationships with young teens in his work, a source said.
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In the wake of revelations that scores of Roman Catholic priests and religious workers credibly accused of child sexual abuse are living unsupervised in communities across the country, state officials face a quandary: Should they screen former clergy members who seek licenses for jobs that put them in contact with children? And, if so, how?
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Another founder of a Catholic religious movement has been defrocked for sexual misconduct and abusing his power, the latest in a string of charismatic priests who turned out to be predators.
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More than 100 child protection organizations on Thursday urged Facebook to halt plans for strong encryption of all its platforms, saying that would allow predators to operate freely.
Read moreA father was properly sentenced for assault convictions relating to the abuse of his three teenage children who were imprisoned in a squalid bedroom in his ex-wife’s home, an Iowa appeals court ruled. One of the children died of emaciation. The father had challenged the court’s statements comparing his conduct to the “inaction of bystanders during the Holocaust and the Rohingya conflict in Myanmar.”
Read moreSix more former students sued The Glen Mills Schools for personal injuries, claiming staff members physically and sexually abused them there, in separate complaints in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.
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French writer Gabriel Matzneff said in an interview Wednesday that he “regrets” his trips to Asia to have sex with children, claiming that at the time “no one ever said it was a crime.”
Read moreIn the 11th Circuit, government prosecutors at long last uttered the word “sorry” in open court to victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s underage sex ring, after years of refusing to apologize for keeping them in the dark about a deal that protected the wealthy money manager from federal charges.
Read moreThe Montana Supreme Court reversed a $35 million award in a negligence case against Jehovah’s Witnesses, finding that they are exempt from mandatory child abuse reporting because “canon law, church doctrine, or established church practice required that the reports of abuse in this case be kept confidential.”
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One day in May of 1970, an 11-year-old boy and his disabled sister were sitting on the curb outside a Chicago tavern, waiting for their mother to come out. When a priest with crinkly eyes and a ready smile happened by and offered the family a ride home, they could not have been happier.
Read moreA Colorado woman accused of hiding 26 children behind a false wall at her daycare center was arrested for investigation of misdemeanor child abuse, police said Thursday.
Read moreA Native American woman claims that British Columbia Ministry of Children and Family Development officials not only placed her in extremely abusive homes as a child, but that one of her supervisors stole money from a joint bank account he opened with her, in B.C. Supreme Court.
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Pope Francis has abolished the “pontifical secret” used in clergy sexual abuse cases, after mounting criticism that the high degree of confidentiality has been used to protect pedophiles, silence victims and keep law enforcement from investigating crimes.
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