Tag: vatican

Bolivia sentences priests for concealing decades of child sex abuse

A Bolivian court sentenced two elderly Spanish Jesuit priests to a year each in prison on Tuesday for concealing decades of child sex abuse committed by their colleague in the church.

The convictions of the priests, Marcos Recolons, 81, and Ramon Alaix, 83, mark Bolivia’s first successful criminal prosecution against high-ranking members of the Catholic Jesuit order implicated in concealing abuse cases.

Prosecutors argued that Recolons and Alaix led the Jesuit order in Bolivia while the abuse occurred. They were aware of the allegations against a priest, Alfonso Pedrajas, but failed to report them to police, allowing him to continue contact with children, according to the prosecution.

The case came to light in 2023 with the publication of a diary belonging to Pedrajas, who died in 2009. In it, he wrote about abusing at least 85 minors between 1972 and 2000, many of whom were indigenous students on scholarships at a prominent boarding school.

The diary entries sparked international outrage and intensified the debate over the Catholic Church’s accountability in child sex abuse scandals across Latin America.

Keep reading

Politico: Former Vatican Auditor Alleges System Enabled Money Laundering

Politico has published new claims from Libero Milone, a former auditor from Deloitte who was appointed by the Vatican in 2015. Milone alleges that the Vatican’s payroll agency was able to change names and account numbers on transactions after they were processed, allowing funds to be sent to private clients without revealing their identities.

According to Sleuth News, the U.S. intelligence community may have been involved. Sleuth News did not provide evidence to substantiate this claim but linked it to past reporting on Neustar’s role in projects tied to the 2016–2017 investigation.

Sleuth News specializes in deep dives into Russiagate, FOIA litigation, and related political and legal documents.

Vice President Vance told Gateway Pundit Publisher Jim Hoft that investigations related to the 2016 efforts to undermine and subvert Trump’s victory and first term are underway.

Revelations about Russiagate have been spilling out for weeks, even though the mainstream media has refused to cover it. Former CIA Director John Brennan has been caught lying about the releases. Law Prof Jonathan Turley suggests part of the motivation for their silence, is they don’t want to admit the role the media played in the Russiagate hoax against President Trump and his 2016 election victory.

The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway’s summary of the releases so far is that “Democrats should be scared.”

Keep reading

Nearly 800 infant remains found in septic tank at nun-run Irish unwed mother and baby home

Crews in Ireland began work this week to excavate the site of a former church-run home for unmarried women and their babies to identify the remains of around 800 infants and young children who died there.

Many of the remains were found in a septic tank, according to authorities. 

The backstory:

The long-awaited excavation at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway in western Ireland, is part of a reckoning in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country with a history of abuses in church-run institutions.

The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.

In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.

Finding a mass grave

Dig deeper:

Investigators later found a mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children in an underground sewage structure on the grounds of the home. DNA analysis found that the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks gestation to 3 years.

A major inquiry into the mother-and-baby homes found that in total, about 9,000 children died in 18 different mother-and-baby homes, with major causes including respiratory infections and gastroenteritis, otherwise known as the stomach flu.

Keep reading

Catholics fight government surveillance in confession after wins against abortion mandate, tax

Catholic physicians and social service workers won over the Trump administration and Supreme Court, respectively, last week against their compelled participation in emergency room abortions and a state unemployment compensation program that costs more than their own church’s.

Bishops hope to make it a trifecta against a Washington state law that violates the seal of confession, threatening priests with imprisonment and fines if they don’t report suspected child abuse or neglect when “penitents” confess, but not lawyers who learn the same from clients.

Diocesan leaders filed a motion for preliminary injunction Thursday against Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson, Attorney General Nicholas Brown and county prosecutors in federal court in Tacoma to block SB 5375 at least 10 days before it takes effect July 27.

The Justice Department also quickly opened a civil rights investigation into the law as a prima facie First Amendment violation after Ferguson signed it, expanding the category of mandatory reporter to “member of the clergy,” defined as any regularly licensed, accredited or ordained minister, priest, rabbi, imam, elder, or similarly positioned religious or spiritual leader.

Denial of an injunction would likely fast-track the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and, if also rejected by the historically most liberal appeals court, to SCOTUS, which has rarely struggled to reach lopsided rulings upholding religious liberty.

The high court Thursday unanimously overturned the Wisconsin Supreme Court‘s ruling that found that a local Catholic Charities bureau’s work is primarily secular and hence it can’t get a religious exemption from paying into the state unemployment compensation system.

Justices unanimously ruled for Gerald Groff two years ago after the U.S. Postal Service threatened to fire the evangelical Christian for refusing to work Sundays under an Amazon delivery agreement, junking the “de minimis cost” standard that let employers easily deny religious exemptions but only appeared in a footnote in a 1977 ruling.

Keep reading

Pope Leo’s Childhood Home Faces Eminent Domain as He Relocates to a More Eminent Domain

“Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own,” wrote Pope Leo XIII, in his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, laying down the basics of Catholic social teaching.

The plans of contemporary socialists to seize private property, Leo XIII denounced as “emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.”

The last Pope Leo’s defense of private property adds no small amount of irony to the small Chicago suburb of Dolton, Illinois’ plan to honor the new American-born Pope Leo XIV by seizing his childhood home from its private owners.

Yesterday, Chicago-area media reported that Dolton officials plan to use eminent domain to take the home where Leo XIV, formerly Robert Francis Prevost, was raised from its current private owners to create a publicly accessible historic site.

At present, the owners are auctioning off the small, 1949-built home for a reserve price of $250,000.

In a Tuesday letter to the auction house running the sale, Dolton attorney Burton Odelson cautioned buyers against purchasing the house.

“Please inform any prospective buyers that their ‘purchase’ may only be temporary since the Village intends to begin the eminent domain process very shortly,” reads Odelson’s letter, per NBC Chicago.

Odelson told Chicago’s ABC7 that the village had initially tried to voluntarily purchase the home but had snagged on the sale price.

“We’ve tried to negotiate with the owner. [He] wants too much money, so we will either negotiate with the auction house or, as the letter stated that I sent to the auction house, we will take it through eminent domain, which is our right as a village,” Odelson said.

One wonders how outrageous the owners’ offered sale price was given its current auction price of $250,000.

The fact that the home was once lived in by the current pope surely doesn’t enable the owners to command that much of a sale premium on what is undeniably a quite modest dwelling.

Keep reading

Chicago priest accused of molesting kids makes bombshell claim against Pope Leo

A defrocked priest who was accused of sexually abusing at least 13 children has made a bombshell claim against the new pope. 

Robert Prevost, who was named the new head of the Vatican earlier this month, has been accused of turning a blind eye to the Church’s sexual abuse scandal in Chicago when he served as the head of the Midwest Province of the Catholic Church’s Augustinian order.

Now, former priest James M Ray also claims Prevost signed off on his move to a Hyde Park monastery near a Catholic elementary school – despite the fact that Ray had already been accused of molesting children.

‘He’s the one who gave me permission to stay there,’ Ray recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. 

The priest is included on an Archdiocesan list of accused sexual offenders, which claims he was subject to ‘limited ministry with restrictions’ starting in 1990 following sexual abuse allegations.

Still, he worked for three parishes – and in 2000, the Archdiocese of Chicago stepped in to help him find a place to live where he would not pose a threat to the public.

However, they ultimately let Ray stay for two years at the St. John Stone Friary – which is less than one block from the St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School and across the ally from a child care center. 

The school was never notified that Ray – who has never been convicted of any crime and is not included on any government sex offender registries – was moving into the area, and there is no indication that the child care center was notified either.

Keep reading

Pope Leo XIV ‘looked the other way’ when confronted with child sex abuse allegations against priest in his Chicago church

The newly-elected Pope Leo XIV is facing accusations of ‘looking the other way’ when confronted with child sex abuse allegations against a priests in his Chicago and South American churches, it has emerged.

Robert Prevost, who became the first North American pontiff on Thursday, was accused by a survivors’ group of failing to act upon allegations of abuse in the U.S. and in Peru – concerns they relayed to the cardinals who selected him.

‘Staying silent is a sin. It’s not what God wants us to do. Jesus wants us to stop these things, not make a heathy garden for sexual abuse to grow,’ Lopez de Casas, a victim of clergy abuse and national vice president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told DailyMail.com.

Prevost was said to have looked past allegations in Chicago, where he grew up, after Augustinian priest Father James Ray was allowed to live at the St. John Stone Friary in Hyde Park despite having been removed from ministering to the public years prior over accusations of abusing minors.

The new pope allegedly didn’t notify the heads of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic school, an elementary school half a block from the friary because, the church said at the time, Ray was supposed to be closely monitored in the friary.

Prevost also faced criticism for not having opened a formal church investigation into alleged sexual abuse carried out by two priests in the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, which he led from 2014 to 2023. 

SNAP and other groups say they had made the 135 eligible cardinals who selected him well aware of Prevost’s alleged inaction on the allegations.

‘This person will be scrutinized from left to right,’ said Lopez de Casas, who hopes Prevost’s election will shine a brighter light on abuse within the Church.

‘That’s helpful for victims everywhere because we have this pope who will be under the public eye in terms of things he was involved with in the past,’ he said.

Keep reading

Catholic Church To Excommunicate Priests for Following New US State Law

The Catholic Church has issued a warning to its clergy in Washington state: Any priest who complies with a new law requiring the reporting of child abuse confessions to authorities will be excommunicated.

The new law, which will take effect on July 27, eliminates the long-standing confidentiality of the confessional, forcing Catholic leaders and lawmakers into a highly charged standoff over religious liberty and child protection.

However, the Archdiocese of Seattle and several bishops argue that the law not only contravenes church doctrine but crosses constitutional lines, while supporters maintain it is a crucial step to protect minors from abuse.

Newsweek contacted the Archdiocese of Seattle and Washington Governor Bob Ferguson and the three Democratic state senators who sponsored the bill for comment via email and online inquiry forms.

The issue spotlights the enduring tension between religious freedom and the state’s duty to protect children from abuse. By compelling clergy to breach the confessional seal, Washington joins a small group of states stripping traditional confidentiality protections.

The law has triggered a national conversation about the boundaries of church and state, setting a precedent that could have implications for religious practices and privileged communications nationwide. The outcome may influence how other states approach mandated reporting requirements for clergy, especially as constitutional and civil rights groups enter the debate.

Keep reading

Sexual abuse of nuns: one of the Catholic Church’s last taboos

Nuns sexually assaulted by priests are one of the last Catholic taboos, but with reports of abuse rising, it is a scandal that will be difficult for the future pope to ignore.

“In the past, the nuns suffered a lot and couldn’t talk about it to anyone; it was like a secret,” Sister Cristina Schorck told AFP, walking through St Peter’s Square with her parents.

The 41-year-old Brazilian, who works with the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians in Rome, said Pope Francis, who died last month, opened “a first door” for women to speak out.

After an unprecedented summit at the Vatican on clerical sexual violence in 2019, a series of measures were taken, including lifting the pontifical secret on abuse and an obligation for people to report cases to their superiors.

“It’s both still a taboo and something that has progressed” because “it’s never been talked about as much as it is today,” Sister Veronique Margron, President of the Conference of Religious of France, told AFP.

The slow shift in attitudes is exemplified by the case of the influential Slovenian priest and mosaics artist Marko Rupnik, accused by nuns of sexual and psychological violence against them in the early 1990s.

It was only under pressure that Francis lifted the statute of limitations in 2023 to open proceedings against him.

Laura Sgro, the Italian lawyer for five of his accusers, told AFP that nuns should be better protected “both by states and by canon law”, notably by extending the statute of limitations, and said the next pope must act “immediately”.

Victims’ associations say the Vatican has not done enough, particularly by refusing to remove confessional secrecy.

“Things are moving forward step by step,” a senior ecclesiastical official told AFP on condition of anonymity, pointing out that Francis “has denounced all forms of abuse”.

Nuns in black, grey, white, beige or brown habits, in Rome to study, work or accompany pilgrims, come and go every day in St Peter’s Square, far from the media hype surrounding the cardinals.

Among them, Sister Marthe, a nun from Cameroon in her forties, said she wanted the Church to “know how” to respond to “sexual (or) power abuse”.

Keep reading

REVEALED: How the People’s Pope shielded sexual predators in the clergy – including one priest accused of violently raping nuns

When the world’s cardinals met in Rome last Monday for the first of their crucial pre-conclave discussions, they raised ‘the issue of clerical abuse’, according to a Vatican spokesman. 

The cardinals are forbidden to reveal anything that was said. 

But behind closed doors, the preparations for the conclave – which starts on Wednesday – are already mired in scandal.

Aside from doubts about the true age of Philippe Ouedraogo, a cardinal from Burkina Faso whom some claim is 80, meaning he’s too old to vote, and concerns about the presence of the Peruvian cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, who faces sexual abuse allegations (which he denies), several cardinals have torn into the legacy of the late Pope Francis.

‘We have listened to many complaints against Francis’s papacy in these days’, one unnamed cardinal told America Magazine, a Jesuit publication.

In any case, we can be certain that Monday’s debate was haunted by a series of jaw-dropping scandals whose details are unknown to the vast majority of the 400,000 Catholics who attended Pope Francis’s funeral a week ago.

If they had known, the crowds would have been much smaller. 

For the common denominator of these scandals – whose victims included 20 Slovenian nuns who claim to have been raped, Argentinian seminarians grotesquely assaulted by their bishop and a Belgian teenager subjected to incestuous assault by his uncle, a bishop – is that Francis went to bizarre lengths either to conceal or excuse these crimes.

The ‘people’s Pope’ was elected in 2013 on a promise to hold the Church accountable for clerical sex abuse. 

And it’s true that he did establish new rules designed to punish bishops found guilty.

But the first Argentinian pontiff did not practise what he preached. 

The darkest mystery of Francis’s 12-year reign was his persistent habit of shielding credibly accused and even convicted sexual predators from justice. 

The Pope enjoys supreme authority over the Catholic Church. 

He can twist or ignore canon law, which is supposed to punish sex offenders, and the Vatican state’s criminal law, without being challenged.

That is precisely what he did, again and again. 

Indeed, his sinister modus operandi predated his election: as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he tried to keep a priest who abused homeless boys out of jail.

Keep reading