The court handed down its sentence after a trial which found the music artist guilty on all nine charges presented.
One survivor said the judicial system came through for his survivors saying "30 years he did this and 30 years he got."
Showing posts with label sex abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex abuse. Show all posts
Thursday, June 30, 2022
R Kelly Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Sex Abuse - BBC News
Jun 30, 2022 American singer R Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison by a US federal court after he was found guilty of sexually abusing women, boys and girls.
The court handed down its sentence after a trial which found the music artist guilty on all nine charges presented.
One survivor said the judicial system came through for his survivors saying "30 years he did this and 30 years he got."
The court handed down its sentence after a trial which found the music artist guilty on all nine charges presented.
One survivor said the judicial system came through for his survivors saying "30 years he did this and 30 years he got."
Friday, May 27, 2022
'An Absolute Disaster': Southern Baptist Sex Abuse Report Rattles Community
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Benedict Emerges from Papal Retirement to Defend Record on Sex Abuse
The ex-pontiff spoke of his "profound consternation" that "evil" had entered so deeply into the Catholic faith. But he denied that he had, either as pope or previously as head of the Vatican office dealing with abuse cases, tried to "cover up" the scandals that tarnished the Church's reputation around the world.
"That the power of evil penetrated so far into the interior world of the faith is a suffering that we must bear, but at the same time must do everything to prevent it from repeating," he said.
The missive, sent to Piergiorgio Odifreddi, an atheist mathematician, and reprinted on the front page of leading Italian daily La Repubblica, was the first published statement from Benedict since he said on his retirement that he would live out his remaining years "hidden from the world".
The letter, which also discussed topics such as the nature of Catholic belief, the conflict between good and evil, and evolution, came just two weeks after La Repubblica published a similar letter from his successor Pope Francis on atheism and agnosticism. » | Nick Squires, Rome | Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Monday, May 14, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Claims that ethnicity was not a factor in the Rochdale sexual grooming case are "fatuous", the head of the equalities watchdog said today.
Trevor Phillips, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the fact that the men convicted were Asian and their victims white could not be ignored.
He expressed concern that the men came from closed communities which may have turned a blind eye to what was happening - either out of fear or because the girls concerned were from a different community.
And he said it would be a national scandal if it turned out the authorities had failed to intervene to protect the children because of fears that it would lead to the "demonisation" of the Asian community.
A gang of nine Asian men was last week found guilty of plying girls as young as 13 with drink and drugs so they could "pass them around" and use them for sex.
Following the trial at Liverpool Crown Court, Greater Manchester Police sought to play down suggestions of any racial element to the case. » | Sunday, May 13, 2012
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Friday, May 11, 2012
THE GUARDIAN: Muslim groups report upsurge in hate mail and abusive phone calls since conviction of nine men over child sex ring
Far right groups are exploiting the conviction of nine men who were part of a gang which groomed girls for sex to create a "climate of hate" against Muslims, community leaders have warned.
Muslim groups say they have seen an upsurge in hate mail and abusive phone calls since the trial ended this week and community leaders are bracing themselves for more Islamophobic attacks on individual Muslims and mosques across the UK.
"We are already receiving hate mail and hate phone calls even though we issued a very strong statement condemning those involved," said a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain. "If it can happen to MCB, you can just imagine what ordinary Muslims are facing as they go about their day-to-day business." » | Matthew Taylor and Haroon Siddique | Friday, May 11, 2012
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have accused the pope, the Vatican secretary of state and two other high-ranking Holy See officials of crimes against humanity, in a formal complaint to the international criminal court (ICC).
The submission, lodged at The Hague on Tuesday, accuses the four men not only of failing to prevent or punish perpetrators of rape and sexual violence but also of engaging in the "systematic and widespread" practice of concealing sexual crimes around the world.
It includes individual cases of abuse where letters and documents between Vatican officials and others show a refusal to co-operate with law enforcement agencies seeking to pursue suspects, according to the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a US-based organisation that represents the claimants. » | Karen McVeigh | Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Thursday, August 12, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: The Vatican has rejected the resignations of two Catholic bishops in Ireland who offered to quit in the wake of a child sex abuse scandal, the Archbishop of Dublin said.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said in a letter to priests in his archdiocese that Auxiliary Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field will remain in their jobs but will be given "revised responsibilities".
The bishops presented their resignations to Pope Benedict XVI in December following a judge's damning report on the Dublin archdiocese that found the Catholic Church concealed the abuse of children by priests for three decades. >>> | Thursday, August 12, 2010
Saturday, July 03, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: An Australian Catholic priest has been jailed for almost 20 years for "sadistic" sex attacks on young boys that spanned more than 18 years.
John Sidney Denham, 67, was sentenced to 19 years and 10 months after pleading guilty to a range of charges, including multiple counts of indecent assault against boys aged five to 16.
Denham was found guilty of abusing 39 boys at schools in Sydney and elsewhere in New South Wales between 1968 and 1986.
In sentencing, judge Helen Syme said that the abuse had been ignored by school authorities for many years, allowing it to continue. >>> Bonnie Malkin in Sydney | Friday, July 02, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: A secret Vatican file on a disgraced Roman Catholic German bishop alleges he is a "severely alcoholic man" who sexually preyed on young priests.
The dossier was seen Pope Benedict XVI before he accepted the resignation of Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg last month.
Documents, compiled after Vatican investigators questioned members of Bishop Mixa's inner circle, have detailed a litany of alleged alcoholism and sexual abuse.
The new allegations have come to light following his demands last week that the Vatican review his case. He has accused Germany's Archbishop Robert Zollitsch and Bavaria's Archbishop Reinhard Marx of not behaving a "brotherly" manner and pressuring him to resign.
In the dossier, witnesses described the bishop as an alcoholic who had to drink wine and spirits throughout the course of his day to feed his addiction to alcohol.
Others accused him of carrying out sex attacks on young priests during his time as a parish priest. Following an sexual incident, Bishop Mixa would then "go to confession the next morning before he celebrated mass".
The bishop was also repeatedly referred to in the dossier as "out of touch with reality". >>> Bruno Waterfield | Monday, June 21, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
THE GUARDIAN: Monsignor Charles Scicluna warns seminarians who exploit their office that their punishment in hell will be worse than death penalty on earth
The Vatican official in charge of catching paedophile priests has said their punishment in hell would be worse than receiving the death penalty on earth.
Monsignor Charles Scicluna issued the warning to seminarians at St Peter's basilica, in Rome, during prayers for abuse victims. >>> Tom Kington in Vatican City | Sunday, May 30, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: Survivors of clerical child sexual abuse called on Irish Roman Catholics to make their voices heard today after Cardinal Sean Brady ended months of speculation about his future by saying he would not resign.
The cardinal, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, is under pressure to stand down after it emerged that he took part in a secret canonical tribunal in 1975 at which two minors were made to swear oaths of silence about their allegations against the paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth.
Smyth went on to rape hundreds more children across Ireland, the UK and the United States before he died in prison in 1997.
In March the cardinal asked for forgiveness, telling a congregation at Armagh cathedral that he would spend the rest of Lent reflecting on his future. >>> David Sharrock, Ireland Correspondent | Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: The child sex abuse scandal is the greatest threat to the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI said on Tuesday.
The pontiff said the crisis over paedophile priests was "born from sins within the church" not outside, and called for penance.
In some of his strongest comments to date, Pope Benedict said the Catholic church had always suffered from internal problems, but that "today we see it in a truly terrifying way".
"The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice," he said.
The Pope was speaking aboard the papal plane while en route to Portugal, where he began a four-day visit on Tuesday. >>> | Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
NEW YORK TIMES: VATICAN CITY — As the sexual abuse crisis continues to unfold in the Roman Catholic Church, with more victims coming forward worldwide and three bishops resigning last week alone, it is clear the issue is more than a passing storm or a problem of papal communications.
Instead, the church is undergoing nothing less than an epochal shift: It pits those who hold fast to a more traditional idea of protecting bishops and priests above all against those who call for more openness and accountability. The battle lines are drawn between the church and society at large, which clearly clamors for accountability, and also inside the church itself.
Uncomfortably, the crisis also pits the moral legacies of two popes against each other: the towering and modernizing John Paul II, who nonetheless did little about sexual abuse; and his successor, Benedict XVI, who in recent years, at least, has taken the issue of pedophile priests more seriously.
He has had little choice, given the depth of the scandal and the anger it has unleashed. But when supporters defend Benedict, they are implicitly condemning John Paul and how an entire generation of bishops and the Vatican hierarchy acted in response to criminal behavior.
“The church realizes that it doesn’t have a way out, at least not until it confronts the entirety of its problems,” said Alberto Melloni, the director of the liberal Catholic John XXIII Foundation for Religious Science in Bologna, Italy. >>> Rachel Donadio | Thursday, April 29, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: A senior Catholic bishop has resigned after admitting to sexually abusing a child. He is the latest and most senior cleric to stand down in the crisis engulfing the church.
Roger Vangheluwe, Belgium’s longest-serving bishop, said that he was “enormously sorry” for the “wound” he had inflicted on a young boy about 25 years ago.
“When I was not a bishop, and some time later, I abused a boy,” he said in a statement. “This has marked the victim forever. The wound does not heal. Neither in me nor the victim,” he said.
Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the bishop’s resignation, which is the first among senior clerics since the crisis over paedophile priests began. >>> Joanna Sugden | Friday, April 23, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: The alleged victim of a US priest accused of being a serial pedophile is suing the Pope and the Vatican in an attempt to gain access to secret files containing internal investigations into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.
"There is a painful and long history of the Vatican and the top officials... muffling and suppressing the truth and protecting themselves and their own reputation instead of protecting the children," lawyer Jeff Anderson said at a press conference.
"This suit demands further action by the Vatican and the removal of every single priest that has offended a single child and every single bishop and cardinal that has been complicit in those crimes."
Mr Anderson, who has spent decades pursuing justice for victims of child sex abuse, said the case was "unprecedented" in its scope and demands.
That case is currently before the Supreme Court to determine whether the Vatican, which claims sovereign immunity, can be sued in a US court. >>> | Friday, April 23, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: US court action accuses Pope of failing to protect children from priest: The Pope was named in a lawsuit in a new court action in America yesterday by a man who says that he was abused as a child by a Roman Catholic priest. >>> Ruth Gledhill, Roger Boyes and David Sharrock | Friday, April 23, 2010
BBC: Vatican says US lawsuit against Pope 'without merit': The Vatican says a lawsuit brought against Pope Benedict and two Church officials by a US man who says he was abused by a priest is "without merit". >>> | Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: The leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, has issued a statement expressing "deep shame" over the child abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church.
The Archbishop of Westminster referred to the "inadequate response by some church leaders" to the "terrible crimes" committed.
He said: "The criminal offences committed by some priests and religious are a profound scandal. They bring deep shame to the whole church."
"We express our heartfelt apology and deep sorrow to those who have suffered abuse, those who have felt ignored, disbelieved or betrayed.
"We ask their pardon, and the pardon of God for these terrible deeds done in our midst. There can be no excuses.
The statement made at the Bishops' Conference in England and Wales said the church would do everything possible to bring the perpetrators to justice.
"We recognise the failings of some Bishops and religious leaders in handling these matters. These, too, are aspects of this tragedy which we deeply regret and for which we apologise. >>> Peter Hutchison | Thursday, April 22, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: The Pope has pledged that the Catholic Church will take action to confront the clerical sex abuse scandal, in his first public remarks calling for change since the crisis erupted.
During his weekly public audience Wednesday in St. Peter's Square, the pontiff recounted his tearful weekend encounter in Malta with eight men who say they were abused as children by priests in a church-run orphanage. Benedict met with the men in the Vatican's embassy for more than 30 minutes, praying with them and listening to their stories.
"I shared with them their suffering, and emotionally prayed with them, assuring them of church action," Benedict told the audience.
He said he told the victims in the tearful meeting "not to be afraid of life's storms or even shipwrecks, because the love of God is greater than storms or shipwrecks." >>> | Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Victims of clerical sex abuse in Malta have described how they wept as they prayed with the Pope today after he agreed to meet them on his trip to the island. They said that the Pope also had “tears in his eyes”.
The eight victims, who were abused systematically at an orphanage in Malta in the 1980s and 1990s, have long campaigned for the Church authorities to recognise their suffering in the face of decades of cover-ups from the Vatican downwards.
Vatican officials said that the Pope, who the Vatican claims has “done more than anyone” to clean up the Church, was “deeply moved” by the men’s descriptions of their experiences and had expressed “shame and sorrow”.
The Vatican confirmed that the men, who were “sexually abused by members of the clergy” as children and teenagers, had prayed with the pontiff in the chapel of the Apostolic Nunciature at Rabat, in Malta, after he returned from an open air Mass at Valletta, Lawrence Grech, 37, the spokesman for the group of former pupils at St Joseph’s Home, in Santa Venera, said: “We all cried”. He added: “After 25 years now I can go back to church.” Asked if the Pope had apologised for the abuse, he said: “He did not have to say sorry because the abuse was not the fault of one person.”
No media were allowed at the encounter, which began and ended with a silent joint prayer, Father Federico Lombardi, the papal spokesman said.
In a statement the Vatican said: “The Pope was deeply moved by their stories and expressed his shame and sorrow over what victims and their families have suffered.
“He prayed with them and assured them that the Church is doing, and will continue to do, all in its power to investigate allegations, to bring to justice those responsible for abuse and to implement effective measures designed to safeguard young people in the future.” >>> Richard Owen in Valletta | Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: The damage done by the child abuse scandal has been compounded by a lack of coherent response from those at the top
A papal trip to Malta would not normally attract world attention, but these are not normal times in the Vatican. The Pope’s first overseas engagement since the sex abuse scandal embroiled the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy will take place in the full glare of the media — the same media that some of his supporters accuse of waging a campaign against him and their religion.
The blame game — the Vatican has also attributed its woes to homosexuals, the Holocaust, the Irish, and even the Devil — speaks to a wider problem in the Church’s handling of accusations that it conspired to cover up paedophilia committed by its clergy. Only in the past few days have Vatican officials scrambled to find a coherent strategy to try to control a scandal that has inflicted immeasurable damage on the institution.
“The problem is not that the Vatican line over the crisis has had unfortunate consequences,” said Andrea Tornielli, the biographer of Pope Benedict XVI and other modern pontiffs. “The problem is that there is no line.”
Even as the Pope faced accusations that he had covered up instances of clerical abuse while Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982, and later as head of doctrine at the Vatican for 24 years, there was no co-ordinated rebuttal. In the corporate world, the response to such a public relations disaster would be crisis management, but the Vatican’s ancient bureaucracy, and a centuries-old culture of secrecy is ill equipped to meet the demands of communications strategies.
“We are not a multinational,” Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope’s spokesman, said recently. The Holy See, he said, “does not believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context”.
Asked during a rare briefing for reporters whether there had been urgent meetings in the Vatican over the abuse scandal, he looked baffled. Didn’t he feel that the Vatican was under siege? “No. We issue clarifications when necessary,” he replied, pointing to the publication on the Vatican website of church rules on abuse, making it clear for the first time that bishops must go to the police.
The reality, however, is that new abuse stories have appeared almost daily, and Father Lombardi, 68, a genial and mild-mannered Jesuit from Piedmont, northern Italy, has struggled without any apparent strategy or guidance from higher up in the Church.
Instead, stories involving abuse at the hands of priests have been dismissed as “petty gossip” or “idle chatter”. Contentious remarks by cardinals and bishops — blaming the stories on a Jewish conspiracy, for instance — have added to the furore. >>> Richard Owen in Rome | Saturday, April 17, 2010
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