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Church defrocks Chilean priest for child sex abuse

Agence France-PresseMay 15, 2013 01:01
A Chilean priest has been defrocked by his order for allegedly sexually abusing two minors, the country's Roman Catholic church said Tuesday. The church had investigated the allegations against the priest, Hector Valdes, in 2008, but a new probe was ordered four years later by the archbishop of Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati. The second investigation found Valdes "guilty of the crime of sexually abusing two minors, and abuse of his ministry," the church said in a statement. Valdes "is hereby removed for life from exercising priestly ministry and the religious life," it said.

'Systemic' sex abuse at elite NY school

Agence France-PresseApril 26, 2013 18:15
Students at one of America's most prestigious schools were abused by pedophile teachers for more than three decades but prosecutors are unable to file charges because the crimes happened too long ago, officials in New York said Friday. The Bronx District Attorney's Office said in a statement police had uncovered evidence of "systemic" abuse of pupils at the famous Horace Mann School, spanning a 34-year period from from 1962 to 1996. However no charges would be filed because of New York State's statute of limitations laws.

Pope seeks decisive action against sex abuse

April 9, 2013 10:03
Pope Francis directed the Vatican yesterday to act decisively on clergy sex abuse cases and take measures against pedophile priests, saying the Catholic Church's ‘credibility’ was on the line. The announcement was quickly dismissed by victims' advocates as just more talk. Clergy abuse victims have called for swift and bold action from Francis as soon as he was elected pope last month. Yet in his homeland, Roman Catholic activists had characterized him as being slow to act against such abuse in his years heading the Argentine church. The clergy child abuse scandals i

Pope urges determined action against sex abuse

April 9, 2013 09:20
Pope Francis has given his first pronouncement on the Catholic Church’s pervasive paedophile priest scandal, urging Vatican disciplinarians to act “with determination” against the scourge. Meeting on Friday with Monsignor Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, the head of the Vatican department that disciplines predator priests, the pope asked him to “act with determination in cases of sexual abuse,” the Vatican said in a statement. It was the first official word on the issue from the new pope, who was elected March 13 to succeed Benedict XVI whose papacy was marred by relentless paedophilia

Pope urges determined action against sex abuse

April 5, 2013 22:45
Pope Francis has given his first pronouncement on the Catholic Church's pervasive paedophile priest scandal, urging Vatican disciplinarians to act "with determination" against the scourge. Meeting on Friday with Monsignor Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, the head of the Vatican department that disciplines predator priests, the pope asked him to "act with determination in cases of sexual abuse," the Vatican said in a statement.

Pope urges determined action against sex abuse

April 5, 2013 12:30
Pope Francis on Friday gave his first pronouncement on the Catholic Church's pervasive paedophile priest scandal, urging Vatican disciplinarians to act "with determination" against the scourge. Meeting with Monsignor Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, the head of the Vatican department that disciplines predator priests, the pope asked him to "act with determination in cases of sexual abuse," the Vatican said in a statement.

Australia launches national child sex abuse inquiry

April 2, 2013 23:15
Australia opened a national probe into child sex abuse on Wednesday, with premier Julia Gillard warning of "uncomfortable truths" as institutions including schools and churches come under scrutiny. Gillard ordered the inquiry in November after a decade of growing pressure to investigate widespread allegations of paedophilia, two months after the Catholic Church in Victoria revealed hundreds of children had been abused.

Paedophilia 'not a criminal condition': S. Africa cardinal

March 16, 2013 08:30
A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis said on Saturday that paedophilia is a psychological illness, not "a criminal condition". Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, the Archbishop of Durban, told BBC radio that people who become paedophiles after being abused as children should be treated by doctors. His comments come as Francis, the first pontiff to hail from Latin America, takes the helm of a Catholic Church rocked by thousands of cases of child abuse by paedophile priests.

French boat school admits sex abuse for first time

March 15, 2013 14:32
The founder of a French alternative school on a boat admitted in court Friday that he had sexually abused three of the children in his charge. "I admit everything that has been said," Leonide Kameneff, 76, told his ongoing trial for rape, reacting to testimony from a victim who had described the abuse he had suffered at the hands of the former child psychotherapist between 1992 and 1995. The victim, now 33, testified to having been subjected to masturbation, oral sex and an attempted rape by Kameneff that he described as part of a pattern of systematic abuse.

Irish abuse victims press new pope for action

March 14, 2013 12:16
Victims of child abuse in Catholic-run institutions in Ireland on Thursday called on newly elected Pope Francis to ensure that clergy who covered up the abuse are held accountable. "We want proper accountability. Even to this day, we are fighting cases in the redress board, the High Court and the Supreme Court," Tom Hayes of the Alliance Victims Support Group told AFP.
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