Religion, Sex Abuse | featured news

There have been nearly 17,000 victims of clergy sexual abuse since 1950 and legal settlements for their suffering continue to climb. Add another $10 million to the $2.5 billion that the Catholic Church in the USA has spent in confronting the clergy sex abuse crisis.

The Archdiocese of L.A. took $115 million from its cemeteries' maintenance fund in 2007, nearly depleting it. The move seems legal, but it was not announced, and relatives of the dead were not told.

Statute of limitations is the main stumbling block to prosecuting Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and aides in the sex abuse files from the 1980s released this week, experts say. Over the last decade, there have been numerous calls to prosecute Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and his top aides for their mishandling of clergy sex abuse. At least three grand juries, two district attorneys and a U.S. attorney have subpoenaed documents and summoned witnesses.

Nearly 10 years after a worldwide clergy sexual abuse crisis erupted in the Boston Archdiocese, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley today released a long-awaited roster of 159 archdiocesan clerics who have been accused of sexually abusing children.

The Vatican has returned to profit after three years in the red but donations from the faithful fell nearly euro15 million ($22 million), or 18 percent, amid tough economic times and a year in which the priest sex abuse scandal exploded.

The Catholic bishops are reviewing church sex abuse policies but not speaking publicly on reports questioning their effectiveness.

Two men have filed a lawsuit accusing Bishop Eddie Long of exploiting his role as pastor of an Atlanta-area megachurch to coerce them into sexual relationships when they were young members of his congregation.

The pope criticized the “lamentable methods” of Belgian police who last week confiscated files, detained bishops and drilled into the tomb of at least one cardinal in the Brussels cathedral in a search for documents.

Pope Benedict said the sexual abuse scandal shaking Roman Catholicism showed the Church needed to do penance for its sins, in a rare public reference by the pope to pedophilia in the priesthood.

With the Roman Catholic Church facing a series of pedophilia scandals, some observers have begun to ask whether the tradition of celibacy in the priesthood has contributed to child abuse.