Catholic Church

ProPublica has compiled a list of “credibly accused” Catholic clergy from around the country, including nearly 200 in Massachusetts. The journalism site ProPublica, a Patch Partner, has compiled the most comprehensive list so far of Catholic clergy “credibly accused” of sexual abuse. The list includes many abusers from Massachusetts. Along with the list, ProPublica outlines […]

The Boston Globe reports that Paul R. Shanley, a key figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal that began in Boston and shook the Roman Catholic church worldwide, was released from prison Friday and arrived in the small town of Ware, Mass., walking with a cane and looking frail. After spending 12 years in state […]

The Eagle Tribune reports that defrocked and formerly jailed ex-priest Ronald Paquin, who was assigned to parishes in Haverhill and Methuen, will be held without bail on a fugitive from justice charge until late next week. Paquin, 74, was arrested on Wednesday in Boston after a grand jury in York County, Maine, handed down an […]

The Salem News reports that a former Catholic priest who was at the center of the Boston Archdiocese sex scandal in 2002 is facing new charges of sexual abuse in Maine that date back to the 1980s. On Monday, a grand jury in Maine indicted former priest Ronald Paquin, 74, of Massachusetts on 29 counts […]

Former Bishop Thomas Dupre, the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States to be indicted on a sexual-abuse claim during the flood of abuse accusations against church officials, has died. He was 83, the Diocese of Springfield (Massachusetts) said. He died outside the diocese, but the location and the cause of his death weren’t disclosed. […]

A former high-ranking member of a Roman Catholic religious order has been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for raping a boy at a Massachusetts summer camp in the 1980s. The Rev. Richard McCormick, of New York, was also sentenced last week in Lawrence Superior Court to 10 years of probation. The 73-year-old […]

A former Roman Catholic priest has settled a lawsuit alleging that he later sexually abused a 14-year-old student student in New York and Boston, the former student’s attorney said Wednesday, as reported by the Times-Picayune and nola.com. Sean Leo Rooney served on the faculty at Archbishop Shaw High School from 1975 until 1979. The lawyer, […]

Four clerics accused of abuse in Massachusetts. You can read about it here. A watchdog group that documents the clergy sex abuse crisis added the four names to its public database of priests and other religious leaders accused of sexual abuse.

A Roman Catholic priest suspended a year ago after he was accused of child sexual abuse has been reinstated after the allegation was found to be unsubstantiated. The Boston Archdiocese announced Thursday that the Rev. Joseph Byrne has returned to ministry and been granted senior priest status. Byrne was suspended last May after the Archdiocese […]

A Massachusetts priest who was charged for alleged repeated sexual assaults on a child who was a former parishioner has died, officials said. The Rev. Paul LaCharite, formerly of St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville, died of an apparent drug overdose, the Boston Herald reported. LaCharite was charged with one count of assault to rape […]

The Associated Press reports that a lawyer for clergy sex abuse victims released six new names of clerics accused of abuse, saying that it shows that a crisis that began a decade ago is far from over. One of the priests is the Rev. James Nickel, a Sacred Heart priest who worked in Fairhaven and […]

Cool piece in the Somerville Journal about a man performing a one-man show about the sexual abuse he suffered as a youth at the hands of a priest. And kudos to the church for letting him perform it there.

The lawyer for a Plymouth (MA) priest placed on leave by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston pending an investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse dating to the early 1980s says his client has been wrongly accused. The Rev. James Braley, pastor of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha parish, was placed on leave earlier in February. […]

The Boston Globe reports that the Archdiocese is coming under fire in connection with the list of priest abusers it released this week. The list apparently only names those priests who have already been publicly accused, and omits the names of dozens of accused priests from religious orders and other dioceses, as well as those […]

The Archdiocese of Boston says four inactive priests have been defrocked over decades-old allegations of child sexual abuse. Cardinal Sean O’Malley announced Monday the removal of Robert F. Daly, John Keane, Robert Knapp and Benjamin McMahon. None had been in active ministry since the 1980s. Their whereabouts have not been disclosed. The archdiocese says Keane […]

Kudos to Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, a fellow advocate for victims of child sexual abuse, for releasing more than 100 names of people in the church who have been accused of abuse. Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley announced in March 2009 his plans to make these names public. That has not occurred. The Boston Archdiocese’s excuse […]

Survivors Voice Inc, a non profit foundation founded by Massachusetts clergy abuse survivors Bernie McDaid & Gary Bergeron to help survivors of clergy sexual abuse, have started a global petition and are calling on the United Nations to define the childhood sexual abuse of children as “Crimes against humanity”. Bergeron issued a statement, in which […]

Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian is crying foul after the Archdiocesan Review Board cleared a Weymouth priest, Cambridge native Rev. Charles J. Murphy, whose last assignment was at St. Francis Xavier Church in Weymouth, of sexual abuse. Murphy had been accused of abusing a teenage boy while assigned to St. Agatha’s Church in Milton during the […]

The Boston Globe reports that a Catholic priest who had been cleared of allegations of child sexual abuse is facing new ones and has been barred from any ministry. The Rev. Thomas M. Curran, 65, was placed on administrative leave from 2002 to 2007 following the previous allegations. In 2007, he was placed in permanent […]