Tag Archives: Catholic Church

Cops: FL Priest And Bookkeeper Embezzled $1.5 Million

West Palm Beach’s ABC affiliate reports: Police said the investigation revealed that the church’s former parish administrator, Deborah True, and former pastor, Richard Murphy, opened a bank account in the name of “Holy Cross Catholic Church” in 2012. Police said bank records show that nearly $1.5 million of parishioners’ donations were fraudulently deposited into the account since 2015. From 2015 …

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NYC Catholic Deacon Pleads Guilty In Child Sex Sting

The New York Daily News reports: A Queens church deacon nabbed in an undercover sting pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court on Friday of trying to lure three teenage boys into meeting him for sex acts, law enforcement officials said. Rogelio Vega, 52, a former deacon at St. Sebastian Roman Catholic Church in Woodside, pleaded guilty to three counts of …

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WA Catholic Priest Charged With Raping Adult Woman

The Kennewick Tri-Cities Herald reports: A Tri-Cities priest has been arrested on suspicion of rape. Rev. Tomás Vázquez Téllez, 49, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of third-degree rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust. Vázquez Téllez has been serving at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Pasco since Sept. 2021. Vázquez Téllez was booked into the Benton …

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MD Priest Charged With Masturbating While Driving

The Maryland Bay reports: Reverend Jaroslaw “Jerry” Gamrot, 58, who serves at Holy Face Catholic Church and Little Flower School in Great Mills, has been charged for an incident that reportedly happened in July on a highway. Charging documents for the incident indicate that on July 25, Gamrot was traveling west on Route 70 in Frederick with no pants on …

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Far-Right Catholics Rage After Pope Francis Condemns Capital Punishment As “Encouraging Revenge” [VIDEO]

From the far-right Catholic site LifeSiteNews: Pope Francis has called for Catholics to pray for an end to the death penalty, saying that “in the light of the Gospel, the death penalty is unacceptable,” despite the Catholic Church’s nearly 2,000-year teaching, tradition, and contents of Sacred Scripture all upholding the legitimacy of the death penalty. It is even against the …

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Lawsuit Accuses Cardinal Of Sexually Assaulting Woman

The CBC reports: The name of a prominent Vatican cardinal, who is regarded as a potential successor to Pope Francis, appears on a list made public as part of a new class action against the Quebec diocese, Radio-Canada’s investigative program Enquête has found. Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who was the archbishop of Quebec when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was taking …

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Dominatrices To Testify Against New Orleans Priest

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports: Two professional dominatrices accused of a sexual tryst with a priest on the altar of Pearl River Catholic church in 2020 have each pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of institutional vandalism and won’t serve jail time, according to court records. But Melissa Cheng and Mindy Dixon will have to come back to 22nd …

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Pope Floats Retirement After Tiring Visit To Canada

The Guardian reports: Pope Francis has said that he can no longer travel like he used to because of his strained knee ligaments, saying his week-long Canadian pilgrimage was “a bit of a test” that showed he needed to slow down and one day possibly retire. Speaking to reporters while traveling home from northern Nunavut, Francis, 85, stressed that he …

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Pope Arrives In Canada To Apologize For Abuses

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis began a fraught visit to Canada on Sunday to apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses by missionaries at residential schools, a key step in the Catholic Church’s efforts to reconcile with Native communities and help them heal from generations of trauma. Francis flew from Rome to Edmonton, Alberta, where his welcoming party included Canadian …

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Archdiocese Sells 43 Properties To Pay Abuse Victims

The Christian Post reports: A Canadian court has approved the sale of 43 Catholic Church properties as part of a financial settlement with victims of sex abuse, with more sales expected to come later. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s, based in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, will sell the properties, including 13 church properties, after the …

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RI Priest Facing Child Porn Charges Gets Arrested Again

Providence’s CBS affiliate reports: A former Providence priest already facing federal child pornography charges has been arrested again and is being returned to Rhode Island for violating the conditions of his release. The Rev. James Jackson was arrested in Kansas on Friday, according to a court filing. Danielle Thomas, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Kansas, said in …

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Recently Imprisoned Cardinal Sued By Choirboy’s Father

The BBC reports: The father of a choirboy who prosecutors alleged was sexually abused by Cardinal George Pell has launched a lawsuit against the cleric and the Catholic Church. The man is seeking damages for mental injury that he suffered after learning of the allegations, his lawyers said. In 2018 Cardinal Pell was convicted of abusing two choirboys in the …

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Pope Denies Rumors That He’ll Soon Resign [VIDEO]

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis has dismissed rumors he plans to resign anytime soon and that he hopes to visit Moscow and Kyiv after traveling to Canada later this month. Francis also told Reuters in an interview published Monday that the idea “never entered my mind” to announce a planned retirement at the end of the summer, though he …

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Archbishop: COVID Is Fake, It’s Time For A Revolution

Far-right Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano has done an interview with Steve Bannon’s War Room website and it’s a doozy. An excerpt: The SARS-CoV-2 virus is nothing but a seasonal flu that could have been cured with existing treatments and effective prevention based on strengthening immune defenses. The prohibition of treatment, the discrediting of the effectiveness of drugs that have been …

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Dozens Of CA Priests Accused Of Child Sex Abuse

San Francisco’s NBC News affiliate reports: Dozens of Northern California Catholic priests and church employees – some still working, others retired or deceased – are being publicly accused for the first time of sexually abusing children in their care. The allegations suggest startling new depths to the decades-long scandal that continues to rock the church and its followers. Those new …

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FBI Opens Molestation Probe Into NOLA Archdiocese

The Associated Press reports: The FBI has opened a widening investigation into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans going back decades, a rare federal foray into such cases looking specifically at whether priests took children across state lines to molest them, officials and others familiar with the inquiry told The Associated Press. More than a dozen …

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Pelosi Meets With Pope, Receives Communion At Vatican

NPR reports: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Pope Francis on Wednesday and received Communion during a papal Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, witnesses said, despite her position in support of abortion rights. Pelosi attended the morning Mass marking the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul, during which Francis bestowed the woolen pallium stole on newly consecrated archbishops. …

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Former Altar Boys Accuse Ex-NY Bishop Of Child Rape

The Albany Times-Union reports: Two brothers who grew up in Warren County in a devout Catholic family allege that Gary Mercure, a former priest in their childhood parish who was later convicted of raping young boys in Massachusetts, had sexually abused them on multiple occasions over a period of years and that ex-Albany Bishop Howard J. Hubbard took part in …

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Maine Diocese Hit With Abuse Suits Under New Law

The Associated Press reports: The first lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland since Maine took away a limitation on claims of child sexual abuse were filed on Thursday. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed a law last year that allowed victims to bring civil lawsuits about older abuse cases. Abuse survivors previously could not bring lawsuits if they experienced …

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92 Year-Old Retired Priest Charged In 1968 Child Rape

The CBC reports: A retired priest has been charged with indecent assault in connection with a decade-long RCMP investigation into a Manitoba residential school. Retired Father Arthur Masse, 92, was charged in connection with the sexual assault on a 10-year-old girl, who was a student at the Fort Alexander residential school, northeast of Winnipeg. The alleged assault occurred between 1968 …

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