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A Rwandan immigrant walked into French police station on Monday and said he had murdered the Catholic priest giving him shelter while he awaited possible trial over a fire at a cathedral last year... "So in France you can be an illegal immigrant, torch Nantes cathedral, never be expelled and reoffend by murdering a priest. What's happening in our country is unprecedented: the total failure of the state," Marine Le Pen France's immigration authorities handed the Rwandan national an expulsion order in 2019, but he remained in the country. Senator Bruno Retailleau, who represents the Vendee region, identified the victim...

Wiretaps show Italian priest used cell phone apps for sex with teen boysPERUGIA, Italy (ChurchMilitant.com) - Italian paramilitary police have arrested a priest for "aggravated child prostitution" after electronic surveillance generated evidence of the homosexual cleric soliciting sex from underage boys "on a daily basis." Father Vincenzo Esposito, parish priest of San Feliciano in Magione, Perugia, over a hundred miles north of Rome, used digital phone applications like WhatsApp or Messenger to make sexual video calls to male minors from Termini Imerese and neighboring areas. The arrest has embarrassed the Conference of Italian Bishops (CEI) as its pro-gay president, Cdl....

NEW YORK, N.Y. — A new civil sex-abuse lawsuit has been filed against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, also naming Opus Dei priest Father Michael Barrett, who is currently a pastor in the Archdiocese of New York. “My youth, my childhood was robbed from me,” said the plaintiff, who filed the lawsuit anonymously, in the case during the online press conference. He said he was “abused by two people involved in the Catholic Church, and this is Father Michael Barrett and Cardinal McCarrick, who wasn’t a cardinal then, and he should have never become one.”

A former Catholic bishop admitted that the Archdiocese of Albany covertly moved around priests accused of sexual misconduct before reintroducing them back into the ministry. Howard J. Hubbard, who headed the diocese from 1977 to 2014, said it was common practice in the 1970s and 1980s to temporarily remove accused priests, send them for supposed rehabilitation — then put them back on the job. Hubbard said that he regrets the “flawed” system.

A Catholic bishop is accused of sexually abusing a boy while serving as a priest on Long Island. Bishop Peter Anthony Libasci of Manchester New Hampshire Catholic Diocese is facing sexual abuse claims from nearly 40 years ago.

A married Texas pastor who claims he was only counseling a 15-year-old girl and her family is now in jail after police say he groomed her, gave her methamphetamines and then raped her multiple times in the last month, including at church. The teenager was hospitalized after her most recent encounter. Brian Pounds, 45, who was listed as the lead pastor at First Assembly of God in Vernon along with his wife, Amy, has been charged with sexual assault of a child and delivery of a controlled substance to a child, according to his redacted arrest warrant.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced Tuesday the resignation of its top administrator for "possible improper behavior" after an outlet linked Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill's phone activity to gay bars and the LGBTQ dating app Grindr.

TEMPERANCE, Mich. (AP) — A priest who criticized a teenager’s suicide during his funeral is protected by the religion clauses of the First Amendment, the Michigan Court of Appeals said. The court affirmed a decision by a Monroe County judge who had dismissed a lawsuit by the mother of Maison Hullibarger. The 18-year-old, who was an athlete and honors student in the Monroe area, died in 2018. Mourners were shocked when the Rev. Don LaCuesta gave a critical sermon. He said suicide was a “secular crime” and a “sin against God with dire eternal consequences.” Linda Hullibarger sued the priest...

A French priest with a history of campaigning against gay rights faces a Catholic Church trial over allegations that he sexually assaulted men to “heal” their homosexuality. Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a Vatican adviser and psychotherapist, will stand trial in church court after multiple allegations of abuse and inappropriate sexual relationships with his male clients, per the National Catholic Reporter.

The Priest of the TitanicThe sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic is regarded as one of the most tragic shipwrecks in history. Regarded as the engineering marvel of its time, the Titanic’s makers boasted that “God himself could not sink this ship.” Yet on the night of April 14, 1912, the ship was brought down by a solitary iceberg. Since then, the disaster has been remembered for the many stories that have made the shipwreck legendary: the band playing in order to calm the passengers, the distress calls that received no response from a nearby ship, and the insufficient number of...

The Jesuit priest who presided over an inaugural Mass for President Joe Biden is under investigation for unspecified allegations and is on leave from his position as president of Santa Clara University in Northern California, according to a statement from the college’s board of trustees. Rev. Kevin O’Brien allegedly “exhibited behaviors in adult settings, consisting primarily of conversations, which may be inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries,” O’Brien gave the service at Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle...for Biden...as well as ... Kamala Harris, their families and elected officials before the inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol. O’Brien also...

Whereabouts of deceased's junior brother still unknownA Catholic priest of the Diocese of Minna, Niger State, Rev. Father John Gbakaan Yaji has been abducted and murdered by gunmen suspected to be armed bandits in the state. The incident was said to have happened on Friday night in Tufa village along Lambata-Lapai road axis of the state. The late clergyman was said to be returning from Lambata in Gurara local government area of the state where he had attended a religious meeting in conjunction with his colleagues when he was attacked. Nigerian Tribune reliably gathered that the deceased was kidnapped along...

"The priest's lifeless body was found in the Toumousseni Forest," a security source said.A priest missing since Tuesday in Burkina Faso’s jihadist-plagued southwest has been found dead, security and local sources said Thursday. “The priest’s lifeless body was found in the Toumousseni Forest” in the Cascades region bordering Ivory Coast and Mali, a security source said. A local politician confirmed that the priest, Abbot Rodrigue Sanon from the Notre Dame de Soubaganyedougou parish, had been found dead.

The cathedral in Speyer, Germany -- AFP via Getty Images A child rape victim has accused nuns at a now-shuttered Catholic children’s home in Germany of “pimping” out orphans to priests, politicians and other wealthy men. The victim, now 63, has remained anonymous despite having fought and won a legal battle for compensation in May over the horrors they endured, beginning at 5 years old in March 1963. The man, who has struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression since then, was awarded a total of 25,000 euros by German courts due to claims he’d been raped more than 1,000...

The priest who has been heckled and vandalized for hunting deer to help feed the hungry This holy hunter probably never expected to need police protection. Police in Wisconsin have spoken out to stop the criminal harassment of a priest who has been heckled and vandalized for hunting deer, to help feed the hungry, on the private grounds of the 160-acre abbey where he resides. The De Pere Police Department says that the harassment toward Father Jordan Neeck has stopped since the Norbertine priest filed a police report and authorities shared the story with local media last week, WBAY reports....

Bishop threatens ‘canonical penalties’ for priest whose viral video warned Catholics can’t be Democrats But there has been an outpouring of support from laity for Father James Altman, the faithful priest who warned his flock about the dangers of voting for candidates who support intrinsic evils. PETITION: Stand with priest who faces Church penalties for saying "You can't be a Catholic and a Democrat."! Sign the petition here. LACROSSE, Wisconsin, September 10, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – After a Catholic priest’s video message, “You cannot be Catholic & a Democrat. Period.,” went viral, his bishop appears to be taking measures to silence him...

A famous Catholic priest who was formally trained as an exorcist is recounting how he came face to face with the devil.Though he is now deceased, the story of Father Gabriel Amorth has been captured in a new memoir penned by author Marcello Stanzione. In The Devil Is Afraid of Me: The Life and Work of the World's Most Famous Exorcist, Stanzione describes the life of this priest in Rome, who is said to have performed over 60,000 exorcisms over the course of his 30 years as an exorcist priest.During one such exorcism in 1997, Amorth reportedly encountered not...

Gregory Lisby, the former kindergarten teacher and Worcester priest accused of child pornography possession, pleaded guilty to the charge in Boston’s federal court on Friday, according to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Separately, Lisby has been accused of sexually abusing a teenager after he was ordained in 2007, the Telegram reports. Lisby started as a kindergarten teacher last year at Morgan School in Holyoke. He was arrested in Northborough in September on the child pornography possession charge and resigned from the job, writing to the district that he had been “accused of an awful crime.” Prosecutors said he could face...

A Rice County Catholic priest apologized Wednesday for describing Islam as “the greatest threat in the world,” both to the United States and Christianity itself, in a recent sermon. “My homily on immigration contained words that were hurtful to Muslims,” the Rev. Nick VanDenBroeke said in a statement posted on the website of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. “I’m sorry for this. I realize now that my comments were not fully reflective of the Catholic Church’s teaching on Islam.” Earlier Wednesday, a Muslim organization called on Minnesota Catholic leaders to repudiate the sermon. VanDenBroeke, pastor of the 100-year-old...

One day in May of 1970, an 11-year-old boy and his disabled sister were sitting on the curb outside a Chicago tavern, waiting for their mother to come out. When a priest with crinkly eyes and a ready smile happened by and offered the family a ride home, they could not have been happier. The boy, Robert J. Goldberg, now 61, would pay dearly for the favor, enduring what he describes as years of psychological control and sexual abuse he suffered while working as a child valet for the late Rev. Donald J. McGuire. He remained in the Jesuit's thrall...