Author Archive

Bishop William Murphy, who heads the Catholic diocese on Long Island, has purged two top aides, including a close Rudy Giuliani pal, from their jobs and from a team handling cases against priests accused of child molestation.  His move follows criticism of the Diocese of Rockville Centre for how it has dealt with sex abuse cases, and news that a special Suffolk County grand jury will investigate how they were handled.  Suffolk County DA Thomas Spota said he believes church officials covered up for child abusing priests.  Murphy booted Monsignor

Cardinal Bernard Law said yesterday he discussed his resignation with Pope John Paul II during an unpublicized visit to Rome, where he discussed his central role in an explosive child sex scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church.  He issued a statement saying he met with the pope and Vatican officials and discussed the impact sexual abuse cases were having on public opinion and the Boston Archdiocese.  The fact that my resignation has been proposed as necessary was part of my presentation, he said.  The pope and those others

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a federal pornography law that makes it a crime to have computer-generated pictures that look like real children engaged in sexual acts, ruling the law violates free-speech rights.

(Washington)

When are we finally going to put children first? There’s a war being waged against them, and itis being manifested through psychical and emotional abuse, through neglect and through sexualexploitation.

In 1999 alone, child protective services substantiated an estimated 826,000 cases of childmaltreatment, including neglect, and physical and sexual abuse, according to a US Department ofHealth and Human Services report.

The case of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children, ages 6 months to 7 years, in thebathtub, is a bleak reminder that children are brutally murdered at the hands of those

According to documents, which were unsealed this month, the Rev. William Effinger admitted to Archbishop Rembert Weakland in 1979 that he had molested at 13-year-old altar boy on Easter that year.  The archbishop, who established a model program for handling sexual abuse by clergy transferred the priest who was a known sex offender from one parish to another in 1979 and did not remove him until 1992.  Weakland, who heads the Milwaukee’s Roman Catholic archdiocese, said in a sworn deposition that he didn’t think it should be divulged to the

Since the priest sex scandal was revealed donations to the charitable wing of the Catholic Church have dropped by more than $800,000, almost 20 percent of the $5 million generated from direct fundraising.  This city’s poor and needy are already among the casualties of the escalating backlash against the Archdiocese of Boston and Cardinal Bernard Law.  Maureen March, spokeswoman for the Catholic Charities, the parent organization for 150 social service agencies in the Boston area said, If people take out their anger by not sending money, the only people who