VATICAN CITY -- An adult survivor of abuse by a priest appealed to the world’s seminarians to become good priests and to make sure the “bitter truth” always prevails, not silence about scandals and their cover-up.

Just in case any of us thought the abuse crisis in the Church has moved from a boil to a simmer, the report from an independent commission on sexual abuse in France has turned up the heat yet again — as it should.

VATICAN CITY -- Shame and sorrow are appropriate initial responses to the report on the extent of clerical sexual abuse in France, but the Catholic Church must move to action to protect children and to guarantee justice for victims and survivors, said Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna.

Over the past five years, on Tuesdays at noon at the Church of St. Louis d’Antin, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris near the Passage du Havre shopping centre, a shy, scholarly Canadian priest would approach the altar to offer Mass and call the assembly of immigrants and downtown shoppers to confess their sinfulness.

VATICAN CITY -- A Vatican court cleared two priests involved in a controversial sex abuse case at a minor seminary once located at the Vatican.

An independent report on sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church estimates 330,000 children have been abused since the 1950s. Most of the victims were pre-adolescent boys of all social backgrounds, and more than a third of the assaults were committed by laypeople.

VATICAN CITY -- The Catholic Church's inability to make victims of abuse their top concern is a cause for intense shame, Pope Francis said.

MONTREAL -- Since May 5, 2021, the phone has been ringing at least once a day at the home of Marie Christine Kirouack, the Montreal lawyer to whom Archbishop Christian Lépine has entrusted the responsibility of receiving all complaints of abuse and inappropriate behavior committed by priests, staff members and volunteers of the Archdiocese of Montreal.

Ever since the world learned about priests and brothers abusing orphan boys at Mount Cashel, for 40 years Canada’s Catholics have lived with a public image of their Church as hypocritical and defensive.  As more abuse scandals rumbled across headlines and through the courts, public contempt for the Catholic Church became commonplace. Add onto this mountain of shame all that we’ve learned lately about Indian residential schools.

WASHINGTON -- Former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick pleaded not guilty Sept. 3 in a Massachusetts court, where he is facing three counts of sexually assaulting a teenager in the 1970s.

Quebec’s Brothers of the Sacred Heart agreed to pay $60 million to settle two class-action lawsuits on clerical sexual abuse.

VATICAN CITY -- While acknowledging Vatican-mandated reforms in the handling of clerical sexual abuse, four U.N. special rapporteurs urged the Vatican to make it mandatory that church officials everywhere report abuse allegations to civil authorities.

Jane Doe never attended Mount Cashel Orphanage, but she knows the second-hand impact all too well. 

COLOGNE, Germany -- The second expert report commissioned to investigate abuse in the Archdiocese of Cologne also incriminates church officials who are still alive and accuses them of mistakes in dealing with cases of sexualized violence, according to its author, Björn Gercke.

OTTAWA -- Archbishop Peter Hundt says “sacrifices” will have to be made, but the Archdiocese of St. John’s has to move forward with compassion and understanding after a “dark chapter” of abuse in the Newfoundland archdiocese’s history.