Free Republic

Documentary details horrific cruelty towards and abuse of First Nations children in residential schools and discovery of unmarked graves This gripping account of the abuse of First Nations children at Catholic residential schools in Canada rightly won the jury prize for documentary direction at Sundance in January and is now an early Academy Award favourite. Early in the film, a group of volunteers ventures into a barn on the grounds of St Joseph’s Mission residential school near the Sugarcane Reservation in British Columbia. They find heartbreaking inscriptions from desperate children. Investigators Charlene Belleau and Whitney Spearing uncover more than 50...

A foundation that supports a prominent Catholic movement in France is changing its name after revealing nearly 20 fresh abuse allegations against the famed Abbé Pierre, a formerly beloved Capuchin priest who died in 2007. A Sept. 6 statement released by Emmaus International detailed new allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct by Pierre, who founded the movement in 1949. A previous report had detailed allegations involving at least seven victims, including one who was a minor at the time of her alleged assault. Emmaus France said it first received a report from a woman accusing Pierre of sexual assault in...

The Irish government has promised to set up an official investigation to examine historical abuse in religious-run day and boarding schools in light of “appalling” abuse accounts. The announcement comes as an initial 802-page, five-volume Scoping Inquiry report from the Irish government revealed that 2,395 allegations of abuse had been made in 308 schools between 1927 and 2013. The total number of allegations is believed to be far higher. The allegations were made against 884 abusers. It is believed that half of them have died. The Scoping Inquiry was set up in the aftermath of a 2022 radio documentary called...

A Shoreline man is suing the Seattle Catholic Archdiocese for protecting a priest he says groomed and sexually abused him in the early 1980s at St. John Catholic School. A "John Doe" filed a negligence lawsuit against the Archdiocese on Monday, alleging repeated sexual abuse at the hands of Father Edward C. Boyle, a priest at St. John who died in 1987 at the age of 62, only a few years after the alleged abuse. The Archdiocese has acknowledged Boyle's abuses, publishing his name on a list of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse in the Seattle area in 2016....