Victims March to Rome to Demand 'Zero Tolerance' on Church Abuse
Sojourners -- September 27, 2023
A group of Catholic Church abuse victims and their advocates on Wednesday called on Pope Francis to enforce “zero tolerance” against clerical sex abuse, after completing a six-day pilgrimage to Rome carrying a large wooden cross.
The 10 men and women walked 81 miles along the last stretch of the Via Francigena, a medieval trail that connects Canterbury, England, to Rome, ahead of a major Vatican summit on the future of the Church, starting next week.
Bishop Accountability - December 23, 2025 Brampton, ON - A Catholic priest in Brampton, Ont., has been charged with sexual offences and removed from the ministry, the Archdiocese of Toronto says. It says the man is accused of one count of sexual assault and one count of sexual interference, an offence that applies when the victim is under 16 years old. It says the decision to remove the man from the pastoral ministry was made in accordance with its protocols and procedures relating to allegations of misconduct.
Free Press - September 23, 2025 Somerset, MB - The Archdiocese of St. Boniface has denied a man’s claims he was sexually abused by one of its priests in rural Manitoba decades ago. The man, who’s in his late 60s, claimed in a lawsuit filed in the Court of King’s Bench earlier this year that he was sexually abused by now-deceased Catholic priest Rene Touchette in the village of Somerset, about 150 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg. In a statement of defence filed in late July, the archdiocese argued the lawsuit should be tossed out — and that the man has provided no proof of the alleged abuse.