FILE – A woman prays at the San Ramon Nonato church after an Easter Holy Week procession was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, April 9, 2020. Spain has approved a plan aimed at making reparation and economic compensation for victims of sex abuses committed by people connected to the Catholic Church.
Spain on Tuesday approved a plan aimed at making reparation and economic compensation for victims of sex abuse committed by people connected to the Catholic Church.
It also announced the future celebration of a public act of recognition for those affected and their families.
The Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, said the plan was based on recommendations in a report by Spain’s Ombudsman last year. From that report, he said it was concluded that some 440,000 adults may have suffered sex abuse in Spain by people linked to the church and that roughly half of those cases were committed by clergy.
Bolaños said the compensation would be financed by the church.
But in a statement Tuesday, Spain’s Bishops Conference rejected the plan, saying it discriminated against victims outside of church circles.
No details of how much or when financial compensation would be paid were released. Neither was a date set for any public act of recognition.
Bolaños said the plan aimed to “settle a debt with those victims who for decades were forgotten by everyone and now our democracy aims to repair” that, and make it a central part of government policy.
After years of virtually ignoring the issue, Spain’s bishops apologized for the abuses committed by church members following the Ombudsman’s report but disputed the number of victims involving the church as exaggerated. That report accused the church of widespread negligence.
Bolaños said the government hoped to carry out the plan over the next four years in collaboration with the church.
The project will include free legal assistance for all victims of sexual abuse and it will reinforce the prevention supervision in schools.
Pope Francis said laws criminalizing LGBT people were a sin and an injustice, because God loves and accompanies people with same-sex attraction.
The Vatican opposes the criminalization of homosexuality as practiced by a number of countries with the support of Catholic groups, the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office said on Monday.
Presenting a publication which reaffirmed the Vatican’s opposition to sex changes, gender theory and surrogate parenthood, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez called laws punishing homosexuality “a big problem” and said, “Of course we are not in favor of criminalization.”
Fernandez, a liberal theologian whom Pope Francis appointed as head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith less than a year ago, told reporters it was “painful” to see some Catholics support anti-homosexuality laws.
In February 2023, returning from a trip to Africa where same-sex relationships are often taboo, Francis said laws criminalizing LGBT people were a sin and an injustice, because God loves and accompanies people with same-sex attraction.
“The criminalization of homosexuality is a problem that cannot be ignored,” the Pope said, citing unnamed statistics according to which 50 countries criminalize LGBT people “in one way or another” and about 10 others have laws including the death penalty.
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Under Francis, the Catholic Church has become more welcoming towards LGBT people. In December, Cardinal Fernandez’s office issued a landmark document allowing the blessing of same-sex couples, triggering substantial conservative backlash.
Nevertheless, the Church officially teaches that homosexual acts “are intrinsically disordered.”
Answering a question on whether such language may be amended, Cardinal Fernandez said, “it is true that it a very strong expression and that it needs a lot of explanation, perhaps we could find a clearer one.”
He said that the point of Catholic teaching was that homosexual acts cannot match “the immense beauty” of heterosexual unions, and the Church “could find more apt words to express” this.
— Months later, former Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika is threatening priests
Bishop Richard F. Stika waves to the congregation during his during his episcopal ordination March 19 at the Knoxville, Tenn., convention center. Bishop Stika, a St. Louis native, is the third bishop to lead the Diocese of Knoxville, which was founded in 1988 and is home to almost 60,000 Catholics.. At left is principal consecrator Cardinal Justin F. Rigali of Philadelphia.
Though he hasn’t been employed by the Catholic Diocese of Knoxville for nearly a year, former Bishop Richard Stika continues to make his presence felt, contacting whistleblowers directly with threats of a lawsuit, including one who is a key witness in the sexual assault lawsuit against the church.
That lawsuit was filed by a former diocesan employee who alleges a former diocesan seminarian raped him and details how the diocese, led by Stika, interfered with the investigation and worked to discredit him. Knox News independently verified the interference, which led to the firing of an independent investigator.
As complaints about Stika’s leadership and handling of allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct piled up in the diocese, the bishop offered his resignation and it was accepted by Pope Francis in June 2023.
But Stika has continued to try to assert control over some of the priests in the Knoxville diocese. He sent a text message recently, for instance, to three priests, including the Rev. Brent Shelton, who left Knoxville in April 2023 after he was told he was being reassigned, a move church watchdogs viewed as retaliation.
Shelton recently filed a formal complaint against the diocese’s attorney with the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility, which polices attorney conduct.
Know News is not naming the other recipients of Stika’s message because they are constrained by church authorities from talking to the media and were unwilling to discuss the message.
“Happy Spy Wednesday,” reads the opening of the text.
“And it all started with (name of priest Knox News is not identifying)! I will never understand how anyone could be so hateful to destroy the ministry of any cleric and in (name of priest Knox News is not identifying)’s case to bring a former seminarian to the point of suicide. It is all documented, my attorneys are ready and the information will be shared with my successor.”
Shelton said Stika’s messages are both threatening and intimidating.
“If bishops keep getting away with threatening and retaliating against whistleblowers, I’m afraid children and vulnerable adults will never be safe in the Church,” he told Knox News in an email. “The diocese needs to move forward, but we cannot do that if priests must live under the shadow of threats like these from the man we looked up to as our spiritual father for over a decade.”
Stika responded to questions from Knox News by text message and denied his messages to priests were threatening.
“Did not threaten at all. Just informed them about a possible lawsuit but I have decided not to include them in a lawsuit,” he said. “I have developed some additional heart issues over the last months and decided it is not worth it. I have moved on. I am retired. Plus, I have not found you to present anything that is balanced.”
The most recent messages were sent March 27, and Knox News viewed them. Shelton sent a list of questions to the diocese about the messages April 1 and 10 days later he received a “good faith” response acknowledging the questions from Louisville Archbishop Shelton Fabre, who is acting as the apostolic administrator until a new bishop is named.
The perception of some priests that Stika is threatening them is similar behavior they and others flagged during his years in Knoxville.
In a 2023 court filing, for example, Stika admitted he told a room full of priests that the man who says he was raped by the former seminarian was actually the predator, not the other way around. He also admitted to telling a separate group of priests that the man groomed the seminarian accused of rape.
“I’m sad but not surprised,” David Clohessy, former national director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, wrote in an email. “This sometimes happens when church officials let a bad bishop quietly slink away without disciplining or defrocking him.”
Is it Witness intimidation?
Mitchell Garabedian, a world-renowned clergy sex abuse attorney whose work helped break open the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in Boston in the early 2000s, told Knox News Stika is potentially tampering with witnesses in the lawsuit that names him among the defendants.
“The question is (was) he intimidating the witness,” Garabedian said. “If he is intimidating the witness, then the judge in the case will look at what was said and whether the witness was intimated and decide what sanctions should be brought against Stika.
“Witness intimidation can turn into a criminal matter if it is found the witness is being intimidated and being influenced by a person.”
He went on to say Stika’s messages are unusual but not unprecedented. Typically, those types of messages are kept within secret church files.
“It sounds like bishop Stika is still a powerful person within the church who might be trying to influence the outcome of the case,” he said.
Attorney Patrick Thronson, who represents the man who filed the lawsuit that names Stika, declined to comment about whether he thought the former bishop is tampering with witnesses, but he did say he plans to take up Stika’s messages with the court.
When I was a teenager in the early aughts, conversion therapists reigned supreme in evangelical Christian spaces, spewing pseudo-scientific techniques as a supposed “remedy” for LGBTQ identities. Growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist church and school system, LGBTQ identities were vilified and demonized at the pulpit and in our classrooms. The answer to our sexualities, according to the church, was to deny ourselves love or a partner, stay celibate, or to work on “changing” our sexuality so that we were no longer queer. There were groups and conferences with self-proclaimed “ex-gay” speakers providing testimonies about how they “overcame” their sexuality and therapists eager to “help” others pursue the same path.
According to a Williams Institute report, 7% of LGB adults ages 18 to 59 in the United States have undergone conversion therapy. About 81% of those individuals were in “therapy” with religious leaders, which heightened suicidal thoughts and ideation in comparison to LGB people who have not gone through conversion “therapy” practices. Across the globe, these numbers fluctuate between 2% all the way up to 34% of LGBTQ+ people having undergone conversion practices.
By the mid-2010s, these groups and their influence began to dwindle as national organizations like Exodus International, one of the longest-running and largest ex-gay organizations, shuttered its doors after 37 years, admitting that not only did conversion or reparative therapy not work, it was harmful to the LGBTQ people subjected to it. Former Exodus International President Alan Chambers said: “I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change,” admitting his own attractions to men had not gone away, despite being married to a woman and having children.
The closing of Exodus International signaled the end of a decades-long push for ex-gay therapy, or so it would seem. But in recent years, as legislation has passed across the country to ban conversion therapy for youth, a new push for so-called “change therapy” has re-emerged with the same flawed premise and tactics of the ex-gays of old. A group called Changed Movement, formed in response to legislation banning conversion therapy in California, is one such group using new language to promote the same-old conversion therapy.
Conversion or reparative therapy, loosely defined, is any attempt to influence and change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Often, these counselors blame trauma or violence, family dynamics, or your upbringing as the root of the deviant sexuality or gender identity. Changed Movement shares stories of individuals blaming these roots as the cause of their sexuality or gender. This assertion is false and only serves to shame the individual, often for reasons beyond their control. Importantly, ex-gay groups like the Changed Movement do not seem to reckon with the fluidity of sexuality and gender and, as proponents of this ideology typically do, seemingly view things as either gay or straight, trans or cisgender.
Leading medical and psychiatric associations have condemned conversion practices as pseudo-scientific, ineffective, and harmful to the person undergoing them. Still, groups like Changed Movement have reemerged, using religious language to promote change therapies.
“It is very difficult to stop all conversion therapy from happening for several reasons. One is that legislation is a powerful tool. We’ve made very good progress, with about half the states now having passed laws that prohibit licensed therapists from engaging in conversion practices. I hate to call it therapy,” said Shannon Minter, Legal Director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), who, through its Born Perfect campaign, has successfully litigated conversion therapy bans. “But that’s only a part of the picture. Those laws don’t do anything to stop people who are engaging in it, such as religious counselors. Which is a very big chunk of what goes on.”
Conversion therapy efforts adapt their language to evade laws, Minter said, making it difficult to stop.
“What will happen is these counselors and therapists become very good — every move we make, they have a counter move — which is repackaging what they’re doing with new terminology, always trying to make it sound like something benign. Always trying to make it sound like something harmless,” Minter said. “The only remedy we really have is to educate parents.”
In a report by the Trevor Project, researchers found at least 1,320 conversion therapy practitioners in almost all 50 states, including states with active conversion therapy bans for minors. Almost half of those counselors are unlicensed, and most are attached to some sort of religious ministry. While couching their language and pretending to be there to help LGBTQ people, the danger of these groups and practitioners cannot be understated.
Recently, an ex-gay group called Coming Out Ministries bought a building across from my alma mater, Andrews University, a Seventh-day Adventist University, intending to “work closely” with the university on LGBTQ issues “from a redemptive perspective.” Groups like Changed Movement and Coming Out Ministries see LGBTQ young people’s identities as “confusion” instead of who they are intrinsically. Their ideology stems from a theological understanding of sexuality that does not take into account science or the world as it exists around them. Anti-LGBTQ theology fuels conversion therapy, and it’s not only flawed but also inherently harmful and violent.
As a queer person of faith, I reject theology and religious practices that cause harm, as it is not from God. The history and devastating impacts of ex-gay practices are clear in the irreparable damage it has caused to large swathes of the LGBTQ community raised in religious settings. The re-emergence of ex-gay groups, however covertly or obscure in language they may be, is an alarming and dangerous trend. More must be done to stop these groups, and it’s not going to be solely via the courts. It will take communities denouncing any and all change practices as not only ineffective but dangerous to young people — and in some cases, it’s a matter of life or death.
The Rev. Athanasius Abanulo celebrates Mass at Holy Family Catholic Church in Lanett, Ala., on Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021. Originally from Nigeria, Abanulo is one of numerous international clergy helping ease a U.S. priest shortage by serving in Catholic dioceses across the country.
While the number of U.S. Catholics is increasing, the total number of Catholic parishes nationwide declined 9% between 1970 and 2020, according to a new report by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
In 10 of the 11 dioceses studied, those closures are disproportionately happening in Black and Latino neighborhoods and neighborhoods with higher poverty and unemployment.
The total number of American Catholics increased by 46% in the half-century before 2020, though the study’s researchers provided the context that the overall population increased 65% in those same years, meaning Catholics are a smaller proportion of the population.
The total number of priests, meanwhile, declined by 40%. The shortage of priests has played a significant role in the decisions to close parishes. Bishops announcing parish closures or consolidation repeatedly cite fewer and aging priests and low Mass attendance in decisions that typically receive pushback from their flocks.
Religious orders, like the Jesuits, have also announced plans to pull out of parish ministry because of few priests, ending longtime relationships with local parishes.
FutureChurch, a Catholic nonprofit that advocates for access to the Eucharist and reforms to the church, including married priests, commissioned the 759-page CARA report.
Parish size has grown by 60% since 1970, according to the report.
The CARA report notes that sacraments, including baptisms, Catholic marriages and Catholic funerals, have all declined. A deacon can also perform these sacraments, but there are fewer deacons than priests in the U.S.
Between 1970 and 2020, baptisms declined 57%, Catholic marriages declined 78%, and Catholic funerals declined 14%.
The report studied 11 dioceses: the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Archdiocese of Chicago, Archdiocese of Detroit, Archdiocese of Miami, Archdiocese of New Orleans, Archdiocese of New York, Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Archdiocese of St. Louis, Diocese of Bridgeport, Diocese of Cleveland and Diocese of Memphis.
The dioceses were selected to fit FutureChurch’s research needs and are not a representative sample. Several large dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Archdiocese of Atlanta, Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and Archdiocese of Seattle are not among the dioceses studied.
But in the dioceses studied, the report showed a tendency to close or merge parishes in neighborhoods that were poorer or had higher percentages of Black people or Latinos.
While the average proportion of white residents was lower in neighborhoods where parishes closed and higher in neighborhoods where parishes were opened, “in all 11 dioceses, the average proportion of people below the poverty line, people unemployed, Blacks/African Americans, and Hispanics/Latinos was higher in those neighborhoods where parishes closed/were absorbed than in those neighborhoods were parishes opened/expanded,” the report concluded. (The sole exception was for Hispanic/Latino neighborhoods in the Archdiocese of Miami.)
