null / Daniel Tadevosyan/Shutterstock
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 11, 2023 / 12:15 pm (CNA).
A Catholic priest pleaded guilty this week to charges of child sex exploitation related to the transport of a minor from South Carolina to Florida s… […]
Prior to a private meeting with survivors later in the day, Pope Francis addressed the clergy sex abuse scandal in his address during a vespers service in Lisbon, Portugal, on Aug. 2, 2023. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Aug 3, 2023 / 11:37… […]
Bishop-emeritus Howard Hubbard of the Diocese of Albany. / Screenshot from 2018 YouTube video
Boston, Mass., Aug 1, 2023 / 15:25 pm (CNA).
The retired bishop of Albany, who is facing allegations that he both covered up and personally committed … […]
The Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, says it has received allegations of child sexual abuse against Father Walter Lewis, a retired priest. / Powhatan County Sheriff’s Office
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 24, 2023 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
The Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, says it has received allegations of child sexual abuse against a retired priest, with law enforcement investigating the claims as the priest remains removed from public ministries.
The Richmond Diocese — the larger of the two in the state in front of the Diocese of Arlington — said in a July 1 press release that it had “received a recent report of alleged child sexual abuse against Father Walter Lewis.”
“The allegation reports that the abuse took place in the 1980s while Father Lewis was serving as pastor of St. Anne Catholic Church, Bristol,” the diocese said. “The allegation has been reported to law enforcement.”
Bristol is located in the extreme southwestern part of the state near the Tennessee border. Lewis served at the parish from 1983–1995.
Bishop Barry Knestout “immediately prohibited Father Lewis from any public ministry in the diocese” for the duration of the investigation, the press release said, adding that diocesan officials would not “reach any conclusions regarding this allegation until the investigation concludes.”
Lewis has denied the allegations, the diocese said. He retired from active ministry in May of this year.
The priest in 2017 pleaded guilty to a drunk driving offense, his second in less than 10 years. Pulled over after driving erratically, Lewis blew .11 on a breathalyzer test, above the legal limit of .08. He received a 12-month sentence, with all but 10 days in prison suspended. He had previously been found guilty of drunk driving in 2011.
The diocese did not immediately return a request for comment on the investigation, which was launched earlier this month.
In 2019 Knestout released a list of any diocesan priests who have “a credible and substantiated claim of sexual abuse against a minor.”
Twenty-three priests are currently on the list; Lewis has not yet been added. Three other lists include priests “alleged to have committed abuse in the present-day territory of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond” who were “later incardinated to the Catholic Diocese of Arlington” as well as priests from outside the diocese alleged to have committed abuse there and clergy who worked in the diocese but who have been accused of abuse outside of it.
Father Marko Rupnik. / Credit: Screen shot/ACI Prensa
Rome Newsroom, Jul 24, 2023 / 11:30 am (CNA).
The former superior of the now-expelled Father Marko Rupnik has stated that “internal procedures” at the Vatican prevented the Jesuit order from… […]
Pope Francis invited young people from Portugal to join him in the window of the Apostolic Palace for the World Youth Day announcement in October 2022. / Vatican Media
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 21, 2023 / 11:12 am (CNA).
Pope Francis is se… […]
Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio leads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, and is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. / Credit: EWTN News In Depth
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 20, 2023 / 14:20 pm (CNA).
The number o… […]
null / Minerva Studio/Shutterstock
Boston, Mass., Jul 18, 2023 / 12:30 pm (CNA).
The Diocese of Ogdensburg, New York, is filing for bankruptcy following almost 140 sexual abuse lawsuits for incidents dating back decades filed under the state’s … […]
Father Patrick Wattigny pleaded guilty July 12, 2023, to two child molestation charges. / Credit: Warren Montgomery District Attorney’s Office
Boston, Mass., Jul 17, 2023 / 12:38 pm (CNA).
A New Orleans priest pleaded guilty last week to two child molestation charges for incidents that took place as recently as 2013.
Father Patrick Wattigny, 55, the former pastor of St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church and chaplain at Pope John Paul II High School, both in Slidell, Louisiana, was sentenced to five years in prison with five years of probation. He was also required to register as a sex offender.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans, where Wattigny was a priest, announced his removal from ministry Oct. 1, 2020.
The priest was originally arrested and charged in 2020 when a victim reported that Wattigny molested him when he was 15 years old in 2013. Another victim came forward in the fall of 2022 and claimed that Wattigny molested him when he was a 9-year-old student. The victim said the abuse occurred during the mid-1990s, according to The Guardian.
Wattigny pleaded not guilty to both charges until changing his plea last week, according to Fox 8 Live.
One of Wattigny’s victims said at sentencing that Wattigny groomed him from an early age, the Warren Montgomery District Attorney’s office said in a July 12 statement.
The victim said that after Wattigny molested him, the priest told him that he would “go to hell” if he told anyone about the abuse, the statement said.
The victim said that “his childhood was stolen” and that he “contemplated suicide,” according to the statement.
In a statement to reporters, the victim from the priest’s first arrest in 2020 said Wattigny’s punishment is a “grossly lenient and unfair slap on the wrist,” The Guardian reported.
“This sentence makes me feel really worthless and hopeless as a victim,” the victim said.
At the time of Wattigny’s removal from ministry in 2020, New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond wrote in a statement: “Reverend Patrick Wattigny disclosed today his sexual abuse of a minor in 2013. His name will be added to the list of the Archdiocese of New Orleans Clergy Abuse Report. Law enforcement has been notified.”
That list can be found here.
Ordained in 1994, Wattigny had seven different assignments including at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School in Kenner, St. Benilde Church in Metairie, St. Luke the Evangelist Church in Slidell, St. Peter Church in Covington, The Visitation of Our Lady Church in Marrero, Archbishop Rummel High School in Metairie, and Pope John Paul II High School in Slidell.
The archdiocese encouraged survivors of clergy abuse to report any allegations to its Victim’s Assistance Response Team.
The team can be contacted at (504) 861-6253 or by emailing VAC@arch-no.org.
Stephen Sauer was formerly a Jesuit priest in the order’s Central and Southern Province. / New Orleans Television/YouTube April 8, 2019
Boston, Mass., Jul 12, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).
A former Jesuit priest has pleaded guilty to sex crimes committed in and around New Orleans, in which he was charged with drugging and raping 17 adult male victims, many of whom were visiting the popular tourist area.
Detectives also believe that there are more than 50 victims who remain unidentified.
Stephen Sauer, who reportedly left the Jesuit order by his own request in 2020, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on July 7 in front of a Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, judge. He will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and is barred from contacting 12 of the victims for life.
The former priest pleaded guilty to 13 counts of sexual battery, nine counts of third-degree rape, 17 counts of video voyeurism, and 16 misdemeanor charges of possessing drugs without prescriptions and possession of drug paraphernalia, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office said in a statement July 7.
Sauer, 61, would meet his victims in the French Quarter neighborhood of New Orleans, specifically targeting intoxicated men or those who were lost and in need of help. He would drug the men, sometimes by placing narcotics in their drinks at bars.
After some of the victims passed out, Sauer would use an eyedropper to feed the men “sleep-inducing substances,” the district attorney’s statement said.
He would then take the unconscious men to his home in Metairie and take photos and videos of them, “in various stages of undress,” with his phone, the statement said.
Then, Sauer would molest some of the men and “pleasured himself,” the statement said.
Sauer would drive the victims to their hotels or other locations the next morning. The investigation discovered that he shared and traded the images of his victims with others through email.
According to the statement, many of Sauer’s victims were not locals and were separated from friends or lost when Sauer offered to help them.
Sauer’s crimes were committed over two years between 2019 and 2021.
The former priest’s LinkedIn profile says that he served as the pastor of Immaculate Conception Jesuit Church in New Orleans from 2008–2012.
CNA inquired of the Archdiocese of New Orleans if Sauer had other positions in the area but was referred to his former Jesuit province.
Therese Fink Meyerhoff, a spokeswoman for the Jesuits’ Central and Southern Province, confirmed that Sauer served in the province and said: “We learned through media reports that Mr. Sauer pled guilty to charges involving adult men. We encourage any person who has been harmed to notify law enforcement.”
Sauer’s LinkedIn account also says he worked as an assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a Jesuit school, from 2006 to 2008.
Records on the university’s website show that Sauer, who taught theology there, earned his bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University in 1983; his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1991; his bachelor’s of sacred theology degree at Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome, in 1997; his licentiate in sacred theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris in 1999; and his doctorate of sacred theology from The Catholic University of America in 2007.
According to Sauer’s LinkedIn account, he was a faculty member at the Jesuit University of San Francisco from 2013 to 2016; however, his name did not appear in search results on the school’s website.
WDSU6 reported in 2021 that Sauer served as executive director of Arc of Greater New Orleans, a nonprofit organization that serves children with intellectual disabilities, but after his December arrest that year, Sauer was no longer employed by the organization.
Authorities began investigating Sauer in June 2021 after he sent a computer hard drive to be repaired by a company in New York.
An employee at the company discovered hundreds of images on the hard drive showing that sexual assaults had appeared to have taken place.
Authorities in New York referred the case to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office after determining the origin of the photos.
Many of the victims were able to be identified by the detectives because Sauer photographed their driver’s licenses and other forms of identification.
When detectives searched Sauer’s home, prescription pill bottles that had the name of a sex offender in Missouri were found.
Zolpidem, which is known as a “date rape” drug, was found as well, the district attorney’s office said.
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