Pope Leo XIV says there should be no tolerance for abuse of any kind in Catholic Church
Leo made his first public comments about the clergy sex abuse scandal in a written message to a Peruvian journalist who documented a particularly egregious case of abuse and financial corruption in a Peruvian-based Catholic movement, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.
The message was read out loud on Friday night in Lima during a performance of a play based on the Sodalitium scandal and the work of the journalist, Paola Ugaz.
Advertisement
Pope Leo XIV claimed the Catholic Church should not tolerate any type of abuse.
Getty Images
'It is urgent to root in the whole church a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse – neither of power or authority, nor abuse of conscience, spiritual or sexual abuse,' Leo said in the message. 'This culture will only be authentic if it is born of active vigilance, of transparent processes and sincere listening to those who have been hurt. For this, we need journalists.'
Leo is well aware of the Sodalitium scandal, since he spent two decades as a missionary priest and bishop in Peru, where the group was founded in 1971.
Advertisement
The then-Bishop Robert Prevost was responsible for listening to the Sodalitium's victims as the Peruvian bishops' point-person for abuse victims and helped some reach financial settlements with the organization.
After Pope Francis brought him to the Vatican in 2023, Prevost helped dismantle the group entirely by overseeing the resignation of a powerful Sodalitium bishop.
The Sodalitium was officially suppressed earlier this year, right before Francis died.
Now as pope, Leo has to oversee the dismantling of the Soldalitium and its sizeable assets. The Vatican envoy on the ground handling the job, Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, read out Leo's message on Friday night, appearing alongside Ugaz on stage.
Advertisement
Pope Leo XIV met with political leaders during the Jubilee of Governments at the Apostolic Palace on Saturday in Vatican City.
ABACA/Shutterstock
In the message, Leo also praised journalists for their courage in holding the powerful to account, demanded public authorities protect them and said a free press is an 'common good that cannot be renounced.'
Ugaz and a Sodalitium victim, Pedro Salinas, have faced years of criminal and civil litigation from Sodalitium and its supporters for their investigative reporting into the group's twisted practices and financial misconduct, and they have praised Leo for his handling of the case.
The abuse scandal is one of the thorniest dossiers facing Leo, especially given demands from survivors that he go even farther than Francis in applying a zero-tolerance for abuse across the church, including for abusers whose victims were adults.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Trump-approved portrait hangs in Colorado Capitol after ‘purposefully distorted' version was replaced
A self-approved portrait of President Trump now hangs in the Colorado Capitol – replacing an earlier version he ripped as 'purposefully distorted' and 'truly the worst.' The new portrait, created by Arizona-based Christian worship artist Vanessa Horabuena, is displayed in the third-floor rotunda of the Denver building's wall of past presidents, occupying the same spot where Sarah Boardman's original painting had hung since 2019. The latest display, donated by the White House, mirrors Trump's intense official presidential photo, depicting him leaning slightly forward with a furrowed brow and a steely gaze. 4 Trump's new portrait, created by Arizona-based Christian worship artist Vanessa Horabuena. AP 'Thank you to the Highly Talented Artist, Vanessa Horabuena, and the incredible people of Colorado,' the commander in chief posted on Truth Social Tuesday. 'Now on display at the Colorado State Capitol!' The previous portrait, featuring a much younger version of Trump, was removed from the famed wall back in March after the president randomly took to social media to criticize it – despite its six-year run on display. The original painting was commissioned after former Colorado Senate President Kevin Grantham, a Republican, raised more than $10,000 through a GoFundMe account during Trump's first term. 4 Trump's original portrait was removed after he lambasted the painting in March. Denver Post via Getty Images 'Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,' Trump raged in March. 'The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one of me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older.' 4 Portraits of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump displayed at the Colorado State Capitol. Denver Post via Getty Images The Colorado Building Advisory Committee, not the governor, oversees the portraits. Boardman, who received backlash following the president's scathing comments, previously told The Denver Post that it was important for her portraits of both Trump and Obama to appear 'apolitical.' 4 Wall of presidential portraits in the Colorado State Capitol featuring Trump's latest creation. AP Colorado Democrats, who are in charge of the legislature, eventually agreed to take the painting down at the request of local Republican leaders. Lois Court, a former state lawmaker who chairs the Capitol Building Advisory Committee, said she received the Trump-endorsed portrait over a month ago and decided on Thursday to hang it this week. 'There was a blank on the wall,' she said. 'It seemed inappropriate. We knew that the White House had sent us this replacement and it simply made sense to put it up.' With Post wires
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
UN report lists companies complicit in Israel's ‘genocide': Who are they?
The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law. Francesca Albanese's latest report, which is scheduled to be presented at a news conference in Geneva on Thursday, names 48 corporate actors, including United States tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. – Google's parent company – and Amazon. A database of more than 1000 corporate entities was also put together as part of the investigation. '[Israel's] forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing significant supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely,' the report said. 'Companies are no longer merely implicated in occupation – they may be embedded in an economy of genocide,' it said, in a reference to Israel's ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip. In an expert opinion last year, Albanese said there were 'reasonable grounds' to believe Israel was committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave. The report stated that its findings illustrate 'why Israel's genocide continues'. 'Because it is lucrative for many,' it procurement of F-35 fighter jets is part of the world's largest arms procurement programme, relying on at least 1,600 companies across eight nations. It is led by US-based Lockheed Martin, but F-35 components are constructed globally. Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A is listed as a main contributor in the military sector, while Japan's FANUC Corporation provides robotic machinery for weapons production lines. The tech sector, meanwhile, has enabled the collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, 'supporting Israel's discriminatory permit regime', the report said. Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon grant Israel 'virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies', enhancing its data processing and surveillance capacities. The US tech company IBM has also been responsible for training military and intelligence personnel, as well as managing the central database of Israel's Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) that stores the biometric data of Palestinians, the report said. It found US software platform Palantir Technologies expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023. The report said there were 'reasonable grounds' to believe the company provided automatic predictive policing technology used for automated decision-making in the battlefield, to process data and generate lists of targets including through artificial intelligence systems like 'Lavender', 'Gospel' and 'Where's Daddy?' The report also lists several companies developing civilian technologies that serve as 'dual-use tools' for Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. These include Caterpillar, Leonardo-owned Rada Electronic Industries, South Korea's HD Hyundai and Sweden's Volvo Group, which provide heavy machinery for home demolitions and the development of illegal settlements in the West Bank. Rental platforms Booking and Airbnb also aid illegal settlements by listing properties and hotel rooms in Israeli-occupied territory. The report named the US's Drummond Company and Switzerland's Glencore as the primary suppliers of coal for electricity to Israel, originating primarily from Colombia. In the agriculture sector, Chinese Bright Dairy & Food is a majority owner of Tnuva, Israel's largest food conglomerate, which benefits from land seized from Palestinians in Israel's illegal outposts. Netafim, a company providing drip irrigation technology that is 80-percent owned by Mexico's Orbia Advance Corporation, provides infrastructure to exploit water resources in the occupied West Bank. Treasury bonds have also played a critical role in funding the ongoing war on Gaza, according to the report, with some of the world's largest banks, including France's BNP Paribas and the UK's Barclays, listed as having stepped in to allow Israel to contain the interest rate premium despite a credit report identified US multinational investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard as the main investors behind several listed companies. BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, is listed as the second largest institutional investor in Palantir (8.6 percent), Microsoft (7.8 percent), Amazon (6.6 percent), Alphabet (6.6 percent) and IBM (8.6 per cent), and the third largest in Lockheed Martin (7.2 percent) and Caterpillar (7.5 percent). Vanguard, the world's second-largest asset manager, is the largest institutional investor in Caterpillar (9.8 percent), Chevron (8.9 percent) and Palantir (9.1 percent), and the second largest in Lockheed Martin (9.2 percent) and Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems (2 percent). The report states that 'colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector.' Israel's expansion on Palestinian land is one example of 'colonial racial capitalism', where corporate entities profit from an illegal occupation. Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, 'entities that previously enabled and profited from Palestinian elimination and erasure within the economy of occupation, instead of disengaging are now involved in the economy of genocide,' the report said. For foreign arms companies, the war has been a lucrative venture. Israel's military spending from 2023 to 2024 surged 65 percent, amounting to $46.5bn – one of the highest per capita worldwide. Several entities listed on the exchange market – particularly in the arms, tech and infrastructure sectors – have seen their profits rise since October 2023. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange also rose an unprecedented 179 percent, adding $157.9bn in market value. Global insurance companies, including Allianz and AXA, invested large sums in shares and bonds linked to Israel's occupation, the report said, partly as capital reserves but primarily to generate returns. Booking and Airbnb also continue to profit from rentals in Israeli-occupied land. Airbnb briefly delisted properties on illegal settlements in 2018 but later reverted to donating profits from such listings to humanitarian causes, a practice the report referred to as 'humanitarian-washing'. According to Albanese's report, yes. Corporate entities are under an obligation to avoid violating human rights through direct action or in their business partnerships. States have the primary responsibility to ensure that corporate entities respect human rights and must prevent, investigate and punish abuses by private actors. However, corporations must respect human rights even if the state where they operate does not. A company must therefore assess whether activities or relationships throughout its supply chain risk causing human rights violations or contributing to them, according to the report. The failure to act in line with international law may result in criminal liability. Individual executives can be held criminally liable, including before international courts. The report called on companies to divest from all activities linked to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, which is illegal under international law. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion ruling that Israel's continued presence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem should come to an end 'as rapidly as possible'. In light of this advisory opinion, the UN General Assembly demanded that Israel bring to an end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory by September 2025. Albanese's report said the ICJ's ruling 'effectively qualifies the occupation as an act of aggression … Consequently, any dealings that support or sustain the occupation and its associated apparatus may amount to complicity in an international crime under the Rome Statute. 'States must not provide aid or assistance or enter into economic or trade dealings, and must take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that would assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by Israel in the oPt.'
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's NJ golf courses can sell liquor for 6 more months, but he can't pocket the cash just yet
Liquor licenses for two of Trump's NJ golf courses remain under review due to his felony conviction. On Tuesday, state officials said they have extended the two licenses for another six months. Trump can't touch any liquor-sale proceeds for the clubs at Colts Neck and Bedminster — for now. The Champagne will keep flowing for another six months at two of President Donald Trump's New Jersey golf courses, despite his felony conviction. For now, though, the Trump Organization is barred from touching the proceeds. Officials with the New Jersey Attorney General's Office said Tuesday that they have issued temporary, half-year extensions for the liquor licenses at the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. The last-minute extensions were necessary to keep the drinks flowing while state officials continue to review Trump's application to renew the licenses for the coming year. Without the extension, the licenses at the Colts Neck and Bedminster clubs would have expired outright on Monday, June 30. But the extensions come with heavy strings attached — including that Trump, as a convicted felon, and any other corporate members of the clubs' LLCs must keep their hands out of the bar tills at the two clubs indefinitely. The attorney general's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control is requiring that proceeds from the two clubs' liquor licenses be held in untouched accounts kept separate from those for the clubs' other income. It's a constraint that Peter Rhodes — a lawyer who's specialized for 30 years in New Jersey liquor licensing — says he's never seen imposed. Usually, when a license owner or beneficiary becomes a felon, they are simply given time to walk away from the license, Rhodes said, usually by selling or transferring their interest to a non-felon. "One might infer that the ABC is struggling with how to handle this issue — with how to deprive a felon of the proceeds of their license," he told BI. "In short, I find it peculiar," said Rhodes, whose Haddonfield-based firm, Cahill, Wilinski, Rhodes & Joyce, has served for 50 years as counsel to the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association. "What they don't say is what happens to that money if, in fact, they find that he is disqualified," Rhodes added. "They can't just confiscate it." A spokesperson for New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin told Business Insider that the special conditions "are consistent with the division's obligation to ensure that all liquor licensees comply with the law." "New Jersey statutes state that profiting from a liquor license is a privilege, not a right granted by law," the spokesperson said in a statement. It was soon after Trump's May 30, 2024, conviction that New Jersey officials first said that the two golf club licenses were under review. In June of 2024, they announced that they did not intend to renew the licenses due to Trump's new status as a felon. Both the Bedminster and Colts Neck licenses are in the name of Donald Trump, Jr., the president's son, but the state AG's office ruled at the time that Trump himself is the primary beneficiary of the clubs' liquor sales. A license-revocation hearing — at which Trump would bear the burden of proving he was qualified to be a license beneficiary — was initially set for July 2024, only to be repeatedly canceled. A new hearing date has yet to be announced. New Jersey law requires liquor licenses be revoked if their owner or primary beneficiary is sentenced for a crime of moral turpitude, a category which includes felony falsifying business records. That's the state charge Trump was sentenced to in Manhattan in January, nine days before his inauguration. This week's license extension further requires that by September 30, the Trump Organization provide the alcoholic beverage control officials with details of "the corporate structure, ownership, and beneficiary interests" behind the licenses. Trump's third New Jersey golf club is the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, which is 45 minutes from that city in Pine Hill. The town, not the state, regulates that license, which was also due to expire June 30. Officials in Pine Hill and a food and beverage manager at the golf club there did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The chief legal officer of the Trump Organization also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the license renewals and the required special conditions. Read the original article on Business Insider
