GATES, N.Y. -- In the wake of nearly 50 lawsuits filed against it since New York's Child Victims Act took effect Aug. 14, the Diocese of Rochester filed for reorganization Sept. 12, under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

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SYDNEY -- The Australian Catholic Church could face tens of millions dollars in compensation claims after the Diocese of Ballarat in Victoria state admitted, for the first time, it knew of the behavior of a pedophile priest yet continued to move him around from parish to parish.

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SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. -- A yearlong investigation by Seton Hall University confirmed that Theodore McCarrick, the laicized cardinal who had been archbishop of Newark from 1986 to 2000, had sexually harassed seminarians during his tenure as head of the archdiocese.

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WASHINGTON -- Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop of Washington who was laicized last February following a Vatican trial on sexual abuse charges leveled against him, continued to deny he had abused anyone in an August interview with the online journal Slate.

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VATICAN CITY -- A specialized center at Chile's premier Catholic university can help the Catholic Church protect minors and vulnerable persons from the scourge of clerical sexual abuse, which has plagued the Catholic Church in the country and around the world, Pope Francis said.

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WASHINGTON -- A Capuchin Franciscan priest was found guilty Aug. 15 of four counts of child sexual abuse stemming from when he served as a parochial vicar at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Washington.

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VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis acknowledged the shame and frustration felt by priests who are discouraged by the actions of fellow clergy members who betrayed the trust of their flock through sexual abuse and abuse of conscience and power.

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VATICAN CITY -- While deceased Jesuit Father Renato Poblete Barth was known publicly as a champion of the poor in Chile, an internal investigation funded by the Jesuits revealed that the famed clergyman abused more than a dozen women over a span of nearly 50 years.

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VATICAN CITY -- Vatican City State will have its own reporting system in place before the end of the year for flagging suspected cases of the abuse of minors and vulnerable people and instances of cover-up or negligence in handling such cases, the Vatican said.

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WASHINGTON -- As the Archdiocese of St. Louis released a list of names of archdiocesan clergy with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor July 26, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson acknowledged that seeing the names "will be painful" and publishing them "will not change the past."

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VATICAN CITY -- Prevention is key in protecting minors from abuse, Pope Francis said.

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VATICAN CITY -- As the Catholic Church in Chile continues to deal with the fallout of clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up, the Chilean government passed a law removing the statute of limitations on sex abuse crimes against children.

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OTTAWA -- Pope Francis is leading efforts to heal the wounds of the sexual abuse scandals so the Church can fulfill her mission, says Canada’s apostolic nuncio.

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MANCHESTER, England -- An English church official "deliberately misled" a U.S. archdiocese into harboring a pedophile priest and helping him to escape justice for a quarter of a century, said a report from a child abuse inquiry.

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- In a remarkably frank and detailed speech, the Vatican official heading the department charged with reviewing clergy sexual abuse allegations told an assembly of Catholic journalists that his investigators and the press "share the same goal, which is the protection of minors, and we have the same wish to leave the world a little better than how we found it."

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