VATICAN CITY -- Shame and sorrow are appropriate initial responses to the report on the extent of clerical sexual abuse in France, but the Catholic Church must move to action to protect children and to guarantee justice for victims and survivors, said Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna.

Over the past five years, on Tuesdays at noon at the Church of St. Louis d’Antin, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris near the Passage du Havre shopping centre, a shy, scholarly Canadian priest would approach the altar to offer Mass and call the assembly of immigrants and downtown shoppers to confess their sinfulness.

An independent report on sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church estimates 330,000 children have been abused since the 1950s. Most of the victims were pre-adolescent boys of all social backgrounds, and more than a third of the assaults were committed by laypeople.

The week of Sept. 6 was the first time many Canadian undergraduates were back on campus for in-person classes for the better part of two years — and for some like me, it was our first week ever on campus.

WASHINGTON -- Former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick pleaded not guilty Sept. 3 in a Massachusetts court, where he is facing three counts of sexually assaulting a teenager in the 1970s.

Quebec’s Brothers of the Sacred Heart agreed to pay $60 million to settle two class-action lawsuits on clerical sexual abuse.

VATICAN CITY - Four former students at the minor seminary located in the Vatican testified May 12 at the ongoing trial of Father Gabriele Martinelli, who is accused of sexually abusing a younger student at the St. Pius X Pre-Seminary.

A new system launched to report abuse by Canada’s Catholic bishops is the next step within the Church to make sure all instances of abuse are exposed and eliminated, Gatineau Archbishop Paul-André Durocher said.

Jane Doe never attended Mount Cashel Orphanage, but she knows the second-hand impact all too well. 

COLOGNE, Germany -- The second expert report commissioned to investigate abuse in the Archdiocese of Cologne also incriminates church officials who are still alive and accuses them of mistakes in dealing with cases of sexualized violence, according to its author, Björn Gercke.

VATICAN CITY -- A French criminal court found an Italian archbishop who was once the Vatican's ambassordor to Canada guilty of sexual assault against four men and handed him, in absentia, an eight-month suspended prison sentence.

VANCOUVER -- The Archdiocese of Vancouver has released the names of three priests involved in settlements related to sexual abuse and confirmed 13 more people have come forward with abuse allegations.

The fact Trista Hope’s name isn’t really Trista Hope adds volumes to the recent 276-page Capriolo report into the catastrophic botching of priestly sex offender Brian Boucher’s case.

The Boucher Report, released on Nov. 25 by the Archdiocese of Montreal, makes for distressing reading. The tale told therein also illustrates how failures in Canada may have contributed to the significant reforms made by Pope Francis last year aimed at changing the culture of episcopal governance.

In the weeks since the Vatican released its report regarding disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the blame game has been in full swing.