Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel this week released the fourth report in a series of investigations the state is conducting into abuse by Catholic clergy there.
The attorney general’s report, released on Monday, looks at reported abuse in the Diocese of Lansing. Previous reports, released in 2022 and 2024, examined alleged abuse in the dioceses of Kalamazoo, Gaylord, and Marquette.
As with the earlier investigations, the Lansing report looks at allegations of abuse dating back decades. The report includes “allegations of sexual abuse and other sexual misconduct, including grooming and misuse of authority against minors and adults.”
The attorney general’s office lists a total of 56 clergy and religious in its report, including two bishops, with more than 150 abuse allegations identified in the investigation.
The majority of the individuals on the list, 37, are “known or presumed to be dead.” Of the remaining 19, just one — a deacon — is in “active ministry” in the Lansing Diocese, while three retired priests have “no restrictions on their ministry.”
The report says the “vast majority” of the alleged abuse occurred prior to 2002, the year the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops promulgated its “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”
Numerous allegations involve the alleged abuse of minors, while others involve inappropriate conduct or abuse of adults. One allegation involves a 5-year-old child.
The attorney general’s office said the materials in the report were gathered from “[a] tip line, victim interviews, police investigations, open-source media, paper documents seized from the Diocese of Lansing, and the electronic documents found on the diocesan computers,” as well as “reports of allegations disclosed by the diocese.”
Nessel on Monday said the state government “made a promise to the survivors years ago” to produce the abuse reports and that the investigations serve the purpose of “sharing their stories and validating their experiences.”
The prosecutor’s office noted that prosecution of many of the allegations is barred by Michigan’s statute of limitations, though Nessel said that “criminal prosecutions are just one accountability metric.”
“Ensuring each victim is heard, regardless of how long ago the sexual abuse and misconduct may have been, is important in acknowledging their pain and fostering a culture that prioritizes these victims over their silence,” she said.
In a statement on Monday, the Diocese of Lansing noted that the attorney general’s report indicated that “the 1970s and ’80s were the peak decades for alleged instances of sexual misconduct” regarding clergy in the diocese.
“Over half” of the allegations, from 1950 until the present, occurred during those decades, the diocese said.
Lansing Bishop Earl Boyea said in the statement that his “heart breaks for all those who have suffered due to the evil of clerical sexual abuse.”
The bishop described the abuse as “a great betrayal of Jesus Christ, His Holy Church, the priesthood, and, most gravely, those victims — and their families — who were harmed physically, emotionally, but above all spiritually when they were so young.”
“To all those injured by such criminal and immoral actions I say clearly and without hesitation: these terrible things should never have happened to you; I am so deeply sorry that they ever did; please be assured of my prayers, penance, love, and support,” the prelate said.
Diocese of Lansing general counsel Will Bloomfield, meanwhile, said on Monday that since the 2002 charter, the diocese has been referring abuse allegations to law enforcement and removing clerics “credibly accused” of abusing minors.
The diocese mandates that “all allegations of grave clerical misconduct, including those involving adult victims, are professionally investigated and reviewed by a body of lay professionals called the Code of Conduct Advisory Council,” Bloomfield said.
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Anna Lulis from Moneta, Virginia, (left) who works for the pro-life group Students for Life of America, stands beside an abortion rights demonstrator outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2022, after the court’s decision in the Dobbs abortion case was announced. / Katie Yoder/CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 5, 2022 / 13:31 pm (CNA).
U.S. Catholic voters are split on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, but a majority agrees that abortion should be restricted and that there should be at least some protections for the unborn child in the womb, according to a new EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll.
The court’s June 24 ruling in the Mississippi abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization upended 49 years of nationwide legalized abortion and freed states to regulate abortion as they see fit.
When asked whether they agreed or disagreed with Roe being overturned, 46.2% agreed, 47.8% disagreed, and 6% said they weren’t sure.
Catholic voters were similarly split on whether they are more or less likely to support a candidate who agrees with Roe’s dismantling: 42% said they were more likely, 41.9% said they were less likely, and 16.1% were unsure.
At the same time, the poll results point to apparent inconsistencies in Catholic voters’ positions on abortion.
While nearly half of Catholic voters in the poll said they disagreed with Roe being overturned, a large majority (86.5%) said they support some kind of limit on abortion, even though Roe and related abortion cases allowed only narrow regulation at the state level. The breakdown is as follows:
26.8% said abortion should be allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother;
19.8% said abortion should be allowed until 15 weeks when the baby can feel pain;
13.1% said that abortion should be allowed only during the first six months of pregnancy;
9.9% said that abortion should be allowed only until a heartbeat can be detected, and
9.1% said that abortion should be allowed only to save the life of the mother.
Of special note for Catholic pro-life leaders, only a small minority of Catholic voters — 7.8% — were aligned with the clear and consistent teaching of the Catholic Church that abortion should never be allowed.
On the other end of the spectrum of abortion views, 13.4% of Catholic voters said that abortion should be available to a woman at any time during her pregnancy.
The poll, conducted by the Trafalgar Group from Sept. 12–19, surveyed 1,581 Catholic voters and has a margin of error of 2.5%. The questionnaire was administered using a mix of six different methods, including phone calls, text messages, and email.
The poll’s results echo surveys of the general U.S. population on abortion. A Pew Research Center survey from March found that 19% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all cases, while 8% said it should be illegal in all cases. More recent Gallup data from May found that 35% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal under any circumstances while 13% said it should be illegal in all circumstances.
The Pew Research Center data also looked at Catholic adults. Thirteen percent said abortion should be legal in all cases, while 10% said it should be illegal in all cases.
A previous EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll released in July found that 9% of Catholic likely voters said abortion should never be permitted and 18% said that abortion should be available at any time. The poll similarly showed that a majority of Catholic voters (82%) support some kind of restriction on abortion.
Confused about what Roe said?
The poll’s results came as little surprise to Catholic pro-life public policy experts such as Elizabeth R. Kirk.
“This study confirms a phenomenon we have known for some time, i.e., that there is an enormous disconnect between the scope of abortion practices permitted by the Roe regime and what abortion practices Americans actually support,” Kirk, director of the Center for Law and the Human Person at The Catholic University of America, told CNA.
Kirk, who also serves as a faculty fellow for the Institute for Human Ecology and research associate and lecturer at the Columbus School of Law, noted the finding that nearly 42% of Catholic voters said they are less likely to support a candidate who agrees with Roe being overturned.
“At first glance that suggests that many Catholic voters wanted to keep Roe in place,” she said. “Yet, the study also reveals that 86.5% of Catholic voters want some type of restriction on abortion access.”
Why the inconsistency? “Most people do not realize that Roe allowed states to permit unlimited abortion access throughout the entire pregnancy and made it difficult, or even impossible, to enact commonsense restrictions supported by the majority of Americans,” Kirk observed.
“Many people who ‘support Roe’ actually disagree, unknowingly, with what it permitted,” she added. “All Dobbs has done is return abortion policy to the legislative process so that the people may enact laws which reflect the public consensus.”
Mass-goers more strongly pro-life
The new poll, the second of three surveys of Catholic voters tied to the midterm elections on Nov. 8, shows that the opinions of Catholic voters on abortion and other issues vary depending on how often respondents attend Mass.
Only a small portion of those who attend Mass at least once a week said that abortion should be allowed at any time: 0% of those who attend Mass daily, 1% who attend more than once a week, and 8% of those who attend weekly support abortion without restrictions. In contrast, 57.5% of Catholic voters who attend Mass daily, 21.5% of those who attend more than once a week, and 15.6% of those who attend weekly say abortion should never be permitted.
In addition to respondents’ apparent confusion about what Roe stipulated, the poll suggests that many Catholic voters don’t fully understand what their Church teaches about abortion.
Less than one-third of Catholic voters who said they accept all Church teachings (31.1%) said that abortion should never be permitted, and 5% who profess to fully accept the Church’s teachings said abortion should be permitted at any time.
Overall, 32.8% of respondents reported attending Mass at least once a week, with another 30.7% attending once a year or less. Only 15% agreed that they accept all of the Church’s teachings and live their lives accordingly, with another 34.5% saying they generally accept most of the Church’s teachings and try to live accordingly.
Pew Research Center also looked at how Mass attendance factors into Catholics’ views on abortion. Among those who attend Mass at least once a week: 4% said abortion should be legal in all cases, and 24% said it should be illegal in all cases, Pew found.
Strong support for pregnancy centers
The poll asked Catholic voters about a variety of other topics including abortion limits, Holy Communion for pro-abortion politicians, conscience protections for health care workers, and pro-life pregnancy centers.
EWTN
Among the findings:
Catholic voters are prioritizing other issues above abortion. Only 10.1% of Catholic voters identified abortion as the most important issue facing the nation, falling behind inflation (34.2%) and the economy/jobs (19.7%) and tying with immigration. At the same time, a higher percentage of Catholic voters chose abortion than crime (8.7%), climate change (8.1% ), health care (6.8%), K–12 education (1.7%), or religious freedom (0.8%).
About half of Catholic voters (49.3%) disagreed that Catholic political leaders who support abortion publicly and promote policies that increase abortion access should refrain from taking Communion, while 36.7% said they should refrain.
A majority (67.4%) of Catholic voters said they support public funding for pro-life pregnancy centers that offer pregnant women life-affirming alternatives to abortion, while 18.3% said they did not favor using tax dollars for this purpose.
A comparable majority (61.8%) said that political and church leaders should be speaking out against the recent attacks and acts of vandalism on pregnancy resource centers.
When asked about conscience protections for health care workers that would allow them to opt out of providing “services” such as abortion, a majority of Catholic voters (60.7%) said that health care workers should not be obligated to engage in procedures that they object to based on moral or religious grounds. Conversely, 25.3% said that health care workers should be obligated to engage in procedures that they object to based on moral or religious grounds.
Work to be done
What is the takeaway from the latest poll, where abortion is concerned?
“This polling shows that Catholics, like the overwhelming majority of Americans, support commonsense protections for women and the unborn,” Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow with The Catholic Association, told CNA.
“It also affirms other recent polling that found Americans by strong numbers support the work of pregnancy resource centers in providing women facing crisis pregnancies with a real choice and the chance to thrive as mothers despite difficult circumstances,” she noted.
EWTN
At the same time, McGuire added, “This new polling is also a reminder that more work needs to be done in catechizing Catholics on foundational Church teaching in support of vulnerable life in all stages — an effort that is continually undermined by Catholic politicians in the highest echelons of power who use their platforms to advocate for extreme abortion policies in direct violation of Church teaching.”
Nearly all of those surveyed (99.2%) said they plan to vote in the midterm elections on Nov. 8.
CNA Staff, May 4, 2023 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
A federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that The Satanic Temple must be allowed to hold its “After School Satan Club” in a public middle school in Pennsylvan… […]
New Haven, Conn., Jan 3, 2019 / 09:09 am (CNA).- Catholics can be good US citizens and honest public servants, the head of the Knights of Columbus wrote Thursday in a message to members of the Catholic charitable organization.
“There have been times in our country’s past when uninformed or prejudiced people questions whether Catholics could be good citizens or honest public servants,” Supreme Knight Carl Anderson wrote in the letter.
“Sadly, it seems that in some quarters, this prejudice remains.”
Anderson’s Jan. 3 letter was occasioned by two senators objecting last month to a federal judicial nominee’s membership in the Knights.
Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) asked whether his membership in the Knights of Columbus would prevent Brian C. Buescher from hearing cases “fairly and impartially.” Buescher is an Omaha-based lawyer nominated to sit on the US District Court for the District of Nebraska.
The Supreme Knight noted that Buescher’s “fitness for the federal bench” was questioned by Hirono and Harris “precisely because our Order holds firm to the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of life and marriage.”
Anderson said, “Such attacks on the basis of our Catholic faith are hardly new. The Knights of Columbus was formed amid a period of anti-Catholic bigotry.”
From the founding of the Knights of Columbus until the presidential election of John F. Kennedy, “many still held that Catholics were unfit for public office,” he added.
The Knights of Columbus has always adhered to Catholic teaching, Anderson said, adding that “our primary motivation” is Christ’s commandment “that we love God completely and our neighbor as ourselves.”
It is this commandment of love that compels the Knights’ charitable work, he noted.
“This love also motivates us to stand with the Church on the important issues of life and marriage, precisely because the Church’s teaching reflects and is based on that love. We stand with our Church because we believe that what our faith teaches is consistent with reason, is timeless and transcends the changing sentiments of any particular time or place.”
The Supreme Knight also noted that in his letter to the Knights’ 2013 convention, Pope Francis had asked that the organization “bear witness to the authentic nature of marriage and the family, the sanctity and inviolable dignity of human life, and the beauty and truth of human sexuality.”
Anderson pointed out the no religious test clause of Article VI of the US Constitution, and the free exercise clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment, saying, “any suggestion that the Order’s adherence to the beliefs of the Catholic Church makes a Brother Knight unfit for public office blatantly violates those constitutional guarantees.”
“Let us continue to express our love of God and neighbor by helping those in need and by standing with our Church, regardless of the popularity of doing so,” Anderson exhorted.
“Let us also remember that, from our founding, we have embodied the truth that a good Catholic is a good citizen who shows civility and dignity even in the face of prejudice.”
Buescher was nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court Nov. 3. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Buescher’s nomination Nov. 28, sending him written questions Dec. 5.
Hirono had asked Buescher if he would end his membership with the Knights of Columbus if confirmed, so as “to avoid any appearance of bias,” saying the organization “has taken a number of extreme positions.”
And Harris described the Knights as “an all-male society”, and asked if Buescher was aware that the Knights of Columbus “opposed a woman’s right to choose” and were against “marriage equality” when he joined.
Harris raised a statement from Anderson saying abortion constituted “the killing of the innocent on a massive scale” and asked Buescher if he agreed with Anderson.
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) noted the nominee’s previously outspoken opposition to abortion and asked, “why should a litigant in your courtroom expect to get a fair hearing from an impartial judge in a case involving abortion rights?”
Buescher ran in the Republican primary for Nebraska attorney general in 2014. During that campaign he described himself as “avidly pro-life” and said opposition to abortion was part of his “moral fabric.”
In his responses to the questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Buescher said if confirmed as a federal judge, he would follow established rules regarding conflicts of interest, and that he would not seek to advance personal opinions, but would make rulings in accord with the judicial precedents established by the US Supreme Court.
Anderson is not the only voice to raise objections to the senators’ line of questions.
A Jan. 2 Wall Street Journal editorial said that the senators’ “argument against Mr. Buescher fits a distressing pattern. No longer is it necessary to engage the political merits of a position, or—in the case of a judicial nominee—demonstrate he’d use personal views to override the law. Today it is enough to label a nominee’s religion or associations “extreme” and use that to try to banish him from public life.”
The editorial noted another recent instance in which a Catholic faced questions about her faith, mentioning the 2017 confirmation hearing for federal Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, in which Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Barrett “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.” That comment sparked a groundswell of support for Barrett’s nomination.
The Knights of Columbus is active in 17 countries. In 2017, some 2 million members carried out more than 75 million hours of volunteer work and raised more than $185 million for charitable purposes.
We should root out in the various Diocese I agree, and those guilty brought to justice.
Having said that, I sure wish she would examen election fraud with the same vigor as child abuse by the clergy
We should root out in the various Diocese I agree, and those guilty brought to justice.
Having said that, I sure wish she would examen election fraud with the same vigor as child abuse by the clergy