Articles Posted in Sexual Assault

Two religious sisters in Kentucky spoke to NPR about their plans to start the first order dedicated to ministering the victims and survivors of clergy abuse.

Sister Theresa Aletheia and Sister Danielle Lussier with the Sisters of the Little Way of Beauty, Truth and Goodness in Lexington, Kentucky, are starting the order to help those who have suffered abuse in the Catholic Church, whether that “be emotional, financial, spiritual, or sexual,” they told NPR reporters. This would be the first order of its kind.

The two are beginning this journey after leaving the Daughters of St. Paul in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2022. Their reason for leaving: clergy sexual abuse. A priest who had been a spiritual director at the order was accused of sexually assaulting one of their sisters and, they suspected, he had also been allegedly grooming them for abuse.

A Miami Southridge Senior High School teacher was recently charged after police say he had inappropriate conduct with a student, according to local media.

The 53-year-old teacher was charged with four counts of battery and one count of offenses against students by authority figures. He was released on a $14,000 bond and remains under house arrest with ankle monitoring, The Miami herald reported.

The Miami-Dade Schools Police Department were alerted about the “suspected behavior” and began an investigation, school officials told reporters. The student met the teacher in August when they began taking piano lessons.

Several tips from the community and alleged DNA evidence helped police find and charge a man they say raped a student at Florida Memorial University on Sunday.

Steven Devon Mason Rivers, 30, was charged with sexual battery and robbery by sudden snatching related to an incident on Sunday at FMU’s campus along the 15800 block of Northwest 42^nd Avenue in Miami Gardens, according to reporting from The Miami Herald.

The incident occurred around 6 a.m. when a woman, a student at the school, left her dorm with plans to meet a friend for a ride to her volunteer position at a sports camp. When her friend called to cancel, she began heading back to her dorm. It was at a bus stop across the street from the school that she saw a man who “whistled at her,” the newspaper reported.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York will allegedly raise more than $300 million to compensate over 1,300 people who said they suffered sexual abuse as children at the hands of priests and church staff, according to a letter published this week.

The letter, which was published on Monday, Dec. 8, was penned by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York. In it, he said that the archdiocese has made a “series of very difficult financial decisions” to raise funds for the settlement.

Some of these decisions included the sale of various properties, layoffs, and a 10% reduction in their operating budget. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York is the second-largest diocese in the U.S. behind the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.