Latest Church Headlines
All the headlines from our Church Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Little Rock Diocese Settles Sexual Abuse Claims for $790K
Jul 3 2019 // Lawyers for five men who claim an Arkansas priest sexually abused them more than four decades ago said that the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock has settled after mediation in what the attorneys believe is a first of its...
Vatican Defends Secrecy of Catholic Confessions Amid Priest Sex Scandals
Jul 3 2019 // Amid pedophile clergy scandals, the Vatican has declared “unacceptable” any efforts by politicians or lawmakers to force priests violate their sacred obligation to keep secret what faithful tell them in...
Massachusetts’ Fred C. Church Insurance Hires Lonsdale
Jun 28 2019 // Fred C. Church Insurance has hired Ian Lonsdale as an Employee Benefits client executive. The main focus of the Employee Benefits division at Fred C. Church is to serve and support its commercial clients. Utilizing five...
Insurance to Pay Most of Minnesota Diocese’s $34M Settlement with Abuse Victims
Jun 27 2019 // The Diocese of New Ulm in Minnesota has reached a $34 million settlement in its bankruptcy case with 93 people who say they were sexually abused by priests and others, the diocese and an attorney representing survivors...
Southern Baptists Under Pressure to Deal with Sex Abuse Claims
Jun 10 2019 // The Southern Baptist Convention gathers for its annual national meeting Tuesday with one sobering topic — sex abuse by clergy and staff — overshadowing all others. Inside the meeting hall in Birmingham, Alabama,...
Churchgoers Fear Armed Intruders
Jun 4 2019 // More than 1 in 10 Americans (12%) say they do not feel safe in their places of worship. Church Mutual Insurance Co., a leading insurer of religious organizations, said it learned in a new survey that fear of armed...
West Virginia AG Files Amended Suit Against State Catholic Diocese Over Abuse
May 29 2019 // West Virginia’s Roman Catholic diocese failed to publicly disclose decade-old allegations of sexual abuse of a student involving a Catholic school teacher, the state’s attorney general said May 21. Attorney...
Issuer Credit Rating Outlook Revised to Stable for Church Mutual Insurance Group
May 28 2019 // AM Best has revised the outlook to stable from positive for the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings (Long-Term ICR) and affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A (Excellent) and the Long-Term ICRs of “a” of...
California Dioceses Creating Abuse Compensation Program
May 16 2019 // Six Roman Catholic dioceses in California are creating a program to compensate people who were sexually abused by priests as children, in return for them promising not to sue. The program announced Tuesday includes the...
Gymnasts to Texas Lawmakers: Allow Sex Abuse Victims to Sue Institutions
May 16 2019 // Former U.S. national team gymnasts backing a Texas bill that would allow victims of sexual abuse more time to sue in civil court on Monday urged the state’s lawmakers to restore a key provision allowing those...
Minnesota Clergy Abuse Victims to Sue Vatican, Seek Abusers’ Names
May 15 2019 // Five men who say they were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests when they were minors are planning to sue the Vatican and are demanding the names of thousands of predator priests they claim have been kept secret by...
Advocates’ Suit No Longer Says Mormon Church Swayed Medical Pot Changes
May 8 2019 // Marijuana advocates dropped legal claims that Utah lawmakers conspired with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to make sweeping changes to a voter-approved ballot initiative legalizing medical pot. Their...
California to Review Sex-Abuse Responses of 12 Dioceses
May 6 2019 // The California attorney general’s office will review how all 12 Roman Catholic dioceses in the state handled allegations of child sexual abuse that have resulted in payouts of hundreds of millions of dollars to...
California Man Vows to Proceed with California Clergy Abuse Suit
May 1 2019 // A man who says he was molested by his parish priest decades ago vows to proceed with a lawsuit targeting all Catholic bishops in California after a judge dismissed part of the suit. The so-called “nuisance”...
Fred C. Church Insurance Names Lucas Director of Business Development
May 1 2019 // Fred C. Church Insurance, a Lowell, Mass.-based independent insurance agency, has named George H. Lucas as director of Business Development. In this role, Lucas will be responsible for the management and facilitation of...
Another Fire Breaks Out at Pennsylvania Church Burned by Arson Blaze
Apr 26 2019 // A small fire has been extinguished at a Pennsylvania church that was severely damaged earlier this week by another blaze that authorities say was deliberately set. The latest fire at Iglesia Pentecostal de Bethlehem was...
Suspect in Multiple Louisiana Church Fires Faces Hate Crime Charges
Apr 16 2019 // The white man suspected in the burning of three African American churches in Louisiana will remain in jail, denied bond Monday by a judge, as state prosecutors added new charges declaring the arsons a hate...
Louisiana Diocese Releases List of Priests Accused of Sex Abuse
Apr 15 2019 // The U.S. Catholic diocese where the first widely reported case of clergy sex abuse became public in the 1980s released a list Friday of 33 priests and four deacons credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor or vulnerable...
Reuters: J&J Refocused Baby Powder Marketing on Minority, Overweight Women
Apr 10 2019 // Pressure was mounting on Johnson & Johnson and its signature Baby Powder. In 2006, an arm of the World Health Organization began classifying cosmetic talc such as Baby Powder as “possibly carcinogenic” when...
Critics Say North Dakota Dioceses Too Slow in Naming Problem Priests
Mar 15 2019 // North Dakota’s Roman Catholic dioceses are mulling whether and when to release information about priests accused of sexual abuse, even as critics say they are moving too slowly following explosive revelations in...
