36 behind the cross

Courtesy: Chicago Tribune The Rev. Donald McGuire, left, a Jesuit priest, leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse with his attorney Stephen Komie after a 2007 hearing in Chicago. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune) Morgan Greene Contact Reporter Chicago Tribune Eighteen Jesuit priests with ties to Chicago-area institutions were named on a list released Monday alleging instances of sexual abuse dating back more than six decades, including one defrocked priest who was convicted of sex crimes in federal court. The Midwest Province Jesuits, part of a Catholic religious order known for its focus on education, released a list of dozens of priests with credible allegations of sexual abuse to their names since 1955. In a Monday evening phone interview, the Rev. Brian Paulson, provincial of the Midwest Province, said the list was a response to the scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church for the past two decades — from the 2002 abuse ...

Sama Shah and Sejal Desai were arrested for property fraud. Vadodara: Two trustees of Vallabh Seva Trust and Indira Betiji Manav Kalyan Trust, who were booked on October 4 for cheating and criminal conspiracy, were arrested on Saturday. Sejal Desai and Sama Shah were arrested for selling late spiritual leader Indira Betiji’s property by falsely claiming it as theirs. According to police, the duo and third accused Dharmesh Mehta, who lives in Delhi, took the money from complainants Kamla Lad and Mahendra Dhruv and siphoned it off in the name of trusts. The controversy over the property of the late spiritual leader had been going on for some time, but it surfaced when Lad and Dhruv approached police against the three trustees. The arrested duo told cops that they had sold the house to Lad and Dhruv as per the late spiritual leader’s will. They said that after her death, the property was transferred in the trust’s name which was also mentioned in the will. Howeve...

courtesy TOI  Priest associated with the Swaminarayan sect, was arrested by Katargam police on Wednesday for allegedly raping a 20-year-old woman. The accused Karan Swami (24) had allegedly raped the woman twice in his quarters within the temple premises in Dabholi area over the past 15 days. Police arrested Swami after the survivor identified him before the police. She had not named the accused at the time of registering her complaint as she did not know his name. Before taking diksha (attaining sainthood) eight years ago the accused was known as Nikunj Sawani. The survivor had survivor approached police on late Tuesday evening after she was raped allegedly by the accused for the second time after assuring financial help for her ailing mother. Police investigation revealed that the survivor’s mother had suffered injury on her hand and needed treatment. Her father too was suffering from serious health issues. For her parents’ treatment the survivor was in urgent need for financ...

Sugney Swami, aka Neelkanth Patel, is named in a $1 million lawsuit filed by a woman identified only as S.D. who alleges she was raped at her Mississauga temple, the Yogi Divine Society, on Oct. 29, 2015. Courtesy Toronto Sun He was a revered monk from India who insisted the depressed young woman come to a Mississauga temple where he could relieve her suffering with a personal spiritual message he’d received directly from their saint. But when the woman, who can only be identified as S.D., reluctantly arrived at the Yogi Divine Society on Oct. 29, 2015,  she says Sugney Swami had a very different kind of spiritual healing in mind. She claims the monk lured her to a bedroom on the upper floor where he locked the door, confiscated her phone, threw her on his bed and raped her. In her proposed $1 million lawsuit, she’s suing Sugney, aka Neelkanth Patel, for alleged sexual assault, false imprisonment, breach of trust and mental distress as well as th...

Courtsey: Newsweek A non-profit group that tracks allegations of abuse within the Catholic Church said Saturday that the church has paid out nearly $4 billion in lawsuits over allegations of clerical sexual abuse leading back to the 1980s. BishopAccountability , whose mission is “documenting the abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church,” according to their website, says that there are also payouts involving over 8,600 cases of assault survivors abused by a member of the clergy dating back to the 1950s. The largest known payout amounted to over $600 million dollars in 2007, CNN reported on Saturday, issued on behalf of 221 priests and other church employees accused of abusing and victimizing over 500 people. BishopAccountability maintains a list of every known settlement paid by the Catholic Church to those who have alleged sexual abuse at the hands of clergy and Church affiliates. “We document settlements involving 5,679 perso...

Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, the former Archbishop of Philadelphia, attends a mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 7, 2003. It took a near-death experience to convince retired Philadelphia police detective Joe Walsh that he couldn’t keep quiet anymore about what he knew. It was June 11, 2015, just another sunny day down at the Jersey Shore, when Walsh suddenly felt severe pain in his jaw. An old Army buddy noticed the color had drained from Walsh’s face, told him “Sit down!” and called 911. When he came to minutes later, Walsh heard an emergency medical technician say, “Come on, Joe, keep breathing.” Then he heard the paramedic say that when he woke up, he was going to think he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse.In the ambulance, a paramedic asked Walsh if he liked the T-shirt he was wearing. “Not particularly,” Walsh replied. “That’s good,” the paramedic said, before he cut it off with scissors. “He hooked ...