The number of illegal websites blocked in New Zealand will increase from 700 to nearly 30,000.

The department will add daily-updated lists from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a UK not-for-profit, into its filter of websites hosting child sexual abuse material, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden said.

The IWF filter uses artificial intelligence and human analysis to identify web pages that host such illegal material. Legal adult content will not be blocked.

"This criminal material has no place in New Zealand. It is abhorrent. I am pleased that the department is taking steps to upgrade the filtering system to prevent more children from being harmed," van Velden said. Continue reading

Law enforcement agencies are gravely concerned about the emergence of hyper-realistic AI-generated content, fearing that it could blur the lines between real and computer-generated victims, creating complex challenges in identifying children in danger.

The NCA's director-general, Graeme Biggar, emphasises that the proliferation of such material might normalise abuse and escalate the risk of offenders transitioning to harm real children.

In response to these alarming developments, discussions are underway with AI software companies to implement safety measures, including digital tags to identify AI-generated images.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been urged to tackle a surge in child abuse images created by artificial intelligence when he gathers world leaders to discuss the technology later this year.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which monitors and blocks such material online, said the Prime Minister must specifically outlaw AI-generated abuse images and pressure other countries to do the same.

Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of the IWF, said: "AI is getting more sophisticated all the time. We are sounding the alarm and saying the Prime Minister needs to treat the serious threat it poses as the top priority when he hosts the first global AI summit later this year."

Not a victimless crime

Hargreaves' comments came as the IWF confirmed for the first time that it was removing cases of AI-generated child abuse images, including the most severe "category A" illegal material.

Despite the absence of real victims in these disturbing images, the IWF firmly asserts that creating and distributing AI-generated child abuse content is far from a victimless crime. Instead, it poses a serious risk of normalising abuse, hampering the identification of real instances of child endangerment and desensitising offenders to the gravity of their actions.

Adding to the alarm, the IWF has stumbled upon a chilling "manual" authored by offenders, instructing others on how to leverage AI to create even more lifelike abusive imagery.

The NCA said that an explosion in fake child abuse images could make saving real children suffering from abuse more difficult.

Chris Farrimond of the NCA said: "There is a very real possibility that, if the volume of AI-generated material increases, this could greatly impact on law enforcement resources, increasing the time it takes for us to identify real children in need of protection."

Sources

Cryptopolitan

The Telegraph

The priest was arrested after using hookup apps to meet and pay a male minor victim for sex.

He also acquired pornographic selfies from minors through manipulation and extortion via social media.

Fr Robert McWilliams, 40, was arrested in the parish where he had been a parochial vicar since his 2017 ordination. At the time of his arrest, police found child pornography on his computer, cell phone, and iPad.

A spokesman for the Cleveland diocese said that "since 2016, the Diocese of Cleveland has published Standards of Conduct for Ministry."

The document includes a section on the Use of Social Media and all Forms of Electronic Communication. It warns ‘not to develop personal relationships with those whom they serve, especially minors.'

Deacon Bernard Nojadera, who directs the USCCB's office of child and youth protection, said that the "digital world" is the "new frontier" for child safety protection.

Nojadera said that social media and location-based hookup apps present unique dangers from would-be abusers. They also add unique challenges for those who aim to protect minors.

"We have seen evidence and studies that those who would perpetrate these types of sins and crimes, if they're not able to do it in Church settings, they're going to go to the next means of meeting folks. That is through the Internet, through apps, and digital platforms for social media."

"In reality, when you're on the internet, there are no boundaries."

"And in the digital world, it's very easy to end up with two personalities, if you will. You could be a completely different individual on the Internet. Because who knows what's going on in the confines of your room," Nojadera said.

Nojadera urged that boundaries for all online engagement be clearly established in diocesan codes of conduct. There must be accountability among clerics around the use of technology.

He suggests that diocesan, parish, and school networks be monitored carefully to ensure that employees or clerics are not behaving inappropriately from Church-owned devices.

Sources

The Pillar

He described child abuse, paedophilia and child pornography, as "psychological murder."

Speaking to members of the Meter Association in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace on May 15, the pope noted that the Internet is facilitating child abuse.

"Your work is more necessary than ever because, unfortunately, the abuse of children continues.

"I refer in particular to the solicitations that take place through the Internet and various social media, with pages and portals dedicated to child pornography."

In February, the Guardian newspaper reported that the rapidly expanding volume of child abuse material online is threatening to overwhelm U.K. police.

It said that the U.K.'s child abuse image database contained 17 million unique images, with half a million more added every two months.

"This is a scourge that, on the one hand, needs to be addressed with renewed determination by institutions. On the other hand, it requires an even stronger awareness on the part of families and the various educational agencies."

Adding, "Even today, we see how often in families, the first reaction is to cover everything up."

"A first reaction that is always there in other institutions and even in the Church."

"We have to fight with this old habit of covering up."

"I know that you are always vigilant in protecting children even in the context of the most modern media."

The Meter group was founded in Sicily, Italy, in 1989 by Father Fortunato Di Noto. It has been championing the rights of children, especially against child pornography and paedophilia.

Thanking all those who support the association in defending abused and mistreated children, Francis said Meter members have "contributed to making visible the Church's love for the smallest and most defenceless."

He said the group has reached out to children with respect, closeness, compassion and tenderness, to welcome, console and protect them, binding up their "spiritual wounds" like the Good Samaritan.

"How many times, like the Good Samaritan in the Gospel, have you reached out [to children] with respect and compassion, to welcome, console, and protect [them]. How many spiritual wounds have you healed? For all this, the Church community is grateful to you. We can compare your Association to a home."

Sources

Vatican News

CBS News

Asia News

The lawsuit in the US federal court aims to compel the Vatican to open its archives and "release all the identities of thousands of offenders known exclusively by the Vatican and held in strict secrecy," lawyer Jeff Anderson says.

Anderson says he wants to show that the Vatican tried to cover up actions by top church officials including former Archbishop John Nienstedt and the 3,400 others who were referred to the Vatican for "credible cases of abuse."

That number was released by the Vatican in 2014.

The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit include three brothers who were abused by a former priest as recently as 2012.

The priest pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct and child pornography in connection with his contact with two of the boys, who were 12 and 14. The brothers are not named in the press release.

The lawsuit comes less than a week after Pope Francis issued a new church law requiring all priests and nuns to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities.

The law is part of a new effort to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable and is expected to bring countless new cases of molestation to light.

Victims' groups are dissatisfied, however, because the church law doesn't compel reporting of abuses made in confession nor does it force dioceses to tell authorities when abuses are reported.

The Vatican is struggling to deal with a global epidemic of sexual assault by priests, in particular of minors. Much of the abuse has gone on for decades.

A grand jury investigation into dioceses in Pennsylvania published in 2018 threw light on sexual abuse by "over 300 predator priests" systematically covered up by the Church, with more than 1,000 child victims identifiable.

Source

• ABS CBN News
• AP News
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

Last month the United States government notified the Holy See of "a possible violation of laws relating to child pornography images" by a priest working as a diplomat in Washington.

Despite the US State Department asking the Vatican to lift the man's diplomatic immunity because of its suspicions that he had images of pre-pubescent children, it claims the Vatican denied the request three days later.

Instead, the Vatican immediately recalled the unnamed diplomat to the Holy See and began a criminal inquiry.

Defending its right to keep the name of the diplomat confidential, the Vatican has noted: "as provided by the laws in force applicable to all preliminary inquiries, the investigations carried by the Promoter of Justice are subject to investigative confidentiality."

Pope Francis has often said he has "zero tolerance" for child abuse.

Source

• The Tablet
• Independent
• Image: Kgwn

Bishop Finn was the first Catholic prelate in the United States to be found criminally guilty of shielding a guilty priest in the sex abuse crisis.

Canadian Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa visited Kansas City-St Joseph last week, and spoke with about a dozen people, the National Catholic Reporter stated.

The main question he asked was reportedly "Do you think [Finn] is fit to be a leader?"

One priest who spoke with the archbishop didn't recall the question being quite that "bold".

Archbishop Prendergast was carrying out the visitation on behalf of the Congregation for Bishops.

Bishop Finn, who has led the Kansas City diocese since 2005, has come under sustained criticism.

He was convicted in 2012 of a misdemeanour count of failing to report suspected child abuse in the case of a now-former priest, Fr Shawn Ratigan, who was producing child pornography.

Ratigan, now laicised, received a 50 year jail sentence last year.

In November 2011, Bishop Finn avoided misdemeanour charges by agreeing to give prosecutors immediate oversight of the diocese's sexual abuse reporting procedures.

The Kansas City diocese has also been facing several lawsuits for sexual abuse claims and has made a number of large financial settlements in recent years.

Bishop Finn hiked the payments by parishes to the diocese to cover expenses and the number of Catholics in the diocese has declined by nearly a quarter in 10 years.

The NCR reported that one person who spoke with Archbishop Prendergast didn't think Bishop Finn is fit to be a leader.

"I told the archbishop I thought [Finn] was holy but didn't have the organisational skills for the diocese," the source reportedly said.

A spokesperson for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said that investigations of complicit Church officials should not start with one whose guilt has already been proven.

The headquarters of the NCR are located in Bishop Finn's dioceses and there have been skirmishes between the paper and the bishop over the role of Catholic media.

In 2013, NCR columnist Bill Tammeus published an open letter to Pope Francis calling on Bishop Finn to resign.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Kansas City Star
• LifesiteNews
• Bill Tammeus (NCR)
• Image: CNN

Fr Tim Gardner, a former religious education adviser to the Catholic Education Service (CES), admitted possession of the images when he appeared at Southwark Crown Court.

Of the 5005 images cited, many were graded at level four and five - the most extreme - and one depicted bestiality.

Fr Gardner, a Dominican friar, is understood to have been arrested last August and charged last month.

He taught Philosophy and Religious Education at Maria Fidelis Convent School in Camden, north London, and was Catholic chaplain to the Royal Free Hospital in London.

He was also a governor of Rye St Antony, a girls' school in Oxford.

Fr Gardner will be sentenced on March 31.

Bishop Malcolm McMahon, chairman of the CES and a fellow Dominican, said he was deeply troubled at the offending.

"Our first thoughts and prayers are with those innocent victims who have been the subject of abuse," the bishop said.

Meanwhile, in Germany, the leader of a Catholic workers' lobby group resigned after it was revealed he was being investigated on child pornography possession allegations.

Georg Hupfauer, former head of the 120,000-member Katholischer Arbeiter-Bewegung (KAB), quit on March 5 following press reports he was suspected of possessing child porn.

The KAB, a 165-year-old workers' organisation, which lobbies in Germany and abroad for social justice from a Catholic perspective, said it was reeling from shock and would now be fighting to save its reputation.

Sources:

• The Tablet
• The Local (Germany)
• Image: Ham & High