International
After abuse scandal report, French church in confession row
AFP
A row broke out on Thursday in France between the government and a leader of the Catholic church over whether confessions of child abuse made to priests should be reported to the police.
Following the publication of a report this week that estimated that Catholic clergy had abused 216,000 children since 1950, the government summoned Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort for talks about the role of confession on Thursday.
Moulins-Beaufort had angered victims’ families on Wednesday by saying that priests were not obliged to report sexual abuse if they heard about it during an act of confession, a Catholic ritual used to admit to sins.
“The secrecy of confession is a requirement and will remain a requirement. In a way, it is above the laws of the Republic. It creates a free space for speaking before God,” Moulins-Beaufort, the head of the Bishops’ Conference of France, told Franceinfo.
His words were in line with new Vatican guidelines, released last year on handling clerical child abuse cases, which state that any crime discovered during confession is subject to “the strictest bond of the sacramental seal”.
But in France, victims’ advocates pointed out that French law recognises professional confidentiality for priests, but it does not apply in potentially criminal cases involving violence or sexual assault against minors.
“Nothing is above the laws of the Republic,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Thursday in response.
Moulins-Beaufort has been summoned to appear before Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin early next week “to explain his comments”, the minister’s office said.
President Emmanuel Macron, who has criticised ultra-conservative Muslims in the past for trying to subvert French law, asked Darmanin to hold the meeting, according to Attal.
In a fresh statement on Thursday, Moulins-Beaufort claimed that that confession “had always been respected by the republic”.
– Shame –
The publication on Tuesday of a landmark report on sex abuse in the French Catholic church led Moulins-Beaufort to express his “shame and horror”, while Pope Francis expressed “great pain”.
The investigating commission’s two-and-a-half-year inquiry and 2,500-page report concluded that sex abuse by priests had been a “massive phenomenon” that was covered up by a “veil of silence.”
The report found that the “vast majority” of victims were pre-adolescent boys from a variety of social backgrounds. Their abusers were mainly priests, bishops, deacons and monks.
The commission recommended a series of measures to protect minors from predatory clergy, which included priests informing prosecutors of any child abuse they hear mentioned during an act of confession.
“We need to find another way of doing this,” Moulins-Beaufort told Franceinfo during his interview on Wednesday.
The Catholic Church, which forbids priests from marrying, has been repeatedly rocked by child sex abuse scandals over the last three decades, particularly in Australia, the United States, Ireland and Germany.
Central America
Guatemalan suspect wanted for human smuggling network that transported 20,000 migrants
The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala has called for public assistance on social media to find and capture a Guatemalan man suspected of being involved in a human smuggling ring that transported 20,000 migrants to the United States. This comes as President Donald Trump continues his crackdown on irregular migration.
Helmer Obispo Hernández, who “is believed to be in Guatemala,” is accused of being “part of a people smuggling network,” the embassy stated on social media platform X, providing a link to report “any information about” the man.
Hernández, 41, is a “lieutenant” in the “criminal organization” led by Guatemalan Eduardo Renoj, who was arrested a few days ago in California, according to U.S. authorities.
Renoj is accused of leading “one of the largest human smuggling organizations in the U.S.,” the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles said in a statement on Monday.
Along with Renoj, 49-year-old Cristóbal Mejía, his “alleged right-hand man,” was also arrested.
Migrants smuggled from Guatemala reportedly paid between $15,000 and $18,000 to the ring, the embassy said.
Renoj’s organization is linked to a 2023 traffic accident in Oklahoma that resulted in seven deaths, including a four-year-old child. The driver of the vehicle involved is in custody.
“Identifying and dismantling these organizations makes our borders safer and creates a stronger and more prosperous region,” the U.S. embassy stated.
Guatemalan authorities have not provided any updates on Obispo as of now.
Like much of Central America, Guatemala was part of the route used by thousands of migrants to reach the United States, which has tightened its immigration policies since Trump returned to the presidency in January.
In recent weeks, there has been a reverse trend of migrants heading south through Central America after abandoning their plans to reach the U.S. due to fears of being deported.
International
U.S. and Mexico intensify border security measures amid ongoing migration crisis
On the U.S. side of the border, soldiers are placing barbed wire along the massive border wall, while on the Mexican side, troops have set up a camp on the edge of a mountain. In both cases, the goal is the same: to close off any gaps for irregular migration.
The military presence on this 3,100 km border was strengthened after Donald Trump returned to power, declaring the region a “state of emergency” and pressuring Mexico to deploy an additional 10,000 soldiers.
These efforts seem to be yielding results, according to figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which reported a 65% decrease in migrant interceptions in January compared to the same month in 2024.
“If there were a hundred crossings a day before, now it’s no more than five. Yesterday, there were none,” says a Mexican National Guard officer during a patrol in the impoverished mountainous area of Nido de las Águilas, where the metal fence weaves through much of Tijuana.
The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, attributes these results to the “coordination” between CBP and the Mexican National Guard, including a WhatsApp group where both forces share data, photos, and videos from their operations.
For Mexico, containing migration and the trafficking of fentanyl to the U.S. is crucial—issues Trump uses to justify the 25% tariff on exports from both Mexico and Canada, its partners in the USMCA trade agreement.
However, the offensive against migrants, which includes the deportation of individuals who fled poverty, violence, and authoritarian governments to reach the U.S., was not enough to prevent the tariff from taking effect this week.
Even worse, Trump has declared a “war” on drug cartels, which he labels as “terrorists,” and whose crackdown was intensified by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
International
Prosecutor orders investigation into potential ties between Milei and Libra crypto collapse
Argentine federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano has ordered an investigation into the phone records of individuals implicated in the Libra cryptocurrency scandal, including the country’s president, Javier Milei, to determine if there were any communications between them.
Sources involved in the investigation confirmed to the Argentine newspaper La Nación that Taiano is already analyzing the data to establish whether there were any call exchanges among key figures linked to the launch of the virtual currency. The cryptocurrency saw exponential growth after Milei mentioned it on social media, only to collapse shortly afterward, potentially leading to fraud charges.
To advance the probe, authorities have requested the collaboration of the Directorate of Technical Assistance for Criminal Investigation (Datip), a department within the Prosecutor’s Office, as they previously did with the Specialized Cybercrime Prosecutor’s Unit.
According to the prosecutor, the investigation is focused on potential crimes, including abuse of authority, fraud, influence peddling, and bribery. The judiciary has requested information from Argentina’s Central Bank and companies such as Google in an effort to determine the cryptocurrency’s origin and the role of Milei and five businessmen in its rise and downfall, La Nación reported.
Milei has faced over a hundred legal complaints following his promotion of the cryptocurrency, which later collapsed, causing significant financial losses for investors. Plaintiffs have cited statements from one of Libra’s partners, businessman Hayden Mark Davies, who acknowledged having served as an advisor to Milei and claimed that the president “endorsed and promoted” the project.
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