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The Catholic Church in Scotland has come in for further criticism of its child protection procedures, with a former consultant revealing that the Church has been unable to produce the annual audits of abuse claims that it promised in 1996. The former child protection consultant, Alan Draper, who worked for the Motherwell diocese for seven Read more
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The Catholic Church in Scotland has failed to provide “compassionate and pastoral” support on issues of sexuality, the head of its media office has said. In a Radio Scotland interview, Peter Kearney said: “If there’s an area where the Church hasn’t been seen — frankly because it’s not present — it’s in that area of Read more
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The awful record of the institutional Catholic church’s leadership in dealing with the scandal of clerical sex abuse of minors has clearly, and rightly, been a trigger for the federal government’s Royal Commission into sexual abuse of children in Australia. This is a record that has already prompted other inquiries here and overseas. It would indeed be Read more
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Colorado’s Catholic bishops have hastened to uphold the rights of the unborn after a Catholic hospital in the state won a wrongful-death lawsuit by arguing that an unborn child is not a person. The case was brought by Jeremy Stodghill, whose 31-year-old wife Lori and her unborn twins all died in 2006 at a hospital Read more
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The bishops of the Church of England have declared they are determined to enable women to be ordained bishops. Following a meeting to consider the rejection of women bishops at the recent general synod, they “acknowledged the profound and widespread sense of anger, grief and disappointment felt by so many” and expressed their commitment to Read more
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How ironic that as the Church of England was voting against women bishops, I was trying to buy Divine Women; a series for television by historian Brittany Hughes who dares to consider when God was a girl. Whilst some must have been celebrating at the result, others were distraught. ‘I’m ashamed to be part of the Read more
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Australia’s Catholic bishops have decided to set up a special council — including bishops, religious and lay people — to work with the forthcoming royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse. At the end of their twice-yearly conference in Sydney, the bishops said they had formed a supervisory group of representatives from the Read more
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Pope Benedict XVI has asked bishops to take greater steps to ensure that Catholic charities operating in their dioceses adhere to Catholic teaching and retain their Catholic identity. The Pope said it is the duty of diocesan bishops and parish priests to see that the faithful “are not led into error of misunderstanding” through charitable Read more
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While protesters in Ireland and India rally against the Irish abortion law following the death of a Hindu woman who was refused an abortion, Ireland’s Catholic bishops have affirmed that the Catholic Church “has never taught that the life of a child in the womb should be preferred to that of a mother”. The protests Read more
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Cardinal George Pell of Sydney says priests should refuse to hear confessions from suspected child abusers to ensure they were not then bound by the confidentiality of the confessional. “If the priest knows beforehand about such a situation, the priest should refuse to hear the confession, that would be my advice. I would never hear Read more
