Victims want apologies and answers from former Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson. Wilson (67) has been convicted of concealing paedophile priest Jim Fletcher’s abusive behaviour in the 1970s. As Wilson was leaving the Newcastle Local Court after being sentenced on Tuesday, a group of victims was waiting for him. Peter Gogarty, who was one of Fletcher’s Read more
Lucetta Scaraffia, who edits the Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano women’s supplement, has published an editorial defending the media’s role in unlocking the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. Scaraffia says the “implacable and pitiless” nature of the coverage is “born from disappointment.” In her view, in societies affected by the sexual revolution, this disappointment Read more
A senior executive of the Catholic Super Fund (CSF) has fallen foul of the Australian Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. The Royal Commission, which was established last December, heard Robert Clancy had taken five years to admit he had a family relationship with the principles of Australian Family Read more
The Catholic Church is now ‘ruled by an individual rather than by… its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture’, according to Fr Thomas Rosica, a Vatican consultant who leads Canadian Catholic media organization Salt and Light television. Rosica says the Church is now “openly ruled by an individual [Pope Francis, who rules by his own Read more
Two monks have been arrested and charged with a bishop’s murder. Bishop Epiphanius, 64, the Coptic abbot of an Egyptian monastery about 100 kilometres from Cairo, was found dead at the end of last month. Police say Epiphanius had been struck with a sharp instrument which had left him with fractures in the back of Read more
A Pennsylvania report a grand jury issued this week shows the Church hid allegations of sex abuse of minors and brushed victims aside. More than 300 priests were linked to abuse claims and over 1,000 victims were identified, said Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro in a news conference following the report’s release. Read more
Almost a million euros has been seized from a French congregation. Prosecutors in France have charged the legal body managing the Missionary Workers of the Immaculate congregation with underpaying employees and has ordered 950,000 euros to be seized from its bank accounts. Read more
A ruling legalising gay marriage by the Constitutional Chamber of Costa Rica’s Supreme Court has upset the country’s Catholic bishops. “In a democratic and pluralistic society like ours, legal recognition can be given to persons of the same sex that live together,” the bishops said. However, they continued, it would be “unjust if such recognition Read more
Eradicating all religions apart from “open” state-sanctioned ones is part of an “ambitious new effort” in China, according to a recent Associated Press (AP) investigation. AP found churches in China being shut down, Bibles being seized and restrictions being placed on a number of religions. Crescents have been removed from mosques. Tibetan children have been Read more
An Australian medical ethicist has called on the Senate to reject a bill clearing the way to legalise voluntary assisted dying across Australia. University of Notre Dame bioethics Professor Margaret Somerville says international experience demonstrates euthanasia is being used as a cheaper alternative to psychiatric and palliative care. In a paper published in the Journal Read more