I read … “I am amazed how often I meet people who ‘once were Catholics’. You never ask why they left the church. There will be umpteen reasons why just as there are umpteen people. But millions have remained true to their Catholic faith.” Merepeka Raukawa-Tait in The Daily Post, March 19, 2013 I wondered Read more
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
The Catholic Church in Ireland has been told it must divert itself of 23 primary schools across the country following a survey of parental preferences for more plurality and choice. The bishops in the 23 areas have been given six months to provide detailed proposals on how they plan to divest a school of their Read more
The Catholic Church in Australia has declared it wants the truth exposed before the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, and has pledged it will pay appropriate compensation to victims. The chief executive of the Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council — which will represent the Church at the royal commission — Read more
I soooooooo don’t get it. John Main says, “Language may not be able to lead us into the ultimate communion but it is the atmosphere in which we first draw breath of consciousness.” I have spent more than fifty years acquiring language – a spiritual language, that is, not my native tongue – and suddenly Read more
René Brülhart, 40, has been the director of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority (FIA) for nearly half a year. The Swiss lawyer and former head of Liechtenstein’s financial intelligence unit is on a mission to clear the Vatican Bank of all suspicions of money laundering and other illegal financial transactions. SPIEGEL: Mr. Brülhart, are you partly Read more
Much has been made of the impressions Pope Francis has created by his ordinary, every day activities: catching buses, using a telephone to make his own calls, not dressing in all the fine drapery usually worn by popes, treating people respectfully as he did the journalists, celebrating the Holy Thursday Mass in a Roman prison. Read more
When atheist magician Penn Jillette got into an argument over the Catholic Church with Catholic TV host Piers Morgan, Jillette ended up defending the pope and the Church against Morgan’s criticisms. Jillette, part of the Penn & Teller illusionist team, is the author of Every Day is an Atheist Holiday and God, No! Morgan, former Read more
Hugo Chavez, the socialist president who transformed Venezuela while oppressing Catholic institutions in the 96 per cent Catholic country, reportedly died in “the bosom of the Church” on March 5. The Catholic News Agency said Chavez received spiritual direction and the sacraments in his last days, and Vice President Nicolas Maduro said he died “clinging Read more
Comparing clerical celibacy to torture, a British peer has voiced a public defence of disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien and criticised the Catholic Church for not allowing him to have a sex life. Cardinal O’Brien resigned as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh after the public release of accusations that he had made homosexual advances on Read more