Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia recently released pastoral guidelines in the wake of Pope Francis's post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

In the guidelines, one of the topics addressed was divorced and civilly remarried Catholics living as brother and sister, without having sexual intercourse.

"Undertaking to live as brother and sister is necessary for the divorced and civilly remarried to receive reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance, which could then open the way to the Eucharist," the new guidelines read.

The guidelines also emphasised the parts of Francis's document that essentially told clergy not to give up on people whose lives don't adhere strictly to Catholic teaching.

Philadelphia's mayor Jim Kenny reacted negatively to aspects of the guidelines.

The mayor tweeted: "Jesus gave us gift of Holy Communion because he so loved us. All of us. Chaput's actions are not Christian."

The Catholic League's Bill Donohue said the tweet was an abuse of the mayor's office.

Veteran Vatican journalist John Allen predicted that approaches on to how to put Amoris Laetitia into practice will take two paths.

"My suspicion is that those who are inclined to a more progressive reading [of Amoris Laetitia] are not going to put out documents to say so.

"It will quietly be made clear to priests that it is OK under certain circumstances, for example, to allow some people to quietly come back to Communion," Allen said.

"My suspicion is that the more traditional line [adopted by some bishops] will be more public."

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• The Guardian
• Washington Post
• Philadelphia guidelines
• Image: Philly Voice

At a Mass at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on September 27, the Pope expanded on readings of the day in which Jesus and Moses chided their followers for narrowness.

"To raise doubts about the working of the Spirit, to give the impression that it cannot take place in those who are not ‘part of our group', who are not ‘like us', is a dangerous temptation," Pope Francis said.

"Not only does it block conversion to the faith; it is a perversion of faith!"

Francis warned against being "scandalised by the freedom of God, who sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike, bypassing bureaucracy, officialdom and inner circles".

Rather, "faith opens a ‘window' to the presence and working of the Spirit", the Pope said.

Francis urged families to show love by attention to small daily signs "which make us feel at home".

Earlier in the day, Francis warned about 300 bishops against an unbalanced Christianity.

"A Christianity which ‘does' little in practice, while incessantly ‘explaining' its teachings, is dangerously unbalanced. I would even say that it is stuck in a vicious circle," he said.

"A pastor must show that the ‘Gospel of the family' is truly ‘good news' in a world where self-concern seems to reign supreme!"

The bishops were in Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families.

The Pope called on bishops to move away from stale denunciations about the state of the world, and instead engage with young people.

"We need to invest our energies not so much in rehearsing the problems of the world around us and the merits of Christianity, but in extending a sincere invitation to young people to be brave and to opt for marriage and the family," Francis said.

On leaving the US, the Pope singled out the canonisation of St Junipero Serra and prayers for peace at Ground Zero in New York as occasions which had particularly moved him.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Crux Now
• ABC
• Full text of Pope's homily at Philadelphia
• Full text of Pope's address to bishops at World Meeting of Families
• Image: Reuters

The US-based Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) is hosting the Women's Ordination Worldwide meeting from September 18-20.

The gathering will assess the place of women in church and society and develop plans to advance their Gospel-based justice agendas.

WOC co-executive director Kate McElwee told the National Catholic Reporter she hopes the meeting will help "mainstream the conversation" of women's ordination by claiming it as a justice issue.

The conference theme is "Gender, Gospel, and Global Justice".

Delegates will also assess advances and setbacks within the movement since the 1970s.

Among the speakers will be veteran Catholic feminists Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Mary Hunt, Mercy Sr Theresa Kane and Loretto Sr Maureen Fiedler.

Also among those speaking will be British theologian Tina Beattie and Australian historian Paul Collins.

Delegates are expected to come from 17 nations in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Sr Fiedler (who blogs for the National Catholic Reporter) has also been an ordination advocate since 1975.

Asked what she thinks might come out of the Philadelphia gathering, she replied: "I think the people who organised this conference hope it will light a fire under Francis, that it might send out a signal to him that this is an issue that needs to be addressed."

She added that Francis "is too intelligent to simply disregard what's going on around him".

Catholic feminists say they find no theological substance in teachings that exclude women from the priesthood.

But Pope Francis, who has pushed for change on many fronts, has dismissed the possibility of women's ordination.

"The Church has spoken; that door is closed," he has said.

In 1994, St John Paul II issued Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, in which he wrote the Church "has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women".

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Imagine the Kingdom

Msgr William Lynn is serving a minimum three year sentence for endangering children in Philadelphia archdiocese.

He had been held at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Center, while he appealed his 2012 conviction.

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit inmates at this prison in September.

But now Msgr Lynn is back at a state prison near Scranton.

Appeals courts have been split on whether he should have been convicted under a child-endangerment law and he has been in and out of prison.

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John Romeri resigned as head of liturgical music for Philadelphia archdiocese, effective on June 30.

It was a role Dr Romeri held for five years.

It is unclear what role he will have in preparations for an outdoor Mass to be celebrated by Pope Francis in Philadelphia in late September.

The Mass at the Ben Franklin Parkway is expected to draw more than 1 million people.

Concerning his resignation, Dr Romeri said "there are simply irreconcilable differences" with Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput over the role and style of music at Mass generally.

Dr Romeri indicated that he and the archbishop had clashed almost from the time the archbishop was appointed to Philadelphia in 2011.

The music specialist wrote that these "several years of discontent" on Archbishop Chaput's part culminated with the music Dr Romeri arranged this April for Holy Week and Easter.

The approach, he said, "was not well received by the archbishop".

A spokesman for Archbishop Chaput said he could not comment on personnel matters and "there are no additional updates".

But he said that the archdiocese "will be prepared for the visit of the Holy Father on all fronts, including music for the Mass on the Parkway".

Dr Romeri is said to have more of a "high church" sensibility in liturgy than Archbishop Chaput.

In 2010, Archbishop Chaput said he was grateful to Pope Benedict XVI for allowing a wider use of the extraordinary form of the Mass, " . . . because we need access to all of the Church's heritage of prayer and faith".

But Archbishop Chaput stated that he personally found the Novus Ordo form, "properly celebrated, a much richer expression of worship".

Dr Romeri will continue as music director for Philadelphia's Cathedral Basilica of Sts Peter and Paul throughout the US summer.

The resignation has sparked online debate among Catholic liturgists.

Sources

• Religion News Service
• First Things
• Image: Stltoday.com

City prosecutors had charged Lynn with felony child endangerment, but the state Superior Court ruled that the law that existed at the time did not cover people who did not directly supervise children.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams this week said he would appeal the ruling.

Williams criticised the archdiocese for helping Lynn post his $250,000 bail.

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests also criticised Chaput.

"Here's the message Chaput sends ... by bailing out Lynn: 'No matter how egregiously you misbehave and how many kids you endanger, we in the church hierarchy will continue to support you even if you're found guilty at trial,'" Clohessy said.

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput defended his postion.

In a letter to clergy and parishioners Chaput said that helping Lynn come up with $25,000 to post 10 percent of his bail was "both reasonable and just."

Chaput described the appeals court decision as a matter of legal substance rather than technicalities.

Lynn "presents no danger to anyone," the archbishop wrote.

"He poses no flight risk. The funding for his bail has been taken from no parish, school or ministry resources, impacts no ongoing work of the church and will be returned when the terms of bail are completed. Nor does it diminish in any way our determination to root out the possibility of sexual abuse from the life of our local church."

Lynn remains on administrative leave and may not function in public as a priest.

Lynn recently won an appeal of his landmark conviction in the priest-abuse scandal was released from custody Friday after being fitted with an electronic monitoring device.

Lynn is the first U.S. church official to have been charged for hiding complaints that priests were molesting children.

He has spent the last 18 months in prison.

Source

• U-T San Diego

Pro-life groups decided to use social media as a platform for people to voice their frustrations over the mainstream media's decision not to cover the trial.

Abortionist Kermit Gosnell, 72, faces seven counts of first-degree murder for allegedly killing babies who were born alive, and one count of third-degree murder for the death of Karnamaya Monger, a 41-year-old refugee who died from a Demerol overdose.

According to the prosecution, before the death of Monger, Gosnell had performed more than 200 illegal late-term abortions.

Gosnell's employees testified that he would order them to cut the babies' spines or behead the babies to "ensure fetal demise" if he didn't do it himself.

The murder trial began in Philadelphia in March, but until the social media campaign began there had been no mentions of it on NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, or PBS Newshour. CNN and National Public Radio had each mentioned it once.

Pro-life advocates Bryan Kemper, youth director of Priests for Life, and Andy Moore of AbortionWiki, came up with the idea of using the Twitter hashtag #Gosnell trending on social media by asking participants to post details about the Gosnell trial to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, and contact the media to ask them why they were not covering the case.

"We ramped up the efforts … and it seemed to take off like wildfire as major pro-life organisations started promoting it also," said Kemper. "It was truly a show of unity in the pro-life movement."

A Tweet by actress Patricia Heaton about the murder trial was retweeted by 5495 followers.

As a result of the TweetFest, the executive editor of the Washington Post, Martin Baron, said: "We believe the story is deserving of coverage by our own staff, and we intend to send a reporter for the resumption of the trial next week. In retrospect, we should have sent a reporter sooner."

Sources:

Christian Post

USA Today

Image: Philly Post

The first independently managed Catholic school system in the United States will be run by the Faith in the Future Foundation, created by concerned Catholics in conjunction with the archdiocese last February following an outpouring of support for four high schools targeted for closure.

The foundation's original mission was to strengthen local Catholic secondary schools through fundraising and marketing. Now it will take over the management of 17 secondary and four special education schools, with a total enrolment of 15,000 students and an annual budget of $NZ158 million.

Catholic parishes will continue to operate 123 elementary schools.

The foundation is headed by H. Edward Hanway, a former chief executive officer of the CIGNA insurance company, who said the move "clearly establishes the role of the laity here to bring significant expertise and capabilities".

"While this decision reflects a paradigm shift, it serves to change the organisational structure for Catholic education, not its mission," said Archbishop Charles Chaput, who will choose a third of the foundation's executive board.

The archdiocesan education office, which formerly ran the high schools, will continue to provide religious and academic curricula but will now report to the foundation's CEO.

Turning over the high schools to an independent foundation comes after a tumultuous year for the archdiocese. A high-profile child sex abuse scandal cost an estimated $NZ13.5 million and properties had to be sold to head off a $NZ7.5 million budget deficit.

Philadelphia's Catholic schools have seen a 72 per cent decrease in enrollment since 1961. The drop has been blamed on smaller family size, increasing tuition costs and alternative forms of education such as charter schools.

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

Associated Press

Image: CatholicPhilly.com

Monsignor Lynn, the archdiocese of Philadelphia's secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, was found guilty of endangering a child. The charge stemmed from his handling of Edward Avery, a now-laicized priest jailed for abusing an altar boy during the 1990s.

Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said she believed Monsignor Lynn initially hoped to address the sex abuse problem and perhaps drafted a 1994 list of accused priests for that reason. But when his bishop, the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, instead had the list destroyed, the monsignor chose to remain in his job and obey his bishop — by keeping quiet — as children suffered.

"You knew full well what was right, Monsignor Lynn, but you chose wrong," the judge said.

A copy of the list was retained and forgotten in a locked safe at the archdiocesan pastoral centre.

Prosecutors spent a decade investigating sex abuse complaints kept in secret files at the archdiocese. They issued two damning grand jury reports arguing that Monsignor Lynn and unindicted co-conspirators in the Church administration kept children in danger and the public in the dark.

"He locked away in a vault the names of pedophile priests. He locked in a vault the names of men that he knew had abused children. He now will be locked away for a fraction of the time he kept that secret vault," said District Attorney Seth Williams.

Monsignor Lynn, 61, said: "I did not intend any harm to come to [Avery's victim]. The fact is, my best was not good enough to stop that harm. I am a parish priest. I should have stayed [one]."

His defence lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, called the sentence "grossly unfair" and "unbelievable".

"He's being punished for things he did properly: He met with victims, he met with accused priests, he documented everything, he sent it up to the cardinal," Bergstrom added.

Sources:

Catholic News Service

Christian Science Monitor

Image: Clerical Whispers

A jury found Monsignor William J. Lynn, the former archdiocesan secretary for clergy under Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, guilty on a charge of child endangerment.

He was acquitted on two other charges, including one of conspiracy. Another conspiracy charge was dropped during the trial.

Monsignor Lynn is the highest-ranking United States Church official to be charged with crimes relating to clergy sexual abuse.

The 61-year-old priest, who was not accused of abuse himself, faces up to seven years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 13.

The jury found that, as the archdiocese's chief investigator of clergy misconduct, Monsignor Lynn ignored credible warning signs about a priest who later sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy.

The prosecution argued that his response to claims of abuse against over 20 priests showed he focused on protecting the Church instead of children. They said he lied to some victims and did not seek out others.

The prosecutors also said he suggested to some sexually abusive priests that they may have been seduced by their accusers.

Monsignor Lynn said that prosecutors misconstrued his words and memos. He said medical experts had advised him not to seek out other possible victims because the victims might not want to discuss the abuse.

The verdict in the Philadelphia abuse case followed years of investigation and a trial that put a spotlight on thousands of confidential Church records and decades of complaints of child-sex abuse by priests in the region.

Many files were locked away in the archdiocese's secret archives, cataloguing decades of misconduct allegations against priests.

Sources:

• CNA
• CNS
• Philadelphia Inquirer
• Image: Ppnnfe.com

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports jurors sent a note to Judge M. Teresa Sarmina shortly before noon, Wednesday, saying the panel of seven men and five women had reached "a hung jury status" for four of the five charges in the case.

They did not identify the charge on which they agreed.

Judge Sarmina asked them to keep trying.

"If indeed you don't reach a verdict, the case may have to be tried all over again," the judge said.

Immediately after the jury left the courtroom, a lawyer for one defendant, Father James Brennan, asked the judge to declare a mistrial. Judge Sarmina rejected the motion. Defense lawyers have complained throughout the proceedings that the judge has shown her hostility toward the defendants.

While the jurors continued deliberating for the rest of the afternoon, they were still not able to reach a decision, so Sarmina sent them home, asking them to return on Friday 13.

Monsignor Lynn, 61, as secretary of the clergy for the Philadelphia Archdiocese from 1992 to 2004, was responsible for priests' assignments and for investigating abuse allegations. He is on trial for endangering minors and conspiracy to keep an accused priest in active ministry, charges that could carry a sentence of 10 ½ to 21 years.

He is the first Catholic Church official in the country to face criminal charges not for committing abuses himself, but for enabling abuses by playing down credible accusations and reassigning suspect priests to new parishes.

Fr James Brennan is charged with trying to rape a 14 year-old boy.

Sources

• Philadelphia Inquirer
• CathNews
• Image:

But a defense lawyer for the official, Msgr. William J. Lynn, told the jury that Monsignor Lynn had done all he could to protect children within his limited powers and that he deserved praise rather than condemnation.

Monsignor Lynn, 61, as secretary of the clergy for the Philadelphia Archdiocese from 1992 to 2004, was responsible for priests' assignments and for investigating abuse allegations. He is on trial for endangering minors and conspiracy to keep an accused priest in active ministry, charges that could carry a sentence of 10 ½ to 21 years.

He is the first Catholic Church official in the country to face criminal charges not for committing abuses himself, but for enabling abuses by playing down credible accusations and reassigning suspect priests to new parishes. Continue reading

The priests, uncomfortably, are prosecution witnesses in the trial of a longtime supervisor in the Philadelphia archdiocese, Monsignor William Lynn. The former secretary for clergy is charged with endangering children by allegedly helping the church cover up abuse complaints.

The lawyers contend that the real criminals are Bevilacqua and his advisors, and they are either dead or have not been charged in conjunction with this case.

Lynn, who's accused of keeping predator priests in ministry and transferring them from parish to parish, wants his child endangerment case dismissed because of new evidence turned over by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, including his list of 35 accused priests.

Lynn took it upon himself to review secret church files after becoming secretary for clergy in 1992, and he later gave a list of accused, still-active priests to his superior, Monsignor James E. Molloy.

Bevilacqua had Molloy shred four copies of the predator priest list, according to a memo signed by Molloy and a witness. But Molloy kept a copy in a locked safe at the archdiocese, where it was found in 2006, after Lynn had moved on, according to his motion.

"It is clear from the Molloy memo, and (its) belated production, that Monsignor Lynn has been `hung out to dry,'" the defense motion says.

"Unbeknownst to anyone else and in violation of the cardinal's directive, Monsignor Molloy preserved a copy of this list in a different place - a safe to which no one else had a combination," the court documents said.

"The manner in which this memo was discovered is as shocking as its contents," the court filing said.

"As this newfound memorandum proves, the District Attorney's Office is entirely correct in its belief and assertion that an overarching Archdiocesan conspiracy existed in Philadelphia in the 1990s," said the court documents filed by Lynn's lawyers, who are paid by the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

"Its participants were Cardinal Bevilacqua, Bishop Cullen, Bishop Cistone and Monsignor Molloy," the court papers said. "Appallingly, none of these individuals is on trial."

Bevilacqua, who was to have been a witness at the trial, died on 31 January after suffering from dementia and cancer.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Reuters
• The Seattle Times
• Phiadelphia Inquirer
• Image: Bilgrimage blog

Writing in Commonweal, a lay Catholic magazine, Catanzaro wrote the Philadelphia cardinal "failed miserably at being open and transparent."

"What will it take for bishops to accept that their attitude of superiority and privilege only harms their image and the church's?" Catanzaro asked.

A grand jury recently criticized the panel and church officials for leaving dozens of problem priests in ministry. However, Catanzaro said the archdiocese prescreened the cases the lay board reviews and so it never saw most of them.

At one point, Cardinal Rigali denied there was a single priest still working in the archdiocese with "an admitted or established accusation of sexual abuse of a minor against them."

He later suspended about 24 priests.

"She should feel very, very used," said Nicholas Cafardi, a Duquesne University law professor who once served as counsel to the Pittsburgh archdiocese. "They're being asked to give credibility to a process that is supposed to involve them but didn't."

The archdiocese said its review of abuse complaints against priests continues to evolve. The church has hired a second former city prosecutor, Albert Toczydlowski, to ensure that complaints are thoroughly investigated and sent to the review board in a timely fashion, the archdiocese said.

"The observations of Dr. Catanzaro and other review board members are critical to implementing the best possible methods," the church said in a statement.

Catanzaro has spent eight years on the review board, which makes recommendations to Rigali on whether priests should remain in ministry. She faulted church officials for focusing on lawsuits and liability concerns instead of ridding the church of pedophiles.

Catanzaro also complained that the panel is told to weigh church, or canon, law on the subject of sexual abuse, not civil law, leading to what she called heated arguments between panel members and three canon lawyers who assist the panel.

"We should expect better from the church and from our bishops. Although concerns about liability can be legitimate, addressing the abuse scandal from a legalistic perspective focused on protecting the archdiocese from liability is simply wrong," she wrote.

Source

• Associated Press
• Image: Bishop Accountability

If found guilty, former secretary for the clergy, Monsignor William Lynn faces a possible 28 years in prison.

On Friday, Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes said that last month's Grand Jury report demonstrated probable cause, even on newly added conspiracy charges.

Dismissing arguments by defense attorneys, Cardwell Hughes told Lynn and his four co-defendants they would proceed directly to trial in the priest pedophilia case.

Despite a possible strategy conflict, the archdiocese will continue to pay Lynn's legal bill, at least for the meantime.

"Their interests may not align with yours," Judge Cardwell Hughes told Lynn. "It may be in your best interest to attack certain people," the Judge warned.

Lynn was Secretary for Clergy between 1992 to 2004 under former Cardinal, Anthony Belilacqua. The Grand Jury report severely criticised Belilacqua and his successor, Carding Justin Rigali for the way they handled the priest-abuse complaints.

There was however not sufficient evidence to charge them with any crimes.

Sources

• USA Today
• Reuters