An apologetic Cardinal George Pell has appeared before a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse and vehemently denied personally covering up offending by priests. “No. Never,” the Sydney cardinal told the inquiry. He said the offending had largely escaped the view of Church officials who didn’t know what a “mess” they were presiding over. Cardinal Read more
Every week or so, Father Ray toted a suitcase past the rectory offices. “Dry cleaning,” he’d say. “Liquor bottles,” feared both the pastor and Mary Catherine Meek, who worked in the suburban Chicago parish. People caught whiffs of alcohol on Father Ray (not his real name) at Mass. He had undergone treatment for alcoholism before Read more
Brother Dennis of the Little Brothers of Mary, as they were originally known, was buried at a cemetery near Melbourne in March, 1992. His two families — the one he grew up with, and the clergy that he made his adult life with — were both present, and separate. The coffin lowered, the mourners were Read more
Pope Francis has directed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to “act decisively” on cases of priestly sex abuse. The Pope discussed the congregation’s responsibilities for at least an hour on April 5 with its prefect, Archbishop Gerhard Muller, but the formal statement following the meeting referred only to dealing with sexual abuse. Read more
Pope Francis joined a prominent Vatican official and seven priests for lunch on Holy Thursday and emphasised the importance of hearing confessions. Archbishop Giovanni Becciu has a longtime custom of inviting priests to join him for lunch on Holy Thursday — a custom that predates his 2011 appointment as deputy secretary of state responsible for Read more
Seminary enrolments in Australia and the United States are rising, in spite of the sex abuse and other scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church in recent years. In Australia, the seminary intake has risen from about 235 a year in 2007 to 350 in 2012. The rector of Holy Spirit Seminary in Queensland, Monsignor Read more
Britain’s senior Catholic clergyman, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has stepped down after three priests and a former priest accused him of inappropriate behaviour towards them in the 1980s. The four, from the cardinal’s archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, complained to apostolic nuncio Archbishop Antonio Mennini days before Pope Benedict’s unexpected resignation. The allegations were then Read more
Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has taken the unusual step of relieving his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, from all public duties for failing to protect children from clergy sex abuse. At the same time, Archbishop Gomez complied with a court order by releasing 12,000 pages of documents containing the personnel files of clergy accused Read more
The increasing number of Christian-Muslim marriages in the United Kingdom has prompted new guidelines for both priests and imams in these inter-faith situations. Launched by the Christian-Muslim Forum, the guidelines are based on the advice of people of both faiths with many years’ experience in working pastorally with mixed-faith couples. They urge ministers of religion Read more
Sixty percent of Pacific islanders have access to a mobile phone. Almost a million are Facebook users. As mobile phone use sweeps through the Pacific it is bringing a revolution of change in its wake. “In PNG in April social media brought together thousands of people for a political protest. Islanders have become more literate, more familiar with market prices Read more