Pope Bashing?

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Pope canonizes first Australian saint, 5 others

Some good copy for a change;

Pope canonizes first Australian saint, 5 others
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Australia's first saint on Sunday, canonizing a 19th-century nun and also declaring five other saints in an open-air Mass attended by tens of thousands.

Chants of "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!" echoed throughout St. Peter's Square as a raucous crowd of flag-and-balloon-carrying Australians used a traditional sports cheer to celebrate the honor bestowed on their late native, Mary MacKillop. In Sydney, huge images of the nun were projected onto the sandstone pylons of the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Speaking in Latin on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica, Benedict solemnly read out the names of each of the six new saints, declaring each one worthy of veneration in all the Catholic Church. Among them was Brother Andre Bessette, a Canadian brother known as a "miracle worker" and revered by millions of Canadians and Americans for healing thousands of sick who came to him.

"Let us be drawn by these shining examples, let us be guided by their teachings," Benedict said in his homily, delivered in English, French, Italian, Polish and Spanish to reflect the languages spoken by the church's newest saints.

A cheer had broken out in the crowd when MacKillop's name was announced earlier in the Mass, evidence of the significant turnout of Australians celebrating the humble nun who was excommunicated for a few months in part because her religious order exposed a pedophile priest.

Even more MacKillop admirers — an estimated 10,000 — converged Sunday at the Sydney chapel where she is buried and at Sydney's Catholic cathedral, where a wooden cross made from floorboards taken from the first school that MacKillop established was placed on the steps.

Thousands of other Australians spent Sunday evening watching live broadcasts of the Vatican ceremony on television at home or on large outdoor screens in Sydney, in Melbourne where she was born, as well as in Penola, where MacKillop established her first school.

Born in 1842, MacKillop grew up in poverty as the first of eight children of Scottish immigrants. She moved to the sleepy farming town of Penola in southern Australia to become a teacher, inviting the poor and local Aborigines to attend free classes in a six-room stable.

She co-founded her order, the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, with the goal of serving the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged, particularly through education.

"She supported Aboriginal people because she believed in supporting people who were disadvantaged," said Melissa Brickell, a pilgrim from Melbourne who was in St. Peter's Square for the ceremony. "She is a friend of Aboriginal people from the early days."

As a young nun in 1871, MacKillop and 47 other nuns from her order were briefly dismissed from the Roman Catholic Church in a clash with high clergy. In addition to bitter rivalries among priests, one of the catalysts for the move was that her order had exposed a pedophile priest.

Five months later, the bishop revoked his ruling from his deathbed, restoring MacKillop to her order and paving the way for her decades of work educating the poor across Australia and New Zealand.

In his homily, Benedict praised MacKillop for her "courageous and saintly example of zeal, perseverance and prayer."

"She dedicated herself as a young woman to the education of the poor in the difficult and demanding terrain of rural Australia, inspiring other women to join her in the first women's community of religious sisters of that country," Benedict said in English.

MacKillop became eligible for sainthood after the Vatican approved a second miracle attributed to her intercession, that of Kathleen Evans, who was cured of lung and brain cancer in 1993.

In a statement Sunday, Evans said she was humbled by MacKillop's example, grateful for her healing and overjoyed that MacKillop will now be more widely known.

"I think she would be delighted to see so many people looking at their own lives and considering how they can live better and care more," said Evans, who brought relics of MacKillop up to the altar during the canonization Mass.

Veronica Hopson, 72, was MacKillop's first miracle, cured of leukemia in 1961. She broke half a century of silence about her case, telling Australia's Channel Seven's Sunday Night program: "How does a miracle feel? I feel very fortunate that I was given the opportunity to live my life, have a family, have grandchildren, so that's a miracle."

Hopson was 22 when she was diagnosed with leukemia and given only weeks to live. She said her mother contacted nuns at Saint Joseph's convent in northern Sydney where Hopson was taught as a schoolgirl and where MacKillop once lived. The nuns brought cloth that MacKillop had worn and prayed for Hopson.

Hopson, who went on to have six children and four grandchildren, is recovering from recent bowel cancer. She said her miracle also carried a message for people who did not believe in God.

"I guess they must have some sort of hope, not just give in and just let the illness or sad things that happen in their life take over their life. Just keep hoping that it will get better," she said.

Quebec's blue-and-white, fleur-de-lis flag was also out in force in St. Peter's Square in support of Brother Andre, a Canadian who legend says healed thousands of sick who prayed with him at his Montreal oratory.

Born in 1845, Brother Andre was orphaned at the age of 12. After taking his religious vows, he devoted his life to helping others and gained a reputation as a healer. When he died in 1937 at the age of 91, an estimated 1 million people came to pay homage.

"I think all the people from Quebec are happy now," said Alain Pilote, a 49-year-old pilgrim from Rougemont, near Montreal, who came to Rome for the Mass.

Benedict noted that Brother Andre was poorly educated but nevertheless understood what was essential to his faith.

"Doorman at the Notre Dame College in Montreal, he showed boundless charity and did everything possible to soothe the despair of those who confided in him," Benedict said in French.

Francoise Bessette, whose grandfather was Brother Andre's first cousin, was among the Canadians in attendance Sunday at St. Peter's.

"I didn't think this would happen while I was alive," said Bessette, whose brother Andre was named after the saint. "So to be here today is very special for me."

Australia's foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, was in Rome for the canonization, as was Canada's foreign minister, Lawrence Cannon. The Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski, joined thousands of Polish pilgrims to honor that country's latest saint, Stanislaw Kazimiercyzk Soltys.

Also canonized Sunday were Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla da Varano, and Spanish nun Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola.

 

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Prosecutors: Vatican bank defying laundering laws

Prosecutors: Vatican bank defying laundering laws
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON and ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writers

ROME – Italian prosecutors contest claims by the Vatican bank that it is trying to comply with international rules to fight money laundering, saying an investigation that led to the seizure of euro23 million ($30 million) from a Vatican bank account shows "exactly the opposite," according to a court document obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

An Italian court on Wednesday rejected a Vatican request to lift the seizure, leading the Vatican to express "astonishment" at the court's ruling and indicating the case will not be cleared up quickly, as the Vatican originally predicted.

Since the money was ordered seized last month, the Vatican and the bank's chairman, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, have repeatedly said the allegations resulted from a "misunderstanding" and that the Vatican bank — officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion — has been working to comply with international rules to fight money-laundering.

The strongly worded document from the prosecutors' office said that while there is a "generic and stated will" to conform by the bank "there is no sign that the institutions of the Catholic church are moving in that direction."

It said the prosecutor's investigation had found "exactly the opposite."

The document was submitted to the court as part of the prosecutors' case against the bank.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a new statement Friday evening, saying Vatican bank officials "confirm their intent to follow the line of transparency" in all financial transactions and are confident in being able to provide as soon as possible all clarifications requested.

Under the investigation, financial police seized the money Sept. 21 from a Vatican bank account at the Rome branch of Credito Artigiano Spa, after the bank informed the Bank of Italy about possible violations of anti-money laundering norms. The bulk of the money, euro20 million ($26 million), was destined for JP Morgan in Frankfurt, with the remainder going to Banca del Fucino.

The prosecutors' document suggests confirmation of Italian press reports that the probe was widening, looking into possible violations in earlier years linked to Italian corruption, in addition to the two most recent cases.

The document cites suspicious transactions involving checks drawn from a Vatican bank account at Unicredit bank in 2009, involving the use of a false name.

The prosecutors also cited a euro650,000 withdrawal from a Vatican bank account at Intesa San Paolo bank where the Vatican didn't specify the money's ultimate destination despite a specific request by the Italian bank.

The prosecutors called this "a deliberate failure to observe the anti-laundering laws with the aim of hiding the ownership, destination and origin of the capital." The Italian banks have declined comment.

The Vatican bank is required to provide such information because it is considered by Italy to be a foreign bank.

Gotti and his No. 2, Paolo Cipriani, have been placed under investigation by Italian authorities. They were questioned by Rome prosecutors on Sept. 30. They have not been charged with any crime.

Italian legal experts have said the case could end up being decided by Italy's highest court.

It is not the first time the bank has clashed with Italian authorities. The Vatican bank was famously implicated in a scandal over the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in the 1980s in one of Italy's largest fraud cases.

Roberto Calvi, the head of Banco Ambrosiano, was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 in circumstances that still remain mysterious.

London investigators first ruled that Calvi committed suicide, but his family pressed for further investigation. Eventually murder charges were filed against five defendants, including a major Mafia figure, and they were tried in Rome and acquitted in 2007.

Banco Ambrosiano collapsed following the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans the bank had made to several dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans.

While denying any wrongdoing, the Vatican bank agreed to pay $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors.

The late Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, an American prelate who headed the Vatican bank at the time, was charged as an accessory to fraudulent bankruptcy in the scandal, but Italy's Constitutional Court eventually backed the Vatican in ruling that under Vatican-Italian treaties Marcinkus had immunity from Italian prosecution. Marcinkus long asserted his innocence and died in 2006.

___

Reporter Martino Villosio in Rome contributed to this report.

 

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Police block sex abuse survivors near Vatican

Police block sex abuse survivors near Vatican
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME – Italian paramilitary police blocked a boulevard leading to the Vatican to prevent a march Sunday by some 100 survivors of clergy sex abuse from reaching St. Peter's Square but later allowed two protesters to approach Vatican soil they could leave letters from the abused at the Holy See's doorstep.

The pair, including one of the organizers, Gary Bergeron of Boston, were escorted by police as they carried thick, lit candles to the edge of the square. Then, after the two were told to put out the candles, Vatican security guards accompanied them to the foot of the staircase leading to the Apostolic Palace's bronze entrance doors.

There, according to Bergeron's account, the two deposited the sealed letters at the foot of the stairs, and after their passports were examined they were accompanied to the obelisk in the middle of the square. There they were allowed to leave a dozen stones, to indicate a symbolic path marker so other survivors might know they have company in their suffering.

Bergeron then went into a meeting with Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi, who earlier had beaten a hasty retreat to his office when a protester shouted "Shame, shame" in Italian.

The event, which aims to show survivors worldwide they are not alone — was organized by Bergeron and another Boston man, Bernie McDaid, who were abused by the same priest starting in the sixth grade. Bergeron said he told Lombardi at a brief, earlier meeting, at the protest's start, that the abuse survivors have been "waiting a lifetime to be able to stand up and speak out."

Protesters held signs with slogans including "Hands off children."

Late last week, march organizers said they were denied permission to hold the event on Vatican soil. It is standard Vatican practice to ban non-Vatican-sponsored events from the square.

Lombardi said he had come to greet the organizers but when he saw "it wasn't going to be easy" he left.

Participants, who came from a dozen countries and said they were raped and molested by priests as children, flocked to Rome for the candlelit march.

At the culmination of the march, each victim planned to put a stone he or she had brought from home onto a pile — in the same way hikers leave piles of stones along mountain paths to show others that someone had been there before.

Wearing T-shirts that read "Enough!" in English, Italian and German, organizers demanded that the United Nations recognize the systematic sexual abuse of children as a crime against humanity.

At a briefing before the march, participants stood up one by one to tell how their lives had been destroyed by the abuse they suffered as children. Many recounted years of drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders and other psychological and emotional problems.

"For 50 years I thought I was the only person in the entire world that had been abused by a Catholic priest," said Sue Cox, 63, from Warwickshire, Britain. She clarified herself: "Raped by a Catholic priest, not abused, because what he did was rape me and rape is different."

"It's taken 50 years for me to find my voice. But now I've found it, I want to continue to speak on behalf of people who maybe aren't able to speak or have not yet been able to face the fear and the guilt and shame that survivors feel."

Fifty-five former students of a Catholic institute for the deaf in Verona, Italy, joined the protest.

Bergeron and McDaid, met with the then Vatican No. 2 in Rome in 2003, and five years later McDaid became the first victim to meet with Pope Benedict XVI during the pontiff's trip to the United States.

Eight years after the U.S. scandal erupted in Boston, however, McDaid and Bergeron say the Vatican hasn't taken sufficient responsibility, hasn't reached out to victims or put in place universal prevention programs to ensure children are protected.

They formed a nonprofit group, Survivor's Voice, as a way to bring together victims from around the world — a campaign that kicked into gear this year after the abuse scandal exploded anew on a global scale with revelations of thousands of victims in Europe and beyond, of bishops who covered up for pedophile priests and of Vatican officials who turned a blind eye to the crimes.

Cox said she was raped in her bedroom when she was 13 by a priest who had been filling in for her parish priest and had been staying at her parents' home. Her mother discovered what had happened immediately but did nothing, and told Cox to pray for the priest.

"I felt sacrificial," she said. "I wanted to die."

By 15 she was an alcoholic, by 17 she had entered into a violent marriage. By 30 she was clean, and now at 63 is confronting what she calls the final piece of her recovery — "the hardest bit" — speaking out about her abuse.

 

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UK Catholics say 5 Anglican bishops converting

UK Catholics say 5 Anglican bishops converting
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer

LONDON – Five Church of England bishops announced Monday they are converting to Catholicism following an invitation to disaffected Anglicans from Pope Benedict XVI — the highest-profile defectors among conservatives opposed to gay bishops and female clergy.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales said Bishop of Ebbsfleet Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Richborough Keith Newton, Bishop of Fulham John Broadhurst — as well as retired bishops Edwin Barnes and David Silk — have decided "to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church."

Burnham and Newton are "flying bishops," who minister to Church of England parishes where congregations have voted not to allow a woman priest to preside at services.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, said he had accepted the resignations of Burnham and Newton, "with regret."

"We wish them well in this next stage of their service to the Church," he said.

Broadhurst, leader of the traditionalist group Forward in Faith, announced his intention to leave the Church of England last month, accusing the Anglican church of being "fascist in its behavior" and marginalizing those opposed to the ordination of women.

The Vatican moved last year to make it easier for traditional Anglicans upset over the appointment of female priests and gay bishops to join the Catholic Church, whose teaching holds that homosexual activity is sinful.

The pope invited Anglicans to join new "personal ordinariates," which allow them to continue to use some of their traditional liturgy and be served by married priests.

Differences over the elevation of gay clergy have caused turmoil within the Anglican Communion, an association of churches with 80 million members in about 160 countries. Some conservatives have quit in protest, while the U.S. Episcopal Church — the branch of the Anglican Communion in the United States — has appointed two gay bishops since 2003.

Williams has tried with limited to success to keep his fractious communion together through compromise.

The bishops' conversion follows a decision in July by the Church of England to press ahead with the ordination of female bishops without safeguards demanded by traditionalists.

The five bishops said in a statement that they were "distressed" by developments in Anglicanism "which we believe to be incompatible with the historic vocation of Anglicanism and the tradition of the Church for nearly 2,000 years."

They said they would be resigning from all Church of England pastoral responsibilities at the end of the year "and seeking to join an Ordinariate once one is created."

The Vatican confirmed that the bishops were joining the Catholic church and said the new structure was still under study.


The Pope's strategy certainly worked well there.

 

[AllardChardon]

Prelates to discuss response to sex abuse scandal

Prelates to discuss response to sex abuse scandal
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has summoned cardinals from around the world to a daylong summit in Rome next week on the clerical sex abuse scandal and other issues facing the Catholic church, the Vatican said Monday.

The Vatican called the session "a day of reflection and prayer" that will also include discussions on threats to religious freedom, relations with other religions and procedures for disaffected Anglicans to join the Catholic church. Five Church of England bishops announced Monday they were converting to Catholicism following Benedict's invitation to disaffected Anglicans.

The meeting of cardinals will take place Nov. 19, a day before Benedict is scheduled to install 24 new cardinals in a ceremony normally attended by many of the world's top-ranking churchmen.

Eight years after the U.S. scandal erupted, abuse allegations against Catholic clerics have taken on global dimensions with revelations of thousands of victims and accusations that bishops covered up for pedophile priests and Vatican officials turned a blind eye for decades.

The pope has admitted the church failed to take sufficient measures to stop the abuse. He has met with victims in several countries and has promised to make fighting abuse a priority.

Cardinal William Levada, the American who heads the Vatican office in charge of drawing up policy to fight abuse, will head the discussion of "the church's response to cases of sex abuse," the Vatican said.

The head of a victims' group said the proof will be not in the discussion but in the results.

" It's easy and tempting to assume this is a positive sign. But that's irresponsible. We'll only know if this is a good development when we see action resulting from this meeting. To be swayed by mere talk is to betray vulnerable children and wounded adults," said Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

"Talking about abuse is easy, preventing abuse is hard. It takes decisive action to oust predator priests and complicit bishops. And when it comes to abuse, this pope, like his predecessors, has shown little commitment to real action," she said in an e-mail.

Italy's Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who leads the Italian bishops conference, deplored Monday what he called "sins of omission" by the church in handling sex abuse by clergy and decried the "betrayal of the trust" of the faithful. He told the bishops at a meeting he was committing the church toward facing and preventing such "mistakes."

 

[AllardChardon]

Catholics, campaigners debate pope condom remarks

Catholics, campaigners debate pope condom remarks
By FRANK JORDANS and JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press Writers

GENEVA – The pope's positive comments about condom use by male prostitutes will help fight the AIDS crisis, health groups said Sunday, although they cautioned that his remarks fell short of declaring condoms an acceptable method of disease prevention for all.

Speaking to a German journalist whose book was excerpted in a Vatican newspaper Saturday, the pontiff reiterated that condoms are not a moral solution for stopping AIDS. But he added that in some cases, such as for male prostitutes, their use could represent a first step in assuming moral responsibility "in the intention of reducing the risk of infection."

"This is a significant and positive step forward taken by the Vatican today," the U.N.'s top AIDS official said. "This move recognizes that responsible sexual behavior and the use of condoms have important roles in HIV prevention."

A UNAIDS spokesman in Geneva said that while over 80 percent of HIV infections are caused through sexual transmission, only 4 percent to 10 percent result from sex between men. There are no reliable statistics about how many infections might be prevented if male prostitutes routinely used condoms, said Mahesh Mahalingam.

However, even the limited example cited by the pope was a step in the right direction, said Mahalingam. "We are welcoming this as an opening up of discussion," he told The Associated Press.

In South Africa, which has an estimated 5.7 million HIV-positive citizens — more people than any other country — and 500,000 new infections each year, activists guardedly greeted the Pope's message.

Caroline Nenguke of the Treatment Action Campaign, a Cape Town, South Africa-based advocacy group for people living with HIV, called the Pope's words a "step in the right direction."

But she said the message was unclear, and could lead to misinterpretation.

"It shows that only male prostitutes should use condoms and could make people in heterosexual relations think they are not allowed to (use) them," she said. "The pope has a lot of followers — he's an opinion leader and a world leader — and if he's going to take on a message, especially a message of life and death, it has to be very clear."

Church members in the Philippines, Southeast Asia's largest Roman Catholic nation, praised the pontiffs words even as their leaders rejected any suggestion that the Vatican was softening its line on contraceptives.

Housewife Benita Vitualla, 72, expressed relief at the pope's flexibility, which she said could help people deal with problems like sexually transmitted diseases and surging populations.

"The pope has become more practical; he knows what's happening to the world," said Vitualla, who wore rosaries around her neck. "There are contagious diseases and very high population growth that need to be controlled," she said.

Shay Cullen, a Columban missionary who has helped sexually abused children in the Philippines, praised what he said was a crucial change in the pope's stand.

"We welcome the pope's change of opinion because it is meant to save life and to protect people," Cullen said. "We see here an enlightened pope putting his concern over human life as a priority first."

While the Roman Catholic Church's ban on artificial contraception was not in question, Benedict's stunning remarks could re-ignite debate on contraceptive use in places like the Philippines, where the issue has recently pitted the new president against the influential Catholic church.

Philippines President Benigno Aquino III recently expressed support for the right to contraception. A church official has threatened to launch civil disobedience protests.

"If a condom is used as a contraceptive, certainly it will be condemned by the church," the Rev. Deogracias Yniguez of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines told the AP. "But to use it to avoid a disease in specific circumstances, the church can take another mindset."

For those focused on battling the scourge of AIDS, however, the Pope's message came as a welcome surprise.

Father Peter Makome, a Catholic priest in Zimbabwe, said he would spread the news.

"I've got brothers and sisters and friends who are suffering from HIV because they were not practicing safe sex," said Makome, who works in the capital Harare's Southerton Parish. "Now the message has come out that they can go ahead and do safe sex; it's much better for everyone."

Sex worker Constance Makoni from the nearby town of Mbare, said she was also pleased to hear the Pope's message. She said she uses condoms to protect herself against HIV, even though it is against her beliefs.

"It is very good to learn that our church has now come out in the open to allow the use of condoms by its members to prevent the spread of AIDS," she said. "I think Pope should have made these announcements a long time ago and it was going to be helpful among the church folks."

But she said she would also like to see papal recognition of contraception.

"If they would also expand this to contraceptives as well, because it's another form of family planning which is not being discussed," she said.

In Liberia, some non-Catholic clergymen reacted strongly to the Pope's statement. The West African nation is predominantly Christian, but Catholics are not the majority.

"I sharply disagree with the Pope," said Rev. Venicious Reeves, a popular Pentecostal preacher in Liberia's capital, Monrovia. "The Pope should instead encourage people he classifies as male prostitutes to get out of prostitution and live in morality."

Baptist preacher Rev. Gardea Johnson asked: "If his concern is about male prostitutes, what about the female ones who are even more vulnerable?"

But Winston Kerkula, a rights advocate based in the central Liberian town of Gbarnga, supported the Pope.

"In the past, the Catholic church's position on the use of condoms divided the thinking of people about AIDS and its spread worldwide," Kerkula said. "The Pope's change of mind is good for mainly young people; I urge the Vatican to encourage condom-producing companies to produce more so that it can reach young people in rural places."

In the central Swiss city of Lucerne, where the majority of the population identifies itself as Roman Catholic, a church spokesman said the Pope's remarks would come as a relief to many believers.

"We are happy that this discussion, which already existed in the church because several bishops have talked about it, has been picked up by the Pope," said Florian Flohr.

Catholic churches in Lucerne raised eyebrows last month when they distributed some 3,000 condoms as part of an outreach program aimed at young people.

"We think what the Pope said confirms our view that if you want to talk about AIDS, you have to talk about condoms," said Flohr.

He added that the pontiff's words had been carefully chosen to avoid the impression that condoms could be seen as a panacea against AIDS, while at the same time deflecting long-standing criticism at the Vatican's absolutist stance on condom use.

"I think many Catholics will be relieved," said Flohr. "His past comments about condoms meant there couldn't be a proper discussion about the subject. Now we can talk about human sexuality more openly."

In Britain, where the Vatican's opposition to condom use has come under particularly fierce criticism, relief over the pope's statement was tempered with caution over the relatively limited scope of his comments.

Peter Tatchell, who helped coordinate the protests against Benedict when the latter visited Britain earlier this year, said the new papal policy on condoms amounted to a "volte-face."

"He seems to be admitting, for the first time, that using condoms can be morally responsible if they help save lives," Tatchell said in an e-mail. But he went on to slam the Vatican for a range of positions on a variety of moral issues.

"If the pope can change his stance on condoms, why can't he also modify the Vatican's harsh, intolerant opposition to women's rights, gay equality, fertility treatment and embryonic stem cell research?"

British AIDS charities welcomed the move. The Terrance Higgins Trust, one of the first groups organized to fight the virus in the U.K., said it was relieved that the pope "has accepted the reality that condoms are a major weapon in the fight against HIV."

A step in the right direction.

 

[oggbashan]

UK Catholics say 5 Anglican bishops converting
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer

LONDON – Five Church of England bishops announced Monday they are converting to Catholicism following an invitation to disaffected Anglicans from Pope Benedict XVI — the highest-profile defectors among conservatives opposed to gay bishops and female clergy.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales said Bishop of Ebbsfleet Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Richborough Keith Newton, Bishop of Fulham John Broadhurst — as well as retired bishops Edwin Barnes and David Silk — have decided "to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church."

...

Most Anglican Bishops represent substantial cities and their surrounding areas e.g. the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Coventry.

Bishops of Ebbsfleet? Or Richborough?

Those are two VERY small places in East Kent a mile or so apart. Both are supposed to be the place where St Augustine landed to retrieve England for the Church, (except that parts of England had already been retrieved by clergy from Ireland, and parts had kept the faith anyway - but that's an aside) and the combined population of both is less than 100.

Ebbsfleet has a golf course, a storage yard for accident damaged cars and a waste paper collection dump.

Richborough has a ruined Roman fort, a ruined and abandoned power station and a secret port used in the First and Second World Wars (so secret that the Germans repeatedly bombed it!).

Those bishoprics were created just to allow those who cannot stomach women priests to avoid having a woman bishop - but the Church of England hasn't yet got any women bishops.

Rome can have those fake bishops and their followers in Ebbsfleet and Richborough. I doubt that the local followers would need counting on the fingers of one hand.

Whether Rome can accept the prejudices that these bishops bring with them, or whether these bishops who couldn't accept the broad tolerance of the Anglican church can accept the obedience that is required of Catholics?

That I doubt.

Og

 

[AllardChardon]

Thanks, Og, for that very informative and intelligent reply on the converted priests. I did wonder about that article on the local level and you have brought reality into the limelight.

 

[AllardChardon]

Cables show Ireland irked Vatican on sovereignty

Cables show Ireland irked Vatican on sovereignty
By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Newly released U.S. diplomatic cables indicate that the Vatican felt "offended" that Ireland failed to respect Holy See "sovereignty" by asking high-ranking churchmen to answer questions from an Irish government commission probing decades of sex abuse of minors by clergy.

That the Holy See used its diplomatic immunity status as a tiny-city state to try to thwart Ireland's government-led probe has long been known. But the WikiLeaks cables, published by Britain's The Guardian newspaper on Saturday, contain delicate, behind-the-scenes diplomatic assessments of the highly charged situation.

The Vatican press office declined to comment on the content of the cables Saturday, but decried the leaks as a matter of "extreme seriousness."

The U.S. ambassador to the Holy See also condemned the leaks and said in a statement that the Vatican and America cooperate in promoting universal values.

According to the deputy to the Irish ambassador to the Holy See, the Irish government gave in to Vatican pressure and allowed the church officials to avoid answering questions from the inquiry panel, according to one of the cables from a U.S. diplomat.

Ambassador Noel Fahey apparently told U.S. diplomat Julieta Valls Noyes that the sex abuse scandal was a tricky one to manage.

"The Vatican believes the Irish government failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the investigations," read the cable from Noyes, deputy chief of mission.

Elsewhere in the cable the diplomat, citing a Holy See official, wrote that the inquiry commission's requests "offended many in the Vatican" because they were viewed as "an affront to Vatican sovereignty."

The diplomat also said that "adding insult to injury, Vatican officials also believed some Irish opposition politicians were making political hay with the situation by publicly calling on the government to demand that the Vatican reply."

The Irish government wanted to be seen as cooperating with the investigation because its own education department was implicated in decades of abuse, but politicians were reluctant to insist Vatican officials answer the investigators' questions, the cables indicate.

One cable discloses the behind-the-scenes diplomatic maneuvers by which Irish politicians tried to persuade the Vatican to cooperate with the probe.

"In the end the Irish government decided not to press the Vatican reply," the U.S. diplomat wrote, citing Fahey's deputy, Helena Keleher.

Saturday's official Vatican press statement said the WikiLeaks cables "reflect the perceptions and opinions of the people who wrote them and cannot be considered as expressions of the Holy See itself." It added that the reports "reliability must, then, be evaluated carefully and with great prudence."

The cables also contain information regarding the Vatican's relations with the Anglican Communion, which includes the Church of England and its affiliates in more than 160 countries.

One cable reports that Britain's ambassador to the Vatican warned that the pope's invitation to disaffected Anglicans to join the Catholic church had chilled relations between the two churches and risked inciting a violent backlash against British Catholics.

A November 2009 file from U.S. Embassy at the Vatican quotes British envoy Francis Campbell as saying that "Anglican-Vatican relations were facing their worst crisis in 150 years as a result of the pope's decision."

The Vatican moved last year to make it easier for traditional Anglicans upset over the appointment of female priests and gay bishops to join the Catholic Church, whose teaching holds that homosexual activity is sinful.

The pope invited Anglicans to join new "personal ordinariates," which allow them to continue to use some of their traditional liturgy and be served by married priests.

A cable quotes Campbell as saying the move put the Anglican spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, "in an impossible situation." And he worried that the crisis could aggravate "latent anti-Catholicism" in majority-Protestant England.

"The outcome could be discrimination or in isolated cases, even violence, against this minority," the cable said.

____

AP writer Jill Lawless contributed from London.

 

[JackLuis]

Cables show Ireland irked Vatican on sovereignty
By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Newly released U.S. diplomatic cables indicate that the Vatican felt "offended" that Ireland failed to respect Holy See "sovereignty" by asking high-ranking churchmen to answer questions from an Irish government commission probing decades of sex abuse of minors by clergy.

-.

What Wikileaks leaked on the Pope! Fan-fucking-tastic!

 

[JackLuis]

Two out of three Catholics, like nuns.

 

[AllardChardon]

The Holy See won't like that one bit!

 

[AllardChardon]

Pope calls Christians the most persecuted
By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI singled out Christians as the religious group that suffers from the most persecution on Thursday, denouncing lack of freedom of worship as an "intolerable" threat to world security.

The message reflected a pressing concern by Benedict in recent months for the plight of Christian minorities in parts of the world, especially in the Middle East.

"Sadly, the year now ending has again been marked by persecution, discrimination, terrible acts of violence and religious intolerance," Benedict lamented in the message for World Peace Day, celebrated by the church on Jan. 1, but traditionally released in advance

He wrote that he was especially thinking of Iraq ",which continues to be a theater of violence and strife" as it aims for stability and reconciliation.

Benedict singled out the "reprehensible attack" on a Baghdad cathedral during Mass in October, killing two priests and more than 50 other worshippers, as well as attacks on private homes that "spread fear within the Christian community and (create) a desire on the part of many to emigrate in search of a better life."

The Vatican voiced concerns that the steadily flight of Christians from Iraq will effectively eliminate the ancient community there.

"At present, Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith," the pontiff asserted, and cited Christian communities suffering from violence and intolerance particularly in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Holy Land.

"This situation is intolerable, since it represents an insult to God and to human dignity" as well as "a threat to security and peace," Benedict wrote in one of the 17-page-long message's strongest passages.

He appealed to authorities to "act promptly to end every injustice" against Christians.

Benedict didn't cite countries, but in past years church officials have lamented that Christians — most of them migrant workers — are forbidden to worship in Saudi Arabia.

He blasted what he called "more sophisticated forms of hostility to religion, which, in Western countries, occasionally find expression in a denial of history and the rejection of religious symbols which reflect the identity and the culture of the majority of its citizens."

Benedict has been continuing a campaign launched by his predecessor, the late John Paul II, to reinvigorate Europe's "Christian roots."

The Vatican has criticized initiatives in some Western countries to ban crucifixes from public places, ranging from classrooms to courtrooms, including in predominantly Catholic Italy.


Go Figure!

 

[AllardChardon]

Pope: Church must reflect on what allowed abuse

Pope: Church must reflect on what allowed abuse
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI told Vatican officials Monday that they must reflect on the church's culpability in its child sex-abuse scandal, but he also blamed a secular society in which he said the mistreatment of children was frighteningly common.

In his traditional, end-of-the-year speech to Vatican cardinals and bishops, Benedict said revelations of abuse in 2010 reached "an unimaginable dimension" that required the church to accept the "humiliation" as a call for renewal.

"We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen," the pope said.

Benedict also said, however, that the scandal must be seen in a broader social context, in which child pornography is seemingly considered normal by society and drug use and sexual tourism are on the rise.

"The psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times," Benedict said.

He said that as recently as as the 1970s, pedophilia wasn't considered an absolute evil but rather part of a spectrum of behaviors that people refused to judge in the name of tolerance and relativism.

As an avalanche of cases of pedophile priests came to light, church officials frequently defended their previous practice of putting abusers in therapy, not jail, by saying that was the norm in society at the time. Only this year did the Vatican post on its website unofficial guidelines for bishops to report pedophile priests to police if local laws require it.

"In the 1970s, pedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children," the pope said. "It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a 'better than' and a 'worse than.' Nothing is good or bad in itself."

"The effects of such theories are evident today," he said.

The traditional Christmas speech to Vatican cardinals and bishops is an eagerly anticipated address that Benedict uses to focus the church hierarchy on key issues.

Benedict has previously acknowledged that the scandal was the result of sin that the church must repent for, and make amends with victims. He repeated Monday that the church must do a better job of screening out abusers and helping victims heal.

"It is fundamentally disturbing to watch a brilliant man so conveniently misdiagnose a horrific scandal," said Barbara Blaine, president of the main U.S. victims' group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

She said the scandal wasn't caused by the 1970s but rather by the church's culture of secrecy and fixation with self-preservation in which predator priests and the bishops who moved them around rather than turn them in were rarely disciplined.

"Whenever the pope tires of talking about abuse and starts acting on abuse, he should focus on taking immediate, pratical steps to oust those who commit, ignore and conceal clergy sex crimes first," Blaine said.

The sex abuse scandal, which first exploded in the U.S. in 2002, erupted on a global scale this year with revelations of thousands of victims in Europe and beyond, of bishops who covered up for pedophile priests and of Vatican officials who turned a blind eye to the crimes for decades.

Questions were raised about how Benedict himself handled cases both as archbishop in Munich and as head of the Vatican office that handled abuse cases.

Recently, the Vatican released documentation showing that as early as 1988 then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sought to find quicker ways to permanently remove priests who raped and molested children in a bid to get around church law that made it difficult to defrock priests against their will.

While Ratzinger was unsuccessful then, Vatican rules now allow for fast-track defrocking. But victims advocates say the Vatican still has a long way to go in terms of requiring bishops to report sex crimes to police and release information and documentation about known pedophiles.

 

[AllardChardon]

Former Anglican bishops ordained Catholics
By GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press

LONDON – Three former Anglican bishops were ordained as Catholic priests Saturday, becoming the first ex-bishops to take advantage of a new Vatican system designed to make it easier for Anglicans to embrace Roman Catholicism.

The crowded ceremony at Westminster Cathedral in London made priests of former bishops Keith Newton, Andrew Burnham and John Broadhurst, Anglicans who had been unhappy with the church's direction.

The three declined to comment after the ordination presided over by the Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, Catholic leader in England and Wales.

Nichols called the ordination service a landmark event.

"Many ordinations have take place in this cathedral during the 100 years of its history, but none quite like this," he said. "Today is a unique occasion marking a new step in the life and history of the Catholic Church."

The groundbreaking ceremony was made possible by a 2009 ruling by the Vatican allowing Anglicans worldwide to join the Roman Catholic Church and still adhere to many Anglican traditions.

Vatican officials devised the new policy without consulting Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the global Anglican church.

The new system is designed to entice traditionalist Anglicans opposed to women priests, openly gay clergy, the blessing of same-sex unions and other controversial policies that have caused a deep schism within the church.

Until it was put in place, disaffected Anglicans had joined the Roman Catholic Church primarily on a case-by-case basis.

 

[Safe_Bet]

 

[AllardChardon]

Great one, Amy!

 

[AllardChardon]

I have not posted here for a while, but thought this article was interesting because it is a mystery at this point;

Child abuse bishop disappears from French monastery

LA FERTE IMBAULT, France (AFP) – A Belgian former bishop has disappeared from his French religious community three days after he admitted to sexually abusing two of his nephews, its leader told AFP on Sunday.

Roger Vangheluwe resigned as Bishop of Bruges last year after confessing to having sex with his underage nephew, but was not prosecuted as the crimes had taken place several years previously before the statute of limitations.

Last week, he again caused outraged when he gave a television interview in which he also admitted to molesting a second nephew but insisted he did not consider himself a paedophile nor a threat to children.

"How did it start?" Vangheluwe said in the interview. "As in all families: when they came to visit, my nephews would stay over.

"It began as a kind of game with this boy. It was never a question of rape, or physical violence. He never saw me naked and there was no penetration.

"I don't in the slightest have any sense I am a paedophile. I don't get the impression my nephew was opposed, quite the contrary," he added although he also admitted: "I knew it wasn't good, I confessed it several times."

After the first scandal, The Vatican ordered him to seek "spiritual and psychological treatment" at a church community La Ferte-Imbault in France, and to stay out of the public eye.

Following the interview, which outraged many in Belgium and drew a sharp denunciation from the Council of Bishops, there were calls for him to be prosecuted. But on Sunday it emerged that he had gone.

"He left last night," the mother superior of the Brotherhood of Jerusalem told AFP at the community. Asked where he had gone, she said: "I don't know. We are referring all questions to the papal nuncio's office in Belgium."

The case plunged the Belgian Catholic Church anew into turmoil, with several bishops asking the Vatican to act quickly to punish Vangheluwe.

In September 2010, the church was rocked by nearly 500 cases of abuse by priests since the 1950s, including 13 victims who committed suicide.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The Curia is going to find itself declaring dogma to a smaller and smaller number of listeners. They just don't seem to get the idea that anything that is wrong for the parishioners is wrong for the priest.

 

[AllardChardon]

I found this particular priest's denial of his personal incestuous acts with his own nephews to be the most alarming part of the tale. He seems to think the boys wanted his sexual overtures, without assessing his impact on them as their role model. The way humans justify their actions has always fascinated me, the workings of the devious mind and all.

 

[AllardChardon]

Pope denounces 'disintegration' of Europe families

Pope denounces 'disintegration' of Europe families
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ZAGREB, Croatia – Pope Benedict XVI denounced the "disintegration" of family life in Europe on Sunday and called for couples to make a commitment to marry and have children, not just live together, as he reaffirmed traditional Catholic family values during his second and final day in Croatia.

Benedict also voiced the Vatican's opposition to abortion at an open-air Mass Sunday at Zagreb's hippodrome, the highlight of his trip to mark the local church's national day of families. Tens of thousands of people, waving small plastic Croatian and Vatican flags, began arriving before dawn at the field muddied by overnight thunderstorms.

The sun shone through the clouds as Benedict arrived for the Mass in his white popemobile, waving to the crowd as he looped around the field, which has a capacity of some 300,000 and appeared nearly full with faithful from across Croatia and neighboring countries.

This is Benedict's first visit as pope to Croatia, an overwhelmingly Catholic Balkan nation that is poised to soon join the European Union. The Vatican has strongly supported its bid, eager to see another country with shared values join the 27-member bloc.

Yet while Croatia is nearly 90 percent Catholic, it allows some legal rights for same-sex couples and, thanks to leftover communist-era legislation, permits abortion up to 10 weeks after conception and thereafter with the consent of a special commission of doctors.

In his homily, Benedict lamented the "increasing disintegration of the family, especially in Europe" and urged young couples to resist "that secularized mentality which proposes living together as a preparation, or even a substitute for marriage."

"Do not be afraid to make a commitment to another person!" he said.

He urged parents to affirm the inviolability of life from conception to natural death — Vatican-speak for opposition to abortion, saying "Dear families, rejoice in fatherhood and motherhood!" He also urged them to back legislation that supports families "in the task of giving birth to children and educating them."

His message — delivered mostly in Italian and translated into Croatian — has been received with a resounding welcome in Croatia, which Benedict's predecessor Pope John Paul II visited three times during and after the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

"It's great the pope's here," said Karmela Sokolic, a young girl who said she arrived at the hippodrome at 4 a.m. to snag a place near the altar. "I just love the pope and I love that I am here."

Sister Monica Zvonarek said the pope's presence in Croatia gives hope to all families. "He can encourage us, our politicians to enter in Europe," she said as she waited for the Mass to start.

Monsignor Valter Zupan, in charge of family issues in the Croatian bishops' conference, said Europe had been founded on deeply Christian values about marriage between man and woman, but that these values were being threatened by trends that favor "different types of living together which don't have any foundation in European culture."

Croatia has recognized same-sex couples since 2003 and allows gay partners in relationships of more than three years rights of inheritance and financial support, the same as enjoyed by heterosexual couples who aren't married. There is no gay marriage, however, and gay couples cannot adopt.

"We want our children to continue to call their parents 'mamma' and 'papa' because that's their natural names," he told the applauding crowd. "Children have the right to publicly state that a 'father' and a 'mother' gave them life," he said, adding that the church also had the right to demand the government reverse its abortion law.

As he arrived in Zagreb Saturday on his 19th foreign visit, Benedict urged Croatia to use its new role in the EU to remind Europe about its Christian heritage "as a matter of historical truth" — a constant refrain of this pope who has made fighting Europe's increasing secularization a priority. He also urged young Catholics to hold fast to their faith and values and not be tempted by "enticing promises of easy success."

Later Sunday after Mass, Benedict will pray before the tomb of Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, Croatia's World War II primate whom John Paul beatified during a 1998 trip.

Stepinac was hailed as a hero by Catholics for his resistance to communism and refusal to separate the Croatian church from the Vatican. But his beatification was controversial because many Serbs and Jews accuse him of sympathizing with the Nazis.

On Saturday en route to Zagreb, Benedict praised Stepinac as a model for having defended "true humanism" against both the communists and the Ustasha Nazi puppet regime that ruled Croatia during the war. The Ustasha, said the German-born pope, "seemed to fulfill the dream of autonomy and independence, but in reality it was an autonomy that was a lie because it was used by Hitler for his aims."

Trisha Thomas in Zagreb and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade contributed.


I wonder whether children really care who gave them life, if they have at least one loving parent to raise them, that is.

 

[AllardChardon]

I just had to resurrect this old thread to add the following:

Pope greets clowns, acrobats as circus comes to town
By The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has greeted clowns, acrobats, street performers and a lion cub as the circus came to town.

Benedict clapped and watched amused Saturday as circus performers flipped, flopped, juggled and twisted in front of him in what the Vatican has called a historic audience to make street performers and other itinerant entertainers feel like they belong to the church.

A big top tent and carousel were mounted in St. Peter's Square to make the scene complete Saturday, and thousands of entertainers from a dozen countries filled a Vatican audience hall for the papal performance.

Vatican officials have said the audience was designed to draw attention to the problems itinerant entertainers face, living in the margins of society and constantly travelling, unable to belong to parish churches.


Now, ain't that sumthin'!

 

[topace]

I'm not against Pope bashing in general, but they do have a right to their own opinion. Please remember this as you post.

I'm not Catholic (or part of any other religious group), just spiritual. However, I will speak up for people's right to freedom of expression (within tolerable limits of course).

 

[AllardChardon]

topace, I started this thread back in April of 2010, when the Pope was in real denial about all the atrocities his priests had perpetrated against innocent children.

It was never really about Catholicism or spiritualism, but more about the political posturing of the Vatican.

Sorry if I offended you with my latest post. I find the Pope to be a very interesting person to observe.