ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
ABC News (Australia)

By Europe correspondent Philip Williams, wires

The former head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has admitted his sexual conduct had “fallen below the standards expected of him”.

In a statement issued by the church on Sunday, Cardinal O’Brien apologised and asked for forgiveness after appearing to admit to sexual misconduct.

“I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal,” he said in the statement posted on the Scottish Catholic media office website.

“To those I have offended, I apologise and ask forgiveness. To the Catholic Church and people of Scotland, I also apologise.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, formerly the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in the UK, signalled that he did make homosexual advances towards young men.

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
8:14PM GMT 03 Mar 2013

He confessed that his “sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected” and asked for forgiveness from those he had “offended”, as well as the entire Catholic Church and the people of Scotland.

The former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh – who only a week ago was on course to take part in the election of the next Pope – said he would now withdraw completely from public life.

His admission came as fresh details emerged of the allegations of “inappropriate” behaviour against him by four men – three priests and one former priest.

For the first time, it emerged that the accusations included attempting to touch, kiss, or have sex with them.

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SCOTLAND
Huffington Post

By RAPHAEL SATTER 03/03/13

LONDON — The cardinal who until recently served as Britain’s highest-ranking Catholic leader on Sunday acknowledged having engaged in unspecified sexual misbehavior and promised to play “no further part” in the public life of the church, a statement that comes at an awkward time for the Vatican.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigned Monday from his position as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh after a newspaper published unnamed priests’ accounts of unspecified inappropriate behavior.

O’Brien initially rejected the claims, saying he was resigning because he did not want to distract from the upcoming conclave of cardinals that is due to pick a successor to Benedict XVI, who resigned the papacy Thursday. O’Brien also said he would not attend the conclave.

But on Sunday, the Catholic church in Scotland issued a statement quoting O’Brien as saying that there had been times “that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

Hypocrite Cardinal O’Brien admits sex acts – in a vague apology that will make things worse

By Damian Thompson

I’m deeply unimpressed by Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s vague and guarded admission that “there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal”. Does he really think he can leave it at that? After raging against gay marriage with a ferocity that was – I suspect – intended to make the English bishops look wimpish and therefore butter up the Vatican?

Scottish Catholics in particular have the right to ask: What the hell do you mean by “sexual conduct”?

And what are we supposed to make of this? “In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them.”

Sorry, I don’t follow the logic. The Cardinal must have had a good idea who was making the claims, and what behaviour was involved. You can’t contest allegations, as he did, just because public ignorance of the charges leaves you a certain amount of breathing space.

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SCOTLAND
The Guardian

Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 March 2013

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, forced to resign by the pope last week, has admitted to sexual misconduct and issued a sweeping apology to individuals he has “offended” as well as to the Catholic church and Scottish people.

In a short statement issued soon after 5pm on Sunday, O’Brien admitted “there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal”.

The former archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh made no detailed admissions but apologised and asked for the forgiveness of all those he had offended, and for the forgiveness of the entire Catholic church.

Barely a week after O’Brien insisted he was contesting allegations published in the Observer of misconduct against fellow priests, he effectively admitted he had been guilty of sexual misbehaviour since he was a priest and during his 10 years as a cardinal.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Telegraph

A BRITISH cardinal has admitted his behavior fell “below the standards expected of me” after allegations of sexual misconduct.

Keith O’Brien resigned last week after claims of sexual impropriety. In a statement, Cardinal O’Brien has also apologised “to those I have offended … to the Catholic Church and people of Scotland”.

Cardinal O’Brien resigned as head of the Catholic Church in Scotland on Monday in the wake of claims that he made sexual advances towards priests.

“In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public,” said the cleric. “Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them.

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SCOTLAND
CNN

(CNN) — A cardinal at the center of an international scandal over alleged sexual abuse reversed course Sunday, acknowledging wrongdoing.

“I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal,” Cardinal Keith O’Brien said in a statement.

Until days ago, O’Brien was the archbishop of Scotland.

O’Brien has been dogged by allegations he abused four men studying to be priests in the 1980s.

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SCOTLAND
Sky News

Cardinal Keith O’Brien has admitted that there have been times when his sexual conduct “fell beneath expected standards”.

The 74-year resigned as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh last week over allegations of improper behaviour up to 30 years ago.

In a statement issued by the Catholic Church in Scotland, he said: “In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them.

“However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Mail

Britain’s top Catholic Cardinal O’Brien admits his ‘sexual conduct fell well below the standards expected of a priest and archbishop’ as he sends himself into retreat

By Sam Webb and Alex Gore

Britain’s most senior Catholic admitted today his ‘sexual conduct’ fell well below the ‘standards expected of a priest’.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien made the statement in response to allegations of ‘inappropriate’ behaviour levelled against him by three priests and a former priest.

He apologised, asked for forgiveness and said he will play no further part in the Catholic Church.

The cleric resigned as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh a day after the allegations stretching back 30 years were published last Sunday.

He said today: ‘In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them.

‘However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.
retreat.

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SCOTLAND
Paisley Daily Express

Cardinal Keith O’Brien has admitted that his sexual conduct had at times “fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal”.

The cardinal, who was Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric, stepped down from his post as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh last week, a day after three priests and a former priest made allegations of “inappropriate” behaviour against him.

In a statement issued by the Catholic Church in Scotland, he apologised and asked forgiveness from those he had “offended”.

“I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal,” the statement said.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Media Office

3 March 2013

Statement from Cardinal O’Brien

“In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them.

However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.

To those I have offended, I apologise and ask forgiveness.

To the Catholic Church and people of Scotland, I also apologise.

I will now spend the rest of my life in retirement. I will play no further part in the public life of the Catholic Church in Scotland.”

ENDS

Peter Kearney
Director
Catholic Media Office
5 St. Vincent Place
Glasgow
G1 2DH
0141 221 1168
07968 122291
pk@scmo.org
www.scmo.org

Notes to editors:

1. This is the only statement, which Cardinal O’Brien will be issuing.
2. Cardinal O’Brien will not attend the Conclave to elect the new Pope.
3. Cardinal O’Brien is now out of the country and will not be available for interview.

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SCOTLAND
Portage Daily Graphic

ESTELLE SHIRBON, Retuers

Sunday, March 3, 2013

LONDON – A Roman Catholic cardinal who resigned as head of the church in Scotland apologised on Sunday for sexual conduct which he said had “fallen below the standards expected of me”.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien was Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric until he resigned as archbishop on Feb. 25 and said he would not take part in the conclave to elect a new pope. The announcement followed newspaper allegations of inappropriate behaviour with priests.

“I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal,” he said in a statement posted on the Scottish Catholic media office website on Sunday.

“To those I have offended, I apologise and ask forgiveness. To the Catholic Church and people of Scotland, I also apologise. I will now spend the rest of my life in retirement. I will play no further part in the public life of the Catholic Church in Scotland.”

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

Cardinal Keith O’Brien has admitted that his sexual conduct has at times “fallen beneath the standards expected of me”.

In a statement, he apologised and asked forgiveness from those he had “offended”.

He also apologised to the Catholic Church, and to the people of Scotland.

The cardinal resigned last Monday after three priests and a former priest made allegations of improper behaviour against him.

Cardinal O’Brien had been Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric when he stood down as the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

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BRAZIL
PolicyMic

Jake Horowitz

1) He is from Brazil.

Scherer leads the archdiocese in Brazil, the world’s largest Catholic country with a total population of 6 million Catholics. Being from Sao Paulo, Scherer is accustomed to dealing with social problems, as this city has 11 million people and faces high poverty rates, crime, and youth unemployment. Pope Benedict XVI named Scherer as the seventh Archbishop of Sao Paulo on March 21, 2007. In October 2007, the Pope announced he would make Scherer a Cardinal.

2) He is considered to be a moderate.

Scherer is considered to be theologically moderate. He is considered to be conservative within Brazil, but holds more centrist political views than Pope Benedict XVI, who opposed “liberation theology” in the Church in Latin America in the 1980s. Liberation theology is a leftwing movement which believe the Church should ally itself with the poor politically. Benedict called this theology “a singular heresy” but Scherer has been more moderate. He backed its focus on social injustice and poverty, even though he criticized it for using “Marxism as a tool of analysis.”

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BRAZIL
Huffington Post

By Roque Planas Posted: 02/11/2013

With Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, it may be Latin America’s turn to take control of the papacy, and some point to Brazilian Archbishop Odilo Scherer as the leading candidate.

Though the Vatican has been led by an unbroken chain of Europeans, demographics make a compelling case to look to Latin America to fill the vacancy. Some 42 percent of the world’s Catholics now live in Latin America, making the region home to the largest group of Catholics on the planet, according to Reuters. Europe is home to just 25 percent of the world’s Catholics.

Darci Nicioli, Auxiliary Bishop of Aparecida, told Brazil’s G1 that Scherer is one of five Brazilian cardinals in the running for the Papacy.

“All Cardinals less than 80 years old are candidates and can vote to choose the new Pope, but we know that depends on the Holy Spirit,” Nicioli told Brazil’s G1. “So we’re going to prey hard so that the best Cardinal is selected.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Brazil’s Cardinal Odilo Scherer is being proposed as a candidate to be next Pope by some Italian cardinals from the Roman Curia, including Sodano and Re, but they also want an Italian as Secretary of State

Gerard O’Connell – Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

In 2005, some influential cardinals from the Roman Curia worked for the election of Joseph Ratzinger. Today, eight years later, informed sources both within and outside the Vatican confirm that a new group in the Vatican are seeking to bring for the first time in history a Latin American to the See of Peter, accompanied by a Secretary of State who is Italian, or an Argentinian of Italian-origins. Among the proponents of this initiative are two leading cardinals – Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, and Giovanni Battista Re. Other important Italian curial cardinals could join this initiative.

The candidate to be pope of this group is the Archbishop of Sao Paolo, Brazil, Odilo Pedro Scherer, 63, who worked in the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops from 1994 to 2001. He worked for some time with Cardinal Re, who became head of that Congregation, and later ensured that he became a bishop. Scherer is a well-respected Latin American prelate, of German extraction. A man of measured and less Latin style , he speaks Italian well.

His name has circulated in these days as a possible successor to Benedict XVI. His sponsors aim to bring the first South American to the See of Peter, but bringing at the same time with him – almost as part of a ‘ticket’ – a Secretary of State who knows the Roman Curia well. Among the names being mentioned for this second post is that of Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, the Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy. Another name being suggested for the post of Secretary of State is that of Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. Sandri had the post of ‘Substitute’ – that is the third ranking position in the Vatican, in the last phase of the pontificate of John Paul II and the beginning of Benedict XVI’s reign.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

In eight days cardinals will enter the Sistine Chapel for the start of the Conclave. This is the Church’s first Sunday without a Pope and there is no Angelus prayer today

Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican City

The window from which the Pope usually pronounces the Sunday Angelus prayer remained shut today. This is the Catholic Church’s first Sunday without a Pope. St. Peter’s Square is full of pilgrims but no one is looking up at the papal studio window because this Sunday no one will be appearing at it. The curtain has already come down on the great media circus surrounding the Conclave and the rosaries recited by faithful are the only thing that breaks the silence which fell after Benedict XVI’s departure. Now that the papacy is vacant, there is no longer any reference to Benedict XVI either as Pope or Bishop of Rome in the Eucharistic prayer during mass celebrations. Parish priests have prepared a new version of the prayer.

As the Church strides towards the Conclave which is due to start on 11 March, the complete picture of Benedict XVI’s resignation is gradually forming. Ratzinger showed no less courage in resigning because “of the limits of old age and (…) the discernment on the exercise of responsibility that God had entrusted to him, than John Paul II who stuck it out until the end, despite his illness. Ratzinger’s decision is above all a reminder of one’s responsibilities, especially for cardinals who have the task of electing the Pope’s successor.

On the Church’s second day without a Pope – day two of the sede vacante period – Fr. Federico Lombardi commented on the achievements of the outgoing pope, now Pope Emeritus, and their significance, also for those who will have to work with the choices that will shape the future of global Catholicism. To emphasise the spiritual nature of the papal election, the Vatican spokesman referred back to one of Wojtyla’s core texts with a preface signed by Joseph Ratzinger.

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VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Eric Linton | March 03 2013

Roman Catholic cardinals, fearing that Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation has weakened his office, will ask the next pope to pledge in his inaugural address that he will serve until his death, European media report.

According to the Sunday Times of London, an unnamed cardinal told the Corriere della Sera newspaper of Milan that the rule that a pope has the right to resign of his own free will can’t be changed, “but for the future we need to safeguard the freedom of the church from external influences.” The fear is that a future pope could be pressured into stepping down.

On Friday, Benedict said he was “not abandoning the Cross, I am staying in a new way,” the Times reported. This was seen as a response to Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, a former personal secretary to his predecessor John Paul II, who said of his resignation: “One doesn’t step down from the Cross.”

Benedict has agreed that three cardinals who investigated the “Vatileaks” scandal would give their peers details of their secret report, which he received in December. Some have speculated that the report is so damaging it precipitated his resignation. The Vatican has denied allegations that it reveals a gay sex scandal in the Vatican that has left top clerics open to blackmail.

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VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

Non-European pope could pair up with Vatican official ‘in presidential-style ticket’

Cardinals gathering Rome are reportedly considering electing the first ever non-European pope, who could pair up with a Vatican official as his secretary of a state, in a scenario likened to a presidential ticket.

By Tom Kington, Rome
3:59PM GMT 03 Mar 2013

The idea would satisfy calls from non-Euoprean cardinals to give the papacy a global appeal, while convincing Vatican insiders that an experience hand would manage the Curia.

At 9.30am on Monday, most of the cardinal electors will assemble at the Vatican for the first day of consultations ahead of voting for Pope Benedict XVI’s successor in a conclave now expected to start around March 11.

Marco Tosatti, a Vatican expert, said that Brazil’s Odilo Scherer, 63, the archbishop of Sao Paulo, was now being supported by two key Vatican officials, former secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone, who is taking on the role of Chamberlain during the conclave, and Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, who is overseeing the pre-conclave meetings.

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IRELAND/UNITED KINGDOM
Journal

A LONDON-BASED law firm is providing advice to a number of survivors of the Magdalene Laundry system who currently reside in the UK.

Hodge Jones & Allen worked with many of the claimants of the Irish Redress Board – set up for survivors of Ireland’s residential institutions – and is now representing those who were also held in Magdalene Laundries between 1922 and 1996.

Senior Partner Patrick Allen said, “We are working closely with the victims of the Magdalene Laundries to ensure that as many of them as possible receive the fair, decent treatment and compensation that they deserve.

“We will work tenaciously for these women to fight for their justice and to right the wrongs that they have endured over the years.”

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IRELAND
Longford Leader

Published on Saturday 2 March 2013

The fact that Newtownforbes was an industrial school with a laundry attached makes it an entirely different situation to the Magdalene Laundries, according to one long-standing campaigner for the Magdalene women.

When speaking to the Longford Leader this week Sally Mulready, Council of State and leader of the Step by Step Project which has sought justice for the Magdalene women for the last 14 years refused to be drawn on whether those in Industial schools should be entitled to redress under the new package currently being formulated by Judge Quirke.

She did however state that a redress system had been put in place for those who had suffered, and it was her understanding that they had “been very well compensated for the time they spent in industrial schools”.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

A recently published report into the Magdalene Laundries found direct State involvment in the institutions.

The Taoiseach has already apologised to survivors on behalf of the State, calling their treatment “a national shame”.

Efforts are now underway to secure adequate compensation payments for the survivors.

Spokesperson of the Justice for Magdalenes group Claire McGettrick said the group was “still in the process of digesting (the findings of) the McAleese report”.

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VATICAN CITY
The Australian

JOHN FOLLAIN, VATICAN CITY
From: The Sunday Times (UK)
March 04, 2013

CARDINALS plan to ask the next pope to pledge in his inaugural address that he will serve until his death, unlike Benedict XVI, whose resignation, they believe, has destabilised the Catholic Church.

Doubts have emerged about the impact of Benedict’s decision as the cardinals begin a series of meetings, known as general congregations, to discuss the church’s future.

Italian reports suggest some church leaders believe Benedict’s departure has undermined the sacredness of the office. An unnamed cardinal told the Corriere della Sera newspaper it was impossible to abolish the rule that a pope had the right to resign of his own freewill. “But for the future we need to safeguard the freedom of the church from external influences,” he said, amid fears that a pope could be pressured into stepping down.

Oon Friday, Benedict said he was “not abandoning the Cross, I am staying in a new way”. This was seen as a response to Polish cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, a former personal secretary to Pope John Paul II, who said of his resignation: “One doesn’t step down from the Cross.”

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, March 3 (Reuters) – The Roman Catholic Church must open itself up to women in the next pontificate, giving them more leadership positions in the Vatican and beyond, according to a senior cardinal who will be influential in electing the next pope.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, 69, an Argentine, also said the next pope should not be chosen according to a geographic area but must be a “saintly man” qualified to lead the Church in a time of crisis.

He said one of the greatest challenges facing the Church was trying to win back those suffering from a “loss of faith” who had “turned their back on God” and the Church of their fathers.

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FIJI
Fiji Village

More charges are expected to be laid against a Catholic priest who is a prime suspect in a series of alleged rapes.

The priest appeared in Tavua court on Friday charged with one count of alleged rape and one count of alleged indecent assault.

Police confirm the priest is expected to be charged for three more offences.

Police had earlier confirmed that a complaint was lodged last week by a cleaner and since then other victims have come forward.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

Peter FitzSimons
Sports Columnist

The Fitz Files

Typical Vatican. For decades it has presided over a global system whereby numerous priestly paedophiles are endlessly moved on to continue their devastation in ever more dioceses, rarely calling them to account and even more rarely calling the cops. They even harbour some of the worst, and their enablers, in the Vatican itself! No calls for resignation there, nothing bar actively working to hide their institutional shame for the destruction of so many young lives.

But if just one priest may have possibly acted in a sexually harassing manner 30 years ago to other adult priests and – if it might generate some bad headlines for the pope himself – that priest is GONE!

So we have seen in Britain this week with Cardinal O’Brien, an outspoken anti-gay-marriage advocate who – and now there’s a surprise – is actually gay himself.

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SCOTLAND
Southern Reporter

Published on Sunday 3 March 2013

ROMAN Catholics in the Borders have been left shocked and saddened by the allegations of inappropriate behaviour levelled at Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

That was the view of senior figures from the local Roman Catholic community, speaking this week as Borders Catholics, readying themselves for the appointment of a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, now have to come to terms with the loss of their own cardinal after his sudden resignation on Monday.

Cardinal O’Brien, now ex-Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, is noticeable by his absence from this week’s events in Rome, where church’s leaders have gathered for the conclave to elect a new pope, as the 85-year-old Pope Benedict steps down today, becoming the first pontiff in more than 600 years to resign.

A frequent visitor to the Borders, the cardinal has been accused of inappropriate behaviour towards priests in the 1980s – allegations he contests.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

FATHER John Robinson, 71m has called for an open investigation into the claims against Cardinal Keith O’Brien and other historic allegations against churchmen.

A VETERAN priest has accused the Catholic Church of decades of cover-up and a conspiracy of silence.

Father John Robinson broke ranks yesterday to call for an open investigation into allegations made against Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

He spoke out after Church leaders sent a letter to Scotland’s priests telling them not to talk about the claims of inappropriate behaviour, which are denied by the cardinal but are being investigated by the Vatican.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

THE claims are centred on Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s time as spiritual director of St Andrew’s College in Drygrange, in the Borders.

A STATEMENT from Cardinal O’Brien is expected within days after more details of the allegations against him emerged last night.

The cleric – who was Britain’s most senior Catholic until his resignation last week – has remained silent since issuing a brief statement on Monday.

He said the allegations are “contested” and that he is taking legal advice. However, Monday’s statement did not refer to them.

He did apologise to anyone he had offended during his career.

But he is coming under growing pressure as more information about the claims emerges.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Sunday 3 March 2013

WHEN people turned up for mass a week past Saturday evening at Our Lady of the Waves Church in Dunbar they knew that it would be conducted by Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

What they did not suspect, however, was that it would be his last as Britain’s most senior Catholic.

The Cardinal, who was due to retire next month on his 75th birthday, had previously intimated that he was keen to move from Edinburgh to the East Lothian seaside town where he is a familiar figure.

Herbert Coutts, vice-chair of the church’s parish council, told the local paper: “The intention was that he would do masses in Dunbar as he could, so to speak, because there is a shortage of priests and our priest covers both Dunbar and North Berwick, so that would be of assistance to him.”

Whether that will now happen is anyone’s guess. Hours after telling one member of the congregation to “keep carrying the flag” for the Catholic Church, O’Brien was accused by three priests and one former priest, who is now married, of “inappropriate behaviour”.

What seems likely is that O’Brien would have known this was in the pipeline as he preached at Our Lady of the Waves. His four accusers, none of whom has yet been identified, circumvented the hierarchy of the Scottish Catholic church, and took their grievances directly to nuncio Antonio Mennini, the Vatican’s ambassador to Britain. The result was O’Brien’s resignation.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

[with video]

3 March 2013

One of four men who made claims against Cardinal Keith O’Brien in the days before he resigned said he went public despite being warned he could damage the Catholic Church’s reputation.

The former priest and three current priests complained to the Pope’s representative to Britain, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, in early February about the Cardinal’s alleged inappropriate behaviour.

Cardinal O’Brien contests the claims against him.

Catherine Deveney is the journalist who reported allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By:Leslie Scrivener
Feature writer, Published on Sun Mar 03 2013

Joanna Manning, former nun, award-winning religion teacher, advocate for the poor and activist-intellectual, was battle-weary.

For decades she had challenged the Catholic Church, arguing for women’s ordination, the right of priests to marry and accountability in repeated sexual abuse crises.

So Manning, once the public face of the reform movement in Catholic Canada and a persistent burr in the side of the church establishment, decamped a decade ago.

She is now a priest in the Anglican Church.

“I did go through a period of grieving for the loss of the vision I’d grown up with after Vatican II,” says Manning, now 69, referring to the 1962-1965 council to modernize the church. “But the church hierarchy had shut down and retreated . . .

Critics say the Catholic Church hierarchy is disconnected from many if not most of its followers on issues of reform. Theologian Hans Kung writes that a recent poll in Germany shows 85 per cent of Catholics say priests should be allowed to marry, 79 per cent say divorced persons should have permission to remarry in the church and 75 per cent favour ordaining women.

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UNITED KINGDOM
icRenfrewshire

Mar 3 2013

A former priest who reported Cardinal Keith O’Brien to the Vatican over allegations of “inappropriate” behaviour has attacked the church’s response to the complaints.

The Cardinal, who was Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric, stepped down from his post as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh a day after the allegations by three priests and a former priest stretching back 30 years were published last Sunday. The Cardinal is contesting the allegations and is taking legal advice.

The 74-year-old cleric tendered his resignation to Pope Benedict in November, citing age and “indifferent health”. He had been widely expected to step down next month when he turns 75.

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POLSKA
Newsweek

Na nic papieskie wytyczne i deklaracje biskupów – ofiary księży pedofilów w Polsce nie mogą się doprosić sprawiedliwości. Kościół ich zwodzi, przeciąga sprawy, a najczęściej po prostu milczy.

Tomaszowi sił do walki dodała niedawna wypowiedź biskupa Tadeusza Pieronka o tym, że pedofilia to odwieczna namiętność, a w ogóle Kościół ma ważniejsze sprawy na głowie niż zwalczanie jej we własnych szeregach. – Straszne chamstwo – mówi. – Biskup Pieronek wyraził jednak to, co my, ofiary księży pedofilów, od lat wiemy. Że Kościół traktuje nas z pogardą. I nic się w tym względzie od lat nie zmienia. Zupełnie nic.

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CANADA
The Whig

By Greg Van Moorsel, The London Free Press

Friday, February 22, 2013

They stand out in any cemetery — not because they’re the biggest or smallest tombstones, although they do range from towering monuments to remarkably modest markers.

No, children’s graves command our attention in cemeteries because we instinctively feel the incongruity of young lives cut short before they have a chance to leave a mark.

We’re reflexively drawn to the abrupt endings and often untold stories behind those lives.

Now, imagine several thousand kids’ graves — some more than 100 years old, some known but not yet found, still others lacking the simple dignity of names attached.

New, unpublished research has, for the first time, put a preliminary figure to the death toll of children while attending Canada’s Native residential school system. Mining through one million records, researchers working for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have concluded at least 3,000 young lives were lost. Disease, malnutrition and accidents killed. So did devastating fires and harrowing ordeals like runaways freezing to death.

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VATIKAN
Frankfurter Allgemeine

02.03.2013 · Angelo Sodano ist als Dekan der mächtigste unter den mehr als 200 Kardinälen. Papst wird er aber wohl nicht werden. Selbst für manchen Kardinal ist Sodanos Gesicht auch die Fratze des Bösen.

Von Daniel Deckers

De jure ist der Dekan des Kardinalskollegiums der Erste unter Gleichen. De facto ist er der Mächtigste im Kreis der mehr als 200 Kardinäle. Selten wird das so deutlich wie nach dem Tod oder – wie jetzt – Amtsverzicht eines Papstes. Der Kardinaldekan leitet die Aussprachen (Generalkongregationen), in denen sich die Kardinäle vor dem Beginn des eigentlichen Wahlakts (Konklave) über den Zustand der Kirche Rechenschaft geben, und er steht der öffentlichen Messe vor, die vor dem ersten Wahlgang gefeiert wird. Kurz: Er ist für eine kurze, aber alles entscheidende Zeit nach innen wie nach außen das Gesicht der katholischen Kirche.

Nach dem Tod Johannes Pauls II. hatte Joseph Kardinal Ratzinger diese herausgehobene Position inne. Und er nutzte sie. In seiner Predigt während der Messe „Pro eligiendo Romano Pontifice“ geißelte er die „Diktatur des Relativismus“. Einen Tag später war er Papst. So wird es mit Kardinaldekan Angelo Sodano wohl nicht kommen. Weniger weil der Geistliche 85 Jahre alt ist. Vielmehr sehen selbst Kardinäle im Gesicht eines der Ihren auch die Fratze des Bösen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
netzwerkB

Auf Empfehlung des “Runden Tisches Sexueller Kindesmissbrauch” hat die ehemalige Bundesbildungsministerin Anette Schavan Studien zu Ausmaß & Folgen sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs in Auftrag gegeben und die Familienministerin Schröder Kampagnen zu dessen Prävention, wozu auch die Inszenierung eines Kindertheaterstücks zählt.

Ein Kommentar von Kirsten Diercks

Gestern Abend hatte nun dieses Theaterstück gegen sexuellen Missbrauch am Berliner Renaissance-Theater Premiere für ein geladenes Publikum. Eine deutschlandweite zweijährige Tournee durch Schulen soll folgen. Wieder einmal geht es darum, den Kindern klar zu machen, dass sie auf ihre eigene Wahrnehmung vertrauen und “Nein!” sagen sollen, wenn sie körperliche Annäherungen, gleich welcher Art, nicht mögen.

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GERMANY
Sueddeutsche

Joseph Ratzinger hat als Papst Benedikt XVI. wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse in das römisch-katholische Weltbild integriert. Doch ging es ihm niemals darum, dieses Weltbild zu verändern. Stattdessen hat er versucht, Adam und Eva, die Erbsünde und die christliche Vorstellung vom Bösen in die moderne Welt hinüberzuretten.

Von Markus C. Schulte von Drach

Manchen gilt Joseph Ratzinger als Philosoph: Papst Benedikt XVI. hat sich in den vergangen Jahrzehnten einen Ruf als großer Theologe und tiefer Denker erarbeitet. Eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben, denen er sich während seines Pontifikats verpflichtet fühlte, war, Glaube und Vernunft zusammenzubringen.

Nun ist Vernunft mehr als logisches Denken und rationales Verhalten. Auf jeden Fall aber gilt es gemeinhin als vernünftig, wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse zu berücksichtigen. Und auch Joseph Ratzinger hat sich als Kardinal und Papst wiederholt bemüht, den katholischen Glauben in Einklang zu bringen mit dem, was Wissenschaftler über das Leben und den Kosmos bislang herausgefunden haben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Tammoxsche Gedanken II

In meinem greisen Alter schlägt man sich mit über Dekaden eingeübten Gewohnheiten herum.
Man freut sich immer noch auf Montag und Donnerstag, weil man die großen Titelgeschichten in SPIEGEL und ZEIT lesen möchte.

Jene beiden wöchentlichen Periodika, die einem schon so viele Bauchschmerzen verursacht haben, die aber immer noch die besten sind, die es in Deutsch gibt.

„Früher“ waren die Titelgeschichten irgendwie besser. Informativer und mit mehr Lesevergnügen.
Ich weiß nur nicht, ob „früher alles besser war“, oder ob ich als Leser durch das Internet, das TV und qualitativ verbesserte Tagespresse einfach auf einem höheren Wissensniveau bin, so daß ganz natürlich die langen Geschichten der Wochenblätter keine zusätzlichen Erkenntnisse bringen können.
Immer wieder falle ich darauf rein bei meinen Lieblingsthemen tolle Geschichten zu erwarten. Gestern, also der aktuellsten SPIEGEL-Ausgabe, gab es selbstverständlich eine große Vatikan-Titelgeschichte, „der Kampf um Rom“.

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GERMANY
Frankfurter Allgemeine

[Tsunami in Rom]

03.03.2013 · The Roman Catholic Church and its approach to the sexual abuse of children and youths. An interview with the long-time promoter of justice of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, Auxiliary Bishop of Malta.

Von Daniel Deckers

Monsignor Scicluna, in October 2002, you were appointed by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to investigate allegations of clerical child sex abuse. Why were you chosen?

I was no newcomer to the Roman Curia. After studying civil and canon law, I began working in 1996 at the Roman Catholic Church’s highest court, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. In one of the positions I held there, I served as secretary of a commission that produced the draft of an important document regarding the nullity-of-marriage process.

This document was released by the Holy See in 2002 under the title of “Dignitas connubii.” While I was working as secretary of this commission, I attracted the attention of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

What was someone versed in canon law doing in the congregation of faith, and as a “promotor iustitiae” at that?

The congregation was never just an administrative body. It was also a tribunal. It is charged with investigating the most serious crimes defined by canon law, matters that include the breach of the seal of the confessional and the sacramental absolution of accomplices in sexual misconduct. In such cases, a prosecutor known as the promoter of justice, “promotor iustitiae,” is appointed. This position had been vacant since 1995 and was filled in 2002.

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MONTANA
Billings Gazette

By Cindy Uken

BOZEMAN – As a 13-year-old Catholic boy growing up in Twin Bridges, population less than 400, D Gregory Smith knew he was different from other boys his age.

His hormones were ablaze, kindled by his attraction to other boys and men.

It was the 1970s. There was no Internet. There were no TV characters that seemed to support what he was feeling.

“The only thing I knew was that it seemed wrong because nobody else had those feelings,” said Smith, now 47. “I grew to understand that both church and society frowned on people who were gay and that it wasn’t OK.”

As a young teenager, Smith felt hopeless. He feared he would shame himself and his family if he could not squelch his attraction to other males. He felt there was no place in the world for him.

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CANADA
The Daily Courier

If ever there was a play steeped in truth, however ugly that truth may be, Where the Blood Mixes hits the proverbial nail on the head.

It also strikes deep in the heart and mind, shedding much-needed light on a part of Canadian history that is, on all levels, shameful.

Penned by Kevin Loring, the play peels back the layers of memory that are carried like a protective blanket by First Nations survivors of the brutal residential schools where thousands of young children were forced to live by the Canadian government.

Forcibly taken away from their families and communities, the church-run school system existed from the 1870s through the 1990s, leaving a legacy of physical, mental and sexual abuse, and thousands of deaths, in their wake.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by NCR Editorial Staff | Feb. 28, 2013

Editorial

Pope Benedict XVI is leaving us, a weary, ailing and spent man. More than 60 years a priest, he gave himself entirely to the church. Elected pope almost eight years ago, he wanted to re-evangelize Europe, only to watch its churches’ pews empty. With church laws and apologies, he tried mightily to right a sex scandal, but he failed to bring to account the enablers of the abusers. Benedict preached and taught keenly as a theologian, but his words as a pastor were muffled.

In the end, the weight of office became too much for him, at age 85, to carry.

Was it the person or the structure that finally failed us?

It seems he will be remembered most in history for the way he left the papacy, the first pope to resign in modern times. His final legacy, then, has yet to be written. It will certainly be shaped in part by his surprisingly beautiful and pastoral encyclicals and his book-length reflections on Jesus. And it will depend, as well, on what follows. This is a critical time for the church.

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UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times

On Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI became the first pontiff in nearly 600 years to willingly step down from his position. What kind of man will the cardinals who have gathered in Rome from around the world choose to be his successor? We asked Catholics from a variety of perspectives to write about some of the qualities they would like to see in a new pope.

Sackcloth and ashes

By Sister Eileen McNerney

The first words that I would like our new pope to say are, “For the next 40 days, I will be wearing sackcloth and ashes in repentance for the sins of our church.” The horrendous scandal of sexual abuse has pained me deeply, and I know that I am not alone in how I carry this sadness. I believe that a strong symbolic gesture from our next pope could do much to heal this pain. I want him to lead us in fearlessly facing the challenges of the Catholic Church in this postmodern age, forthrightly exploring issues that might threaten to divide us. And I pray that he will always have before him the words that Jesus used in calling St. Peter, the first pope: “Do not be afraid!” The new pope will need our loyalty and our prayers, and he has mine from the start.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

From:The Australian
March 03, 2013

WANTED: Bishop of Rome, Shepherd of the Flock, Vatican City Head of State, CEO, CFO and COO – fluency in multiple languages preferable. Few selection panels could have a task as demanding as that facing the papal conclave. Whoever the cardinals elect to succeed Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, one thing is certain: those expecting doctrinal change will be disappointed.

Adherence to doctrine and tradition has been the institution’s strength over 2000 years and will remain so. Western liberals who want an end to an all-male clergy and the church’s resolute opposition to abortion should remind themselves that the word “catholic” means universal; the church is far bigger than the West. Popularity is no measure of the validity of revealed truth or doctrine, but those in the church’s emerging strongholds in the developing world are generally comfortable, anyway, with its centuries-old teachings.

Nonetheless, the 266th pontiff must embrace administrative reform and good governance if the church is to maintain credibility in the public square. Brisbane’s Archbishop Mark Coleridge, who worked for Pope John Paul II and in the Vatican Secretariat of State, showed sound insight when he suggested that the 115 electors seek out a pastor and evangelist with a proven track record of strong and good governance and mud on his boots rather than an academic or a curialist (Vatican speak for bureaucrat). Among the favourites, Italian cardinal Angelo Scola, who has run the dioceses of Milan and Venice, fits the bill. Among the dark horses, so does George Pell, though he won’t thank us for saying so.

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EGYPT
Ahram

For the first time in 50 years, Egypt’s Catholic Church will take part in the upcoming papal elections in the Vatican.

Spokesman of Egypt’s Coptic Catholic Church Father Rafiq Greish announced Saturday that the Church’s archbishop, Patriarch Antonios Naguib, will head to the Vatican Tuesday to attend the Papal conclave of the College of the Cardinals, during which the next Pope will be elected.

Bishop Antonios was appointed as a member of the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By DANIEL J. WAKIN

Published: March 2, 2013

VATICAN CITY — The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, who last week renounced what for nearly 600 years has been a lifelong office, will reverberate for years to come and could change the nature of the modern papacy, starting with the election of his successor.

Vatican experts and some church leaders said that Benedict’s decision holds the potential to set limits for future popes, to make them more subject to pressure from critics and to feed the perception that they are not just spiritual leaders of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics but chief executives managing the vast multinational conglomerate that is the church, with its franchises around the globe and headquarters in the Vatican state.

“If Jack Welch looked like this wonderful 85-year-old gentleman and he stepped down, wouldn’t you say, ‘Bravo, Jack?’ ” said Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the retired archbishop of New York, who called Benedict’s decision the sensible and logical thing to do. He was one of many cardinals to rally publicly around Benedict’s choice, a radical step for an otherwise deeply conservative theologian.

Now as 115 cardinals gather here to elect a new pope, with initial meetings on Monday to decide the conclave’s date, Benedict’s decision confronts them, and will confront future popes, with a host of new factors.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By TP O’Mahony
FOR the first time in the 2,000-year history of the papacy there will be two popes in the Vatican, living in close proximity. And the unprecedented situation created by Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise decision to resign could well serve as a template for the future.

Fr Andrew Greeley, the Chicago-based sociologist and author of The Making of the Pope, believes popes in the future may serve for fixed terms, thus removing the need for voluntary retirement. Under the current Code of Canon Law, however, only a pope can enforce that provision.

The code itself, the updated version of which was promulgated by Pope John Paul II in January 1983, provides for a papal resignation. Canon 332 states: “Should it happen that the Roman pontiff resigns from his office, it is required for validity that the resignation be freely made and properly manifested, but it is not necessary that it be accepted by anyone.”

This unexpected resignation, though, creates real difficulties. An editorial in the English Catholic weekly The Tablet identified the core problem: “There is a real danger of splitting the loyalties of hitherto faithful Catholics, particularly if the new pope does things, as he is more or less bound to do eventually, that depart from the policies of his predecessor and near neighbour”.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

An American pope is an unlikely prospect — but more likely than last time

By Michelle Boorstein

Published: March 2

When someone becomes pope — God’s representative on Earth to Catholics — he dons all white, takes the title “his holiness” and is greeted even by top cardinals with a kiss of his ring. Can a cardinal who pals around with Stephen Colbert fill such a vaunted role? How about one with a style so simple that he serves tuna sandwiches and chips to even his most important guests?

Yet these two men — Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston — are being talked about as contenders for the papacy, marking the first time an American has ever been seriously considered.

A U.S. pope has long been viewed as a highly unlikely possibility, partly due to the nation’s reputation as too informal in contrast with the heavily ritualized, even mystical Vatican culture. An even larger obstacle, experts on Catholicism say, is the image of the United States as a global superpower reputedly under the sway of Wall Street and the CIA and morally corrupted by Hollywood.

But this year, “it’s a whole new ballgame,” as O’Malley said at a news conference Thursday. The stage has been set, he and others say, by Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to eschew convention and retire.

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ROME
Philly.com

Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Posted: Sunday, March 3, 2013

ROME – Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., hasn’t decided whom he will vote for in the papal election, but he has a clear vision of the kind of man the church needs.

He must exude holiness and have a gift for making the Catholic faith compelling to those who have rejected what they know of it, he said Saturday.

When the new pope is introduced, “He needs to step out onto that balcony and he needs to say, ‘Christ is with us. We need to listen to him. He has the answers to the questions of the human heart. He shows us a better way to live than the secular world can offer.’ ”

Wuerl, 72, who was bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, spoke at St. Peter in Chains, his titular church in Rome. Historically the cardinals were the priests of Rome, so the pope assigns each of them a church here.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

By
Jordan Graham

As Cardinal Sean O’Malley prepares to meet with 114 other cardinals in Rome tomorrow to pick the date for the conclave where they will select the next pope, he isn’t forgetting the faithful back in Boston.

O’Malley, who in 2006 became the first cardinal to have a personal blog, has posted an account and photos of his journey to Vatican City and the events leading up to last Thursday’s resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, at cardinal
seansblog.org.

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NEW YORK
The Province (Canada)

By Rachel Zoll, The Associated Press
March 3, 2013

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Challenging a White House mandate for birth control coverage in health insurance, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan sounded like a general rallying the troops.

“The only thing we’re certainly not prepared to do is give in,” Dolan said at a national bishops’ meeting last November. “We’re not violating our consciences.”

Weeks earlier, he had appeared in a far less formal setting, at New York’s Fordham University with comedian Stephen Colbert. From the 3,000 cheering audience members, one student considering the priesthood asked whether he should date. Dolan said it could help decide the right path, then quipped, “By the way, let me give you the phone numbers of my nieces.”
___

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the Roman Catholic Church prepares to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, The Associated Press is profiling key cardinals seen as “papabili” — contenders to the throne. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. But these are the names that have come up time and again in speculation. Today: Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
___

Catholic News Service calls him a happy warrior for evangelization. Kean University historian Christopher Bellitto calls him the bear-hug bishop. Dolan, 63, is an upbeat, affable defender of Catholic orthodoxy, and a well-known religious figure in the United States.

He holds a job Pope John Paul II once called “archbishop of the capital of the world.” His colleagues broke with protocol in 2010 and made him president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, instead of elevating the sitting vice-president as expected. And during the 2012 presidential election, Republicans and Democrats competed over which national political convention the cardinal would bless. He did both.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

March 4, 2013

Barney Zwartz

Cardinal George Pell must not become pope because it would rub salt into the wounds of clergy sex abuse victims, according to leaders of the world’s biggest victim advocacy group.

The call by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which has more than 12,000 members worldwide, came as retired Australian Cardinal Edward Cassidy suggested clergy abuse would not be prominent in pre-conclave discussions by the cardinals this week.

SNAP leader David Clohessy said Cardinal Pell was high on the list of cardinals who were morally compromised over abuse.

”I hope he doesn’t even get a vote to avoid rubbing salt into the fresh wounds of not just victims but betrayed Catholics as well.”

Mr Clohessy said Cardinal Pell blamed the sex abuse crisis on the media, claiming it was a smear campaign against the church.

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SCOTLAND
The Scottish Sun

By AAMER ANWAR

THE Pope, before stepping down, said the Catholic Church “had faced stormy weather” and “at times it felt like the Lord was sleeping”.

For victims of sexual abuse this was a sickening distortion of the truth.

The Church, which claims to support family values, has turned a blind eye to the abuse of children in their care for generations.

The institutional response was not to hand over priests to the police, but to relocate abusers thus allowing them to simply carry on. When victims, usually practising Catholics, have spoken out they are described as being “motivated by greed”, whilst their abusers receive plaudits for past good deeds.

Before becoming Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, Joseph Ratzinger was the second most powerful priest in the Vatican, in charge of an organisation once known as the ‘inquisition’, the ultimate enforcer for any priests that broke the rules.

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WYOMING
Laramie Boomerang

By The Associated Press

• Sunday, March 03, 2013

A 28-year-old janitor accused of leading multiple young girls to believe he was a youth group leader at a Casper church and then taking advantage of that trust has been charged with five counts of sexual abuse of a minor.

KTWO-TV reports ( http://bit.ly/WyxNSu) James Jaure made his initial appearance in Natrona County Circuit Court on Thursday.

Jaure, a registered sex offender, is accused of sexually abusing three girls from a Highland Park Church youth group over several months last year. The alleged victims told investigators Jaure asked them to text sexual photos to him and he would text some in return.

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ROME
CBS News

By Alicia Budich

Preparing to meet with 114 of his Cardinal Brethren Monday morning in Rome, The Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan told Bob Schieffer that while he was looking forward to talking with the other cardinals, praying with them and getting to know one another, difficult topics — including the Church’s sexual abuse scandals — will probably also be a part of their conversations.

Schieffer asked whether or not the congregation meetings, which start on Monday, would address things like transparency and the cover-up of sexual crimes and pedophilia. Dolan insisted “There’s no cardinal with his head in the sand when it comes to these issues.” Dolan elaborated, saying that the afflictions of the world including “sexual immorality, perversion, abuse of children -that affects all elements of society and culture, are particularly hideous when it comes to the Church. And that that will be an issue? I predict it will.”

Pope Benedict XVI alluded to some of these issues on Wednesday in his last public address as Pope. He told about 150,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square that over the eight years of his papacy, the church “has seen moments joy and light, but also difficult moments… there have been times when the seas were rough and the wind against us, as in the whole history of the church it has ever been – and the Lord seemed to sleep.”

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ILLINOIS
Patch

By Karen Chadra

The pastor of a church on the north side of Elmhurst shocked his congregation Sunday by reading a letter of confession from his former associate pastor—a letter that described a sexual relationship with an underage girl.

West Suburban Community Church Senior Pastor Jim Lennon announced to his congregation Sunday, Feb. 24, that 41-year-old Darin Evans admitted to “an inappropriate physical relationship with an adolescent minor girl that continued for a few years.”

Lennon contacted Elmhurst police, who opened an investigation and went to Ohio to interview Evans. The investigation remains open, and Evans has not been charged with a crime, Deputy Police Chief Dominic Panico said Tuesday. He declined further comment.

“We’re praying for the (girl) and her family,” Lennon said in a phone interview. “We have experienced the close reality of evil and we’re just relying on our faith in Jesus Christ to get us through this awful situation. We’re just devastated.”

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

‘There has been a constant drip of scandal connected to sexual abuse in the run-up to the conclave”

The View From The Vatican By Philip Willan in Rome

Sunday 3 March 2013

With rumour and intrigue swirling around the Vatican as cardinals prepare to elect a successor to Pope Benedict, the last thing the Roman Catholic Church needed was the ignominious departure last week of Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

The allegations against the cardinal are said to have been presented about a week before Pope Benedict announced his intention to step down on grounds of age and ill health – the same reason O’Brien gave for his own resignation last November, which the Pope originally said he would accept at some stage in the future, possibly on O’Brien’s 75th birthday on March 17.

Creating further confusion, on the day it was announced that O’Brien’s resignation had been accelerated, the Vatican published a statement saying the Pope had accepted the resignation on February 18 – a week earlier under canon 401, clause 1 of the church’s Code of Canon Law.

That clause refers to the obligation of bishops to present their resignation on reaching their 75th birthday, and makes no mention of ill health or “other grave causes” that can also be invoked for a bishop’s resignation.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

Reviewed by: Roger Currie

Posted: 03/2/2013

THE surprising news that Benedict XVI became the first pope in more than 600 years to abdicate as head of the world’s Roman Catholics has given added currency to the latest book by Garry Wills, one of North America’s most prominent Catholic scholars.

In Why Priests?, The Real Meaning of the Eucharist, the Pulitzer Prize-winner, whose previous books include Papal Sin and Why I Am a Catholic, wonders aloud about the history of the priesthood. In light of sexual abuse scandals that have plagued the church in recent years, especially since Benedict succeeded John Paul II in 2005, Wills spends almost 300 pages exploring the idea that the church could survive quite well without priests.

He emphasizes repeatedly that he has nothing personal against priests. Indeed, as a young man he spent five years in a Jesuit seminary, studying to become one. But now he seems to argue that the priesthood may have been a major mistake in the evolution of the church since the time of Jesus Christ.

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AUSTRALIA/UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph

•Charles Miranda in London
•From: News Limited Network
•March 04, 2013

TWO priests are under investigation by church authorities both in Australia and the UK amid allegations they sexually abused at least two boys in the 1960s and 1980s.

News Limited can reveal one of the priests, Father Gordon Bennett, died in 2011 but not before the church had been told the priest, who was sent to Australia in September 1985, was being accused of child sex offences.

The victim, who asked not to be named, had been writing to the church in the UK and later Australia with his claims for more than five years prior to Fr Bennett dying at the age of 90.

The victim, now aged in his 60s, last month retained legal counsel and is to pursue a claim of damages against the Catholic Church in Australia or in London where last Friday the UK’s highest court ruled clerics were akin to being “employees” of the church and thus diocese are liable.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Observer

Editorial

The Observer, Saturday 2 March 2013

Two venerable national institutions have been engulfed in recent weeks by allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour by senior officers. One of them is trying to reassure victims that it is taking their concerns seriously. The other is the Catholic church in Scotland.

The Observer last week revealed that three priests from the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh and one ex-priest had made an official complaint to the Vatican stating that they had been subjected to “inappropriate” advances by their boss, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the most senior Catholic churchman in Britain. Since then, the response of the Scottish Catholic hierarchy has been lamentable. When asked why the cardinal had failed specifically to deny the allegations, the church’s spokesman in Scotland claimed that O’Brien did not know what he was being accused of. Yet a few days earlier the Observer had provided him with details of the complaints before we published the story.

Rather than offer help and spiritual guidance to the four men, there has been barely concealed hostility and calls for the men to “out” themselves.

Nor can these incidents be examined in isolation. The frequency with which stories of aberrant sexual behaviour within the Catholic clergy throughout the last 40 years have occurred suggests that the church has a systemic problem.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By EDDIE BARNES
Published on Sunday 3 March 2013

CATHOLIC priests in Scotland should be told either to sign a renewed pledge to remain celibate or asked to leave their posts, according to an adviser to the Vatican.

Professor John Haldane, a Roman Catholic academic based at St Andrews University, is proposing the radical step following Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s resignation last week amid claims that he had engaged in “inappropriate behaviour” with four priests and one former cleric.

The cardinal’s case is being dealt with by the Vatican but, with a stunned Church hierachy in Scotland seeking to pick up the pieces after the revelations, Haldane – one of the most respected figures in the church – warns that fresh steps are required to prove that priests across the country are abiding by their original vows so such “scandals” can be avoided.

In an article in the Catholic newspaper The Tablet, Haldane asks how “in scandal-scarred Scotland” should the Church renew its vocation. It should include, he says, a call to “engage directly with the clergy, proposing a clear option: remain in holy orders subject to signing a private but strict renewed solemn vow of celibacy; or failing willingness to do that, be restored to the lay state.”

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

DANI Garavelli talks to a gay priest about living in the shadow of shame cast by the conflict of his vocation and his sexuality

LOOKING back from a distance of more than 20 years, Fr Joe can see that his decision to join the priesthood was motivated in part by his homosexuality. Coming of age in the 1970s, when there was still a huge stigma attached to coming out as gay, it provided an alternative to getting married and having children.

“I was hugely idealistic and genuinely believed in the priesthood, but I think it was also the only respectable way to be Catholic and single,” he says. “I wouldn’t have recognised it at the time, but I think I was trying to escape having to tell my family about my sexuality or even having to face up to it properly ­myself.”

Once ordained, however, he realised being gay in a church which considers ­homosexuality to be intrinsically disordered brings problems of its own. Prey to the same temptations as everyone else, but unable to talk openly about them, many homosexual priests find themselves feeling undervalued and ­isolated. Trying to navigate their way in a highly sexualised society, with little or no pastoral support, it’s hardly surprising if they sometimes find it difficult to keep their vows.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Some conservative Catholics like to dismiss almost any change in current Catholicism as “Protestant” and then point to the difficulties mainline Protestant denominations have faced trying to make the Gospels relevant to the real world of everyday Christians. Difficult yes, but clearly necessary and doable. These traditionalist Catholics then usually point to growth statistics in countries where Catholic bishops have, in effect, helped pump up birth rates by preventing accessible family planning and increased priests’ ordinations among impoverished young men with few other professional opportunities.

The criticism of Protestant reforms is mainly premised on an ignorance about what really happened and didn’t happen as a result of the Reformation, a subject few Catholics are taught. The artificially pumped statistics will deflate as family planning and educational choices are increasingly made available. This will continue to occur steadily in countries like the Philippines, where voters just approved accessible family planning despite strong Catholic hierarchical opposition. Inevitably, this trend will follow among Catholic populations in South and Latin America, Africa and Asia and has already started to happen.

For almost five centuries amidst European monarchical wars and rivalries, the Vatican has been able to postphone modernizing the papacy as Luther, Calvin and others fairly called for, given the clear conflicts between papal practices and Gospel mandates. The other European monarchs have been effectively gone for a century, the papal monarchy’s bubble has just burst and the mystical smoke is quickly dissipating. Reformation 2.0 is well underway and 117 senior celibates in red dresses cannot prevent it, as they are quickly finding out.

As Cardinals retreat behind Vatican walls, while Protestants, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama, appear increasingly as Luther’s and Calvin’s potential successors in helping to reform medieval Catholicism? The 2005 papal election Conclave followed the myopic media madness about Pope John Paul II’s funeral. The 2013 Conclave follows the pathetic Vatican escape of Joseph Ratzinger, now the first Shadow Pope, with Georgeous Georg, and the continuing media shock at the magnitude of the Vatican’s moral chaos. The scandals just keep on coming with no end in sight, one more troubling than the next.

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VATICAN CITY
Cardinal Roger Mahony Blogs LA

It is a great grace to be meeting with and speaking to so many Cardinals from around the world, all of us given the incredible task of electing the next Pope.

But one aspect of this search has been to quietly compile a list of those criteria and characteristics which both the Cardinals and Catholics are looking for in our next Successor to Peter. The result: there is no human being on earth who could meet all of those requirements!

Among some of the musings–we need a Pope who: speaks at least six languages fluently; who has served as a pastoral priest and bishop for many decades; who has extensive administrative and financial experience; who is an intellectual and scholar; who is an ordinary person who can relate to people; who can relate to college graduates and to migrant farm workers; who can proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that attracts hundreds of millions of new followers; who spends hours each day in prayer, while appearing on numerous television programs; who can understand Latin, and be on Facebook and Twitter at the same time; who can engage young people while consoling the elderly; who can speak clearly about Angola in one moment, and Tibet in the next; who can overnight increase vocations to the priesthood and to religious life. And that’s just the beginning of the list!

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

2 March 2013

By John Cornwell

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrung his hands above his head in triumph as he emerged as Pope on to the balcony of St Peter’s eight years ago. He had won!

He had longed to be Pope. He has loved being Pope. He expected to die as Pope.

Two weeks ago he announced in Latin he wasn’t up to it any more. Up to what? He spent most of his time writing and took time off to tinkle on the piano and stroke his cat.

He’s been waited on hand and foot. He has his handsome secretary Georg Ganswein to do his every bidding.

There’s been talk of frailty, encroaching dementia, mortal illness. There’s been pious spin about a holy act of ‘humility’.

But one of his predecessors, sprightly Leo XIII, who died 110 years ago, went on until he was 93. Benedict knew from the start, aged 76, that he would grow old in office.
We’ve heard about the so-called papal ‘resignation’ almost 600 years ago. But there wasn’t one. There were three rival Popes back then, and one of them was a psychopath.

They were sacked by a council of all the bishops and cardinals to get back to one Pope at a time. Since then, every Pope has died in office.

Resignation isn’t in Benedict’s vocabulary. The real reason he has quit is far more spectacular.

It is to save the Catholic Church from ignominy: he has voluntarily delivered himself up as a sacrificial lamb to purge the Church of what he calls ‘The Filth’. And it must have taken courage.

Here is the remarkable thing you are seldom told about a papal death or resignation: every one of the senior office-holders in the Vatican – those at the highest level of its internal bureaucracy, called the Curia – loses his job.

A report Benedict himself commissioned into the state of the Curia landed on his desk in January. It revealed that ‘The Filth’ – or more specifically, the paedophile priest scandal – had entered the bureaucracy.

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CHILE
El Economista

James Hamilton, una de las víctimas de abuso sexual de un influyente sacerdote chileno, volvió a acusar de encubrimiento de ese delito al cardenal chileno Francisco Javier Errázuriz, y exigió que éste no participe del cónclave para la elección del sucesor de Benedicto XVI.

Hamilton, médico de profesión, denunció junto a otros cuatro feligreses haber sido abusado sexualmente en los años ochenta por el sacerdote y formador de obispos Fernando Karadima, quien fue declarado culpable por el Vaticano y sentenciado a “retirarse a una vida de oración y penitencia”.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Ralph Riegel and Barry Duggan– 01 March 2013

THE appointment of six new Irish bishops will be delayed for months after Pope Benedict XVI opted to leave the promotions to his successor.

Just two of eight vacant bishoprics were filled by the Pope over the past three years, with Irish church officials admitting it was now likely to be “some time” before the remaining six were filled.

One senior bishop said Ireland would have to wait for major diocesan appointments until the Papal conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI’s successor was concluded.

“I would say that whatever is going to happen in the next month has already been decided and would have to be sanctioned by the Holy Father,” The Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, Dr Eamon Walsh said.

“After that we will have to wait awhile.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Observer

Kevin McKenna
The Observer, Saturday 2 March 2013

Of all the theories advanced explaining why the Catholic priesthood attracts so many young gay men, this is the most valid: it is a direct consequence of the church’s official attitude to homosexuality and the way that this has insinuated itself into the fabric of what we might call a traditional Catholic family with its roots in Ireland.

In such an upbringing homosexuality is still treated as the sum of all sins. Catholic families long ago found a way of dealing with abortion, extramarital sex and divorce, the other three horsemen of the Catholic apocalypse, whenever they occurred close to home, but not homosexuality.

The others could all be processed and interpreted as very human failings stemming from the powerful instinct of physical desire and our need for affection and love. The Christian virtues of understanding, compassion and forgiveness are built to outlast initial shock and hurt in these “acceptable” moral failings. Not so homosexuality.

For how many Catholic parents have secretly prayed that their son “does not turn out gay” or obsess about their response if the eldest boy shows no interest in football and insists on taking a shower every day and buying all his own clothes? The church’s pastoral care and guidance for its own gay community is nonexistent. Catholic gays are non-people in my church; they are “los desaparecidos” and one day many of us will be called to account for how we have treated them.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Observer

[O’Brien priest worries that church wants to ‘crush’ him – The Observer]

Catherine Deveney
The Observer, Saturday 2 March 2013

What is it about a gold mitre, a flowing robe, a flash of cardinal red that so clouds our judgment? It is as if we believe these things hold a kind of magic. Don them and the wearer becomes pure and invincible. No human urges, no troublesome sexuality. Some people are naively enthralled by hierarchy. Priest, good. Bishop, better. Cardinal, best of all. The four complainants in the Cardinal O’Brien affair, who have accused him of inappropriate behaviour, haven’t rated much sympathy within this strange moral hierarchy. “Who are they?” I have been asked all week. “Where are they?” has been another frequent question. But I have rarely been asked: “How are they?”

A narrative has begun to be embroidered on the cardinal’s magic mitre. A fairytale. He is named but his accusers are not, and therefore the accusations are invalid. Let us be clear about one thing: the three priests, and one former priest, who have made complaints are not anonymous. They have given sworn, signed statements to the papal nuncio. The unnerving thing about the hunt to “out” these men (my phone has not stopped ringing with offers to “make it worth my while”) is that it suggests people who have suffered traumatic events have no rights over how to tell their story, or how much information is made public. We demand not just that the appropriate authorities know names – we, the public, should know them, too.

In purely human terms, the story of Cardinal O’Brien’s resignation is tragic. He had spent a lifetime reaching the upper echelons of his church, but after allegations of inappropriate behaviour made in the Observer last Sunday his fall from grace took just 36 hours. Not one of the four complainants takes any satisfaction from that. This is not about the exposure of one man’s alleged foibles. It is about the exposure of a church official who publicly issues a moral blueprint for others’ lives that he is not prepared to live out himself. Homosexuality is not the issue; hypocrisy is. The cardinal consistently condemned homosexuality during his reign, vociferously opposing gay adoption and same-sex marriage. The church cannot face in two directions like a grotesque two-headed monster: one face for public, the other for private.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 23

[with video]

The Principal of Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown is on Administrative Leave. The school’s Board of Trustees taking that action earlier Friday. Ken Salem is getting paid during his absence. The school is not making specific comments not even confirming the reason why Salem is on leave. But his Attorney issued a strongly worded statement Friday afternoon which indicated Salem is on leave because of the scandal surrounding Brother Stephen Baker. In the past few weeks, former McCort students came forward claiming Baker sexually abused them while he served as a Trainer at the school in the 90’s. Salem’s Attorney denied Salem knew anything about that while it was happening.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

The Hague is above Pope, Vatican, Religion. The Hague must prosecute Benedict XVI now to prove secular International Justice reigns over ALL Religions and Despots

This is the FINAL CALL for The Hague to take Benedict XVI in to the International Court of Law to face – final justice – and only justice – for all hundreds of thousands of Catholic children all over the world who are victims of his crimes against humanity.

The Hague must not forfeit its – final moral voice – over the Pope and the Vatican because the world’s children and the world’s women and the world’s poor who are the victims of crimes against humanity depend on it.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WTAJ

By: Aaron Cheslock

Updated: March 1, 2013

JOHNSTOWN, CAMBRIA COUNTY – Principal Ken Salem was removed as Principal of Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown today.

The school’s board of trustees released a statement saying that Salem will be removed immediately, but did not explain why. The spokesman for the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese says it was the board’s decision, but they weren’t given a reason either. WTAJ News talked to concerned parents Friday night.

We went to Bishop McCort’s basketball game on Friday to talk to parents, a school official was telling parents not to talk to us, and wouldn’t let us talk to the basketball coach.

But the parents we did talk to want to know if Ken Salem’s firing had to do with the alleged sex crimes of Brother Steven Baker.

Salem’s Lawyer says Salem didn’t know about Baker’s alleged crimes. But parents like Laura Neatrour want answers.

“I want to know why, because I do like Mr. Salem as a person and as the Principal, I think he did a wonderful job.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
WTAJ

WTAJ News has learned late Friday afternoon that the Board of Trustees at Bishop McCort High School has placed Principal Ken Salem on paid administrative leave.

A spokesperson for the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese confirmed it was the boards decision entirely to place him on leave.

The Bishop McCort Board of Trustees released the following statement:

“Dear Bishop McCort Family,
The entire Bishop McCort Catholic High School Board of Trustees would first and foremost like to thank you for your continued support. Without your support, countless children and their families in the Johnstown area would not be able to receive a high quality Catholic academic and spiritual education.

Effective immediately, Mr. Ken Salem will no longer serve as Principal of Bishop McCort Catholic High School. In Mr. Salem’s place, the Bishop McCort Board of Trustees has unanimously appointed our current Assistant Principal, Dr. D.A. Gardill, to fill the position of Acting Principal on an interim basis.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Dave Sutor dsutor@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — Ken Salem is no longer principal at Bishop McCort Catholic High School.

He was placed on administrative leave with pay. The school informed members of its community about the change via email on Friday.

It stated: “Effective immediately, Mr. Ken Salem will no longer serve as Principal of Bishop McCort Catholic High School. In Mr. Salem’s place, the Bishop McCort Board of Trustees has unanimously appointed our current Assistant Principal, Dr. D.A. Gardill, to fill the position of Acting Principal on an interim basis.”

No reason was given for the decision.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

By WJAC Web Staff

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. —

Bishop McCort principal Ken Salem was placed on administrative leave with pay on Friday.

McCort high school has been in the midst of controversy since dozens of former students have accused the late Friar Brother Stephen Baker with sexual abuse. Baker worked as an athletic trainer at the school in the 1990s.

6 News received a letter from Salem’s attorney as well as a statement from McCort’s trustees.

The attorney statement blasted the action, saying it violated “fundamental fairness.”

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By ROSS DOUTHAT

Published: March 2, 2013

THE helicopter that carried Pope Benedict XVI into retirement left behind a Catholicism in crisis. So say his critics, his admirers and everyone in between.

The church needs “shock therapy” from its next pontiff, writes one observer. Catholicism faces its worst crisis “since the French Revolution,” argues another. “Not since the Reformation,” writes a third, “has the Church been so shaken to its core.”

Up to a point, the language of crisis is justified. To the trends weakening institutional faiths across the Western world — the rise of spiritual individualism, the influence of the so-called new atheism, the gap between traditional Christian sexual ethics and present-day realities — the Roman Catholic Church has added scandals, sclerosis and a communications strategy apparently designed to win the news cycles of 1848. In both Europe and America, Catholicism’s public reputation has worsened since Benedict assumed the papacy, and his nearly unprecedented abdication is a sign that the pope emeritus knows it.

But in assessing Benedict’s legacy, it’s worth looking back on the situation in the church in the late 1970s, when the man who was then Joseph Ratzinger left his academic career to become first an archbishop, then a cardinal and eventually the pope.

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UNITED STATES
First Things

Saturday, March 2, 2013

R.R. Reno | @rr_reno

After recent public accusations of sexual misconduct with seminarians, Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland not only resigned as archbishop but also announced that he would not attend the conclave to elect the next pope.

I wish some of the other Cardinals would give up the privileges of their office and refrain from attending the conclave. Cardinal Mahony offers a good example. The most generous thing we can say for his work as archbishop of Los Angeles is that it involved egregious errors of judgment. I’d like to be charitable, but I’m inclined to think much worse. The same holds for Cardinal Danneels of Belgium.

Cardinal O’Brien isn’t the only precedent. Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation was historic, and it was not prompted by any accusations of misdeeds and misconduct. Citing his advanced age, he decided that in important ways he was becoming unable to properly discharge his responsibilities as chief pastor of the Catholic Church. He thought it was in the best interests of the Church for him to step aside, giving up his office.

In Benedict, a good and holy man whose long service to the Church is widely admired gave up the privileges of his office, and he did so in accord with his judgment about how best to serve the Church. How much more so should cardinals whose failures have brought shame on the Church do the same?

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Observer

Catherine Deveney
The Observer, Saturday 2 March 2013

A key figure behind allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Cardinal Keith O’Brien has launched a powerful attack on the Catholic church’s response to the complaints, saying he fears the church hierarchy would “crush” him if they could.

Last Sunday the Observer revealed that the former priest, along with three serving priests, had reported O’Brien’s behaviour to the Vatican, prompting the UK’s most senior Catholic to resign the following day. Now the former priest, who says he was the subject of unwanted attention by O’Brien when he was a 20-year-old seminarian, has come forward to explain why he made his allegations public and to lambast the Scottish church leadership’s reaction to last week’s story.

He is “disappointed” by the “lack of integrity” shown by the Catholic church. “There have been two sensations for me this week. One is feeling the hot breath of the media on the back of my neck and the other is sensing the cold disapproval of the church hierarchy for daring to break ranks. I feel like if they could crush me, they would,” he told the Observer.

He added that he was shocked when Peter Kearney, director of communications for the church in Scotland, claimed O’Brien’s resignation was not linked to the Observer story and that the church did not know the details of the allegations. …

“The vacuum the church has created has allowed whimsy and speculation to distort the truth,” the priest said. “And the only support I have been offered is a cursory email with a couple of telephone numbers of counsellors hundreds of miles away from me. Anyway, I don’t need counselling about Keith O’Brien’s unwanted behaviour to me as a young man. But I may need counselling about the trauma of speaking truth to power.”

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CHILE
Terra

James Hamilton, denunciante y víctima del padre Fernando Karadima, criticó este sábado la participación del cardenal Francisco Javier Errázuriz en la elección del Papa que sucederá a Benedicto XVI.

“El cardenal no debe estar en un cónclave, debe estar tras las rejas”, manifestó Hamilton en entrevista con CNN Chile.

“La Iglesia Católica no necesita la protección de Errázuriz, mejor que proteja a los desvalidos que abandonó”, agregó.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 2, 2013

Rome —
As the church’s cardinals discuss who should be the next pope, they’ll also be considering how the church should be governed in the future, the editor of the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper said Saturday.

“The church always needs reform,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, a native Italian who is the editor of L’Osservatore Romano. “In history, the church of Rome and the church in general has shown its ability to respond and reform.”

A daily Italian-language paper, L’Osservatore Romano also publishes weekly editions in a number of other languages.

This week the paper has also published a number of special issues centering on Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation and the beginning of the period of “sede vacante,” when the church is without a pope as the cardinals begin to decide who will next fill the role.

Speaking in a short fifteen-minute interview in his Vatican office, Vian focused on the issue of church reform. The key reality of the Vatican, he said, is that “the Holy See is managed with care and with a continual effort to be faithful to the Gospel.”

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 2, 2013

Rome

One could make a strong case that Cardinal Francis George of Chicago is the closest thing the United States has to an “American Ratzinger,” meaning the leading intellectual light among the current crop of prelates. Also like Benedict XVI, George is contemplating retirement, having turned 76 and already submitted his letter of resignation.

George is in Rome preparing to elect the next pope, and he sat down Saturday afternoon for an interview with NCR.

He’s one of three American voters this time who also participated in the conclave eight years ago, and the only one still in office. The others are retired Cardinals Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, both of whom have faced recent criticism related to their handling of the sexual abuse crisis. As a result, if any American is positioned to play the role of “kingmaker” in the 2013 conclave, it’s arguably George.

One point that will be music to the ears of vaticanisti everywhere, meaning journalists specialized on the Vatican beat, is that George says the names of candidates currently showing up in the papers largely track with those figures the cardinals themselves are taking seriously. (In 2005, he said, that wasn’t always the case.)

George repeated a point he’s made to other media outlets, namely that “governance is the issue” heading into this conclave. He said the new pope will have to lead a serious reform of the Roman Curia, streamlining its procedures so that people’s lives are not put on hold indefinitely, and restoring a sense of trust compromised by the Vatileaks affair.

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MEXICO
e-Oaxaca

Diversas voces han señalado que Norberto Rivera Carrera, cardenal de México, no debe de asistir al cónclave en el que se elegirá al nuevo pontífice.

La oposición a su presencia en el Vaticano surge después de la transmisión de un video en el que el funcionario católico confiesa no haber actuado contra Nicolás Aguilar, acusado de pederastia.

“El cardenal Norberto Ribera Carrera protegió a Marcial Maciel a Nicolás Aguilar aquí en México y fue culpable al autorizar su traslado a Los Ángeles donde el padre Aguilar abusó de al menos de 26 niños. Exigimos que el cardenal Norberto Rivera no participe en el cónclave y además exigimos que públicamente responda por sus actos”, sentenció Alberto Athié, quien ha denunciado casos de abuso sexual contra menores cometidos por religiosos católicos.

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MEXICO
El Universal

Ante las cartas de víctimas de presunto abuso sexual por sacerdotes en las que se pide que el cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera no participe en el próximo cónclave para elegir nuevo Papa, la Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano (CEM) dejó en claro que se trata de una decisión personal.

“La Constitución Apostólica señala que todos los cardenales menores de 80 años tienen el derecho y el deber de participar en el cónclave, y si alguien encontrara una causa para no hacerlo tiene derecho de no participar”, señaló el secretario general de la CEM, Eugenio Lira.

Es decir, agregó, depende de cada circunstancia y debe ser una decisión personal, cada uno sabe cómo está la situación y debe tomar la que vea conducente.

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MEXICO/ROMA
La Prensa of Minnesota

A cuatro días de que concluya el pontificado del Papa Benedicto XVI, el rector y dean de la Catedral Metropolitana, el obispo Manuel Arellano, pidió a los feligreses, rezar por el Sumo Pontífice para que en este periodo de Cuaresma “pueda salir renovado completamente” de este proceso.

En ausencia del cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera, Manuel Arellano, informó a los feligreses que el Arzobispo Primado de México viajó a Roma para participar en la ceremonia de elección del próximo Papa.

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MEXICO
Proceso

Rodrigo Vera
28 de febrero de 2013

MÉXICO, D.F. (apro).- La Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano (CEM) aclaró hoy que el cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera deberá decidir si se abstiene de participar en el cónclave para elegir al nuevo Papa, como se lo han pedido organizaciones que lo acusan de proteger actos de pederastia sacerdotal.

En conferencia de prensa, monseñor Eugenio Lira Rugarcía, secretario general de la CEM, señaló:

“La normas internas de la Iglesia señalan que cualquier cardenal con menos de 80 años de edad, puede participar en el cónclave. Y el cardenal Rivera Carrera cumple con ese requisito. A él solo lo rigen las leyes de la Iglesia”.

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MEXIKO
Kipa

Mexiko-Stadt, 1.3.13 (Kipa) Die Mexikanische Bischofskonferenz verwahrt sich gegen Forderungen, Kardinal Noberto Rivera Carrera (70) solle auf die Teilnahme am Konklave verzichten. Ob er zur Papstwahl nach Rom reise, bleibe allein seine persönliche Entscheidung, sagte der Generalsekretär der Bischofskonferenz, Weihbischof Eugenio Lira, der Tageszeitung “Jornada” (Freitag).

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

02.03.2013 · „Es war wie ein Tsunami“: Der langjährige Missbrauchsbeauftragte des Vatikans, Charles Scicluna, fordert Konsequenzen aus der großen Zahl von Fällen sexueller Gewalt von Klerikern gegen Kinder, Jugendliche und Schutzbefohlene. Ausdrücklich lobt er Ratzingers Rolle bei der Aufarbeitung.

Der langjährige Missbrauchsbeauftragte des Vatikans hat Konsequenzen aus der großen Zahl von Fällen sexueller Gewalt von Klerikern gegen Kinder, Jugendliche und Schutzbefohlene gefordert. „Alle müssen lernen, Geistlichen nicht blind zu vertrauen“, sagte Charles Scicluna, heute Weihbischof in Malta, der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung (F.A.S.). „Sie sind Menschen wie Du und Ich, mit Stärken und Schwächen.“

Als Verwalter einer Sache, die Gott ihnen anvertraut habe, müssten sie Rechenschaft ablegen über ihr Handeln. Weil Übergriffe nie ausgeschlossen werden könnten, „müssen wir die Familien, Gruppen und Gemeinden in die Lage versetzen, die Anzeichen von Missbrauch zu erkennen und nicht wegzuschauen, sondern rechtzeitig und gut zu reagieren und die Wahrheit ans Licht zu bringen“, sagte Scicluna.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Focus

Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte des Vatikans sieht zwar keinen Zusammenhang zwischen Zölibat und sexueller Gewalt, aber Defizite in der Priesterausbildung. Zölibatäre müssten ihre sexuellen Impulse kontrollieren können. Den Medien spricht er bei der Aufklärung eine wichtige Rolle zu.
Der langjährige Missbrauchsbeauftragte des Vatikans, Charles Scicluna, sieht angesichts der Skandale um sexuelle Übergriffe in der katholischen Kirche Defizite in der Priesterausbildung. Es gebe zwar keinen direkten Zusammenhang zwischen dem Zölibat und sexueller Gewalt, sagte Scicluna der „Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung“. Es stelle sich aber die Frage, warum der Zölibat keinen zusätzlichen Schutz gegeben habe. „Ein Zölibatärer sollte gelernt haben, seine sexuellen Impulse zu kontrollieren. Daher haben wir es mit einem Defizit in der Priesterausbildung zu tun“, sagte er.

Als Konsequenz aus der großen Zahl sexueller Gewalttaten von Klerikern gegen Schutzbefohlene sagte Scicluna: „Alle müssen lernen, Geistlichen nicht blind zu vertrauen. Sie sind Menschen wie Du und Ich, mit Stärken und Schwächen.“ Weil Übergriffe nie ausgeschlossen werden könnten, „müssen wir die Familien, Gruppen und Gemeinden in die Lage versetzen, die Anzeichen von Missbrauch zu erkennen und nicht wegzuschauen, sondern rechtzeitig und gut zu reagieren und die Wahrheit ans Licht zu bringen“.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 2, 2013

Rome —
John Allen is offering a profile each day of one of the most frequently touted papabili, or men who could be pope. The old saying in Rome is that he who enters a conclave as pope exits as a cardinal, meaning there’s no guarantee one of these men actually will be chosen. They are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome these days, ensuring they will be in the spotlight as the conclave draws near. The profiles of these men also suggest the issues and the qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

Let’s assume you’re a big-time Hollywood producer, and you’re developing a movie about a pope who makes the Catholic church seem fresh and hip. If you were to call Central Casting to fill the part, whoever they send up would probably look a lot like Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa in Honduras.

Now 70, Rodriguez was just 58 when he was named a cardinal in 2001, and he took the world by storm. We’re talking about a tall, handsome prelate who plays both the saxophone and the piano, who’s trained as a pilot, who speaks six languages comfortably, who’s got a wide smile and genuine charisma, and who’s seen as a ferocious champion of the poor. He’s a massive hit on the lecture circuit and in media circles worldwide.

In Honduras itself, Rodriguez has long led the pack in terms of moral authority and social influence. In the 1990s, for instance, he was asked to lead a commission to restore the police force to civilian control. At one point during the deliberations, Rodriguez flew to Houston for a dental emergency, and awoke to discover that he had been named police chief! He scrambled to convey his regrets.

The story is illuminating: In a time of crisis, he was seen as the only figure most Hondurans would trust.

Rodriguez Maradiaga has been such an outspoken opponent of the drug trade in Central America that he’s had to move around with a military escort, given how often narco-terrorists have threatened his life.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

by Thomas Doyle | Mar. 2, 2013

Viewpoint
Way back in 2004, in the early days of the seemingly endless struggle for justice by the victims of several priests from Los Angeles, I had a conversation with one of the attorneys who represented several of these men and women. He said, “By the time this is over we are going to find out just how much Roger Mahony’s cardinal hat is worth.” I suspect that neither of us realized that this was truly a prophetic statement. In the end, the cost was calculated in dollars, trust, respect and faith.

The cost must also include the loss of truth.

The media responses to the final order to disclose all the files of predator priests and descriptions of the 10-year saga that preceded the court’s decision on Jan. 31 do not come close to telling the full story of the nightmare that led up to that day. The last major act, Archbishop Jose Gomez’s meaningless censure of Mahony and Mahony’s whining retort on his blog, is all about them and not about the real core of this almost incredible decade of events. At the heart of it all are the victims of Los Angeles priests, several hundred men and women. Yet the legal battle that went on and on not only overlooked them but continued to heap pain on their already scarred souls.

The media could not possibly recount the massive toll this took on so many people. The price of Mahony’s red hat is certainly steep in dollars. He retained an army of expensive lawyers to defend his intentional mishandling of reports of sexual abuse, and then to create legal roadblocks to the disclosure of the culprits’ files. The real cost of his hat was in people.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet

Austen Ivereigh – 2 March 2013

The period prior to the conclave is crucial for cardinal electors to discuss the central issues facing the Church and to help them determine who would best address them as pope. A former senior aide to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor recalls past pre-conclave meetings and how influential they have been

Voting in the Sistine Chapel, with all the accompanying drama and historical resonance, overshadows, in the popular perception of the papal transition, the period preceding it, when the world’s cardinals gather daily to take the temperature of the world, the Church and each other. These “general congregations” are vital for shaping the way the votes will go once the conclave itself begins.

What happens in the Sistine Chapel itself is more like a retreat, or a liturgy, than a discussion: the cardinals sit on tiered rows, conversing briefly with their neighbours, or saying Rosaries – but the focus is on the voting itself. So, too, are the conversations over lunch and dinner back in the Vatican residence where they stay during the voting, the Casa Santa Marta: what matters is the voting maths.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 2, 2013

Rome —
Back in 2004, a veteran Italian Vatican writer published a front-page piece predicting the end of the Lefebvrist schism in conjunction with the celebration of a Latin Mass at Rome’s St. Mary Major Basilica. When it didn’t happen, I jokingly asked him what had gone wrong.

His answer was lapidary: In giornalismo, ogni tanto si deve rischiare, which, loosely translated, means, “In journalism, every now and then you’ve got to take a shot.”

I mention this in light of the predictable round of speculation and analysis currently filling the Italian papers in the run-up to the election of the next pope, which, as always, is wildly entertaining, but not necessarily meant to be taken literally.

One story making the rounds is that the cardinals will forge a pact among themselves that whoever the next pope is, he will pledge never to resign. The idea is that some cardinals see resignation as both destabilizing and, in some sense, a blow to the majesty of the papal office, and to the notion that it’s not just a job but a form of spiritual paternity.

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VATICAN CITY
CNN

By Richard Allen Greene, Hada Messia and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
updated 8:39 AM EST, Sat March 2, 2013

Rome (CNN) — The cardinals who will elect the new pope following the historic resignation of Benedict XVI are continuing to make their way to Rome, the Vatican said Saturday, with some likely to arrive only Monday or Tuesday.

The first of a series of meetings known as general congregations takes place Monday morning — and a priority for the cardinals attending will be setting a date for the special election, or conclave, held to pick the next pope.

The Vatican has said it’s not sure whether a date will be agreed on as soon as Monday.

If cardinals are still arriving as the general congregations start, the timetable may be delayed.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Irish Central

Vatican invited Cardinal Keith O’Brien to conclave despite knowledge of sexual allegations by Catholic priests

by Cahir O’Doherty

When news broke this week that Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, had been accused by four priests of sexual exploitation both his critics and supporters were instantly suspicious of the timing.

Why now, they asked? Pope Benedict’s dramatic resignation was barely a week old and the papal conclave was already looming. How could accusations this damning have come to light just at this moment (especially considering O’Brien had Britain’s only vote for Pope)? It was an a reasonable question.

The answer, which came yesterday, probably isn’t going to satisfy the conspiracy theorists, but it’s a fairly convincing one. In a desperate attempt to minimize the impact, the pope moved quickly to stem the crisis before it could snowball.

That led to O’Brien standing down as archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh the day after the Observer newspaper published accusations about his conduct during the 1980’s.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2013

Richard Baker, Nick McKenzie

One of Australia’s most senior rabbis has revealed he did not inform police after a young boy contacted him to detail allegations of sexual abuse.

Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, who heads the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, said he received an anonymous phone call from a boy more than 20 years ago about the alleged abuse at Sydney’s Yeshiva.

Rabbi Gutnick, who was based in Strathfield in Sydney’s west at the time, said he alerted senior members of the Yeshiva about the boy’s allegations, but did not contact police.

”Knowing what I know now, I would have probably called the police,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The 2005 papal election Conclave followed the myopic media hysteria about Pope John Paul II’s funeral. The 2013 Conclave follows the pathetic Vatican escape of Joseph Ratzinger, now the first Shadow Pope, with Georgeous Georg, and the continuing media shock at the magnitude of the Vatican’s moral chaos. The scandals just keep on coming with no end in sight, one more troubling than the next.

As an experienced international lawyer, I have counseled in tough crises many top executives in multinational organizations. I am quite confident that, despite the silly spin that the simplistic media and their shallow and opportunistic “experts” love, Conclave Cardinals are more worried about recent criminal convictions for child sex related crimes of senior officials, like Opus Dei’s Bishop Finn, Canada’s Bishop Lahey and Cardinal Rigali’s aide, Monsignor Finn, than they are about their theological convictions about birth control, clerical celibacy, gay marriage or woman’s ordination. Fear of handcuffs will always trump fear of the “morning after pill” among senior Church executives!

James Weiss, a Boston College church historian, recently reported on NPR that the Vatican clique tried to get a dozen or so Cardinals to stay home from the Conclave, apparently to minimize media attention on their alleged possible “crimes”. Cardinals O’Brien and Mahony are known; who else were discouraged? Meanwhile, Cardinals’ apologists try to spin away from trouble with comments like “it is old news” or “maybe it was just a friendly kiss”. Cardinals who cavalierly condemned couples to Hell for wanting to plan their families are now begging for some “moral slack”. Sorry, guys, you will now reap what your have sown!

Unfortunately, the fundamentally flawed Conclave’s medieval procedures almost guarantee the Cardinals’ concerns about criminal convictions will not be adequately addressed. The agenda is set by the same octogenerian successors to petty Italian princes that orchestrated the current mess. Cardinals have inadequate access to relevant candidate information and are fatally dependent on the unreliable and biased Vatican clique for data. Cardinal candidates are not fully vetted now, as they surely will be by the media if one of them is elected.

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UNITED STATES
Enterprise News

By Michael Kryzanek
GateHouse News Service

Posted Mar 02, 2013

COMMENTARY —
As a practicing Catholic, I find it a bit tawdry – but certainly not surprising in our world where making a buck is paramount – that there are now betting lines on who will be the next pope. Our own Sean Cardinal O’Malley has a 40/1 chance, according to an Irish outfit called PaddyPower.com. No matter what proud Catholics in the Boston Archdiocese are saying, Cardinal Sean is a long shot as the money heads elsewhere.

Las Vegas odds makers are not taking any wagers on the next pope but foreign gaming companies are alive with betting action. Most of the money wagered is not from the United States, since technically Americans are denied the opportunity to place Internet bets through foreign gaming firms. This regulatory roadblock has not stopped bettors here in the states from dropping a twenty or fifty on Cardinal O’Malley using “back channels.”

By the way, if you’re interested, the “smart money” is on Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson at 11/4 with Milan’s prelate Angelo Scola on the rise at 7/1.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Jason Horowitz
Published: March 1

VATICAN CITY — Minutes after Pope Benedict XVI retired from office on Thursday evening, his former second in command, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, received a scepter symbolizing his role as chamberlain with operational authority over the church during the interregnum.

Pope Benedict XVI: Before he became the pope: Pope Benedict XVI will step down at the end of this month, ending this chapter in a life devoted to the Catholic Church. Here are some key moments in his life.

For many close observers of the church, the tall, lanky and polarizing prelate represents the dysfunction in the Roman hierarchy and the dangers of over-staffing the universal church’s government with too many Italians.

Benedict’s last year in office was overshadowed by leaks exposing Italian prelates engaging in turf wars and battles to influence the Italian government. Even as Benedict’s helicopter, emblazoned with the words “Repubblica Italiana,” lifted over the Vatican walls and spirited him away to a hidden life of retirement, an Italian magazine reported that in the midst of the leak scandal, Bertone had authorized wiretaps, that most Italian of pastimes, to root out potential moles among clergy in the Vatican. The Holy See confirmed that it had ordered the bugging of some phones.

The very notion that Italy is a contagion marks a historical departure. For 455 years before the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978, an uninterrupted chain of Italian popes led the church. Now the scandals that haunted the German Benedict also loom over Italian candidates hoping to reclaim the papacy.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 2, 2013

Rome —
Among several questions cardinals ask when electing one of their peers as the new leader of the global Roman Catholic church, said Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George, is simply: “Can he govern?”

Speaking to CNN Friday, George, who participated in the election of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, said the secret meeting of cardinals to select a new pontiff is “a very quiet time.”

“You have a chance to contemplate the beginning of the world on the ceiling and the end of the world on the wall,” said George, referring to the paintings of the Genesis accounts and of the Last Judgment on the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where the conclave is held.

George said cardinals choose who to vote for by talking to peers who know those being mentioned as papal possibilities.

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