Free Republic

Catholic Archbishop Nienstedt recently asserted in a letter to state officials that the state budget is a moral document and higher state spending is a moral good. At a time when society needs the Church's teaching more than ever, unfortunately in this case the Archbishop's reasoning creates more confusion than clarity and sheds more heat than light. Many of us who share the Archbishop's faith-based heart for the poor disagree with his conclusion that more state spending is the answer. In secular terms we would call it a confusion of means versus ends. In Catholic terms it is a confusion...

DUBLIN - Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation Wednesday of Bishop John Magee, a former papal aide who stands accused of endangering children by failing to follow the Irish church's own rules on reporting suspected pedophile priests to police. Magee apologized to victims of any pedophile priests who were kept in parish posts since he took charge of the southwest Irish diocese of Cloyne in 1987. "To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon," the 73-year-old Magee said in a statement.