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Pope Benedict XVI came as our Pastor and as our Shepherd, and he spoke to us of our most human joys and sorrows, our hopes and our failures. He came in the name of Jesus Christ and he reminded us "to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus" [Hebrews 12:2]. Our Holy Father did not hesitate to lift up for us challenges and difficulties which our Church was facing here in the United States, but he never left us alone with our failures and problems. He stood with us, acknowledged the shame of sinful behavior, and urged us forward in...

Robert Blair Kaiser, the East Valley Tribune informs readers, was once "a young journalist covering the heady and historic Vatican Council II in Rome for Time magazine." It appears that the "the Phoenix journalist and Jesuit-educated Catholic" is still lost in the Sixties, having written eleven books, "including four that deal with a call for church reform in the spirit of that council." His latest is a novel titled Cardinal Mahoney that depicts the Archbishop of Los Angeles being kidnapped by liberation theologians (I'm not making this stuff up; Kaiser is), and taken to a "southern Mexican jungle compound": In...

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has sold its 12-story administrative headquarters building to help pay last year's $660 million settlement with people alleging sex abuse by clergy, a spokesman said Tuesday.The Archdiocesan Catholic Center was sold to Jamison Properties of Los Angeles for $31 million, archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg said.Staffers who oversee the archdiocese's cemeteries will move to office space on the grounds of a cemetery, Tamberg said. Others will consolidate in four of the building's floors that church officials will lease from the new owner, Tamberg said.Tamberg did not know what would be on the building's other...

Cardinal Roger Mahony Wednesday called on Roman Catholics to stand in solidarity with immigrants as "one Church, one community, one people of God" as he celebrated the traditional "Mananitas" Mass in honor of the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mahony also reaffirmed the commitment of the U.S. bishops to just and human comprehensive reform. "The raids, divisions of families, insecurity in the workplace, lack of drivers' licenses, the stigma of being label 'illegal' without rights - these are injustices faced by our immigrant community crying out for God's intervention," Mahony said in Spanish to a crowd of some...

Thousands of Catholics from throughout the greater Los Angeles area gathered in East Los Angeles Dec. 2 to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe as the mother of all peoples -- from every language, race and culture. A mile-long procession, the oldest religious procession in the city honoring Mary, led participants to East Los Angeles College Stadium, where Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and the auxiliary bishops of Los Angeles, numerous priests and more than 15,000 of the faithful gathered for Mass. The theme this year was "Mother Without Borders: Bringing Down the Walls of Injustice." The event was part of a...

Attorneys have requested a temporary restraining order against a man they claim threatened Cardinal Roger Mahony and other Los Angeles archdiocese officials. Documents filed yesterday in the restraining order petition accuse Edward George Filek of breaking into Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral early Monday and making threats against Mahony and other cathedral workers. Mahony recently told fellow priests that he was assaulted earlier this year in the wake of the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal. Filek is not linked to that attack.

Since yesterday's post about Cardinal Mahony's claim that he was violently assaulted this summer is receiving a great deal of traction, I've decided to post an update. For starters, in today's world you can't simply mention to your priests "Oh, and by the way I was assaulted" and expect it to stay quiet. Indeed, LAPD detectives began investigating Mahony's report yesterday (the same day the story went public): LAPD detectives Tuesday began investigating reports that Cardinal Roger Mahony told hundreds of priests he was assaulted by a man angered over the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal, police said. Police found...

Cardinal Roger Mahony was physically assaulted by a man enraged by the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal within days of a record settlement with hundreds of victims, the Daily News has learned. Mahony, 71, revealed the attack during an annual conference in October before hundreds of stunned priests, saying a man assaulted him because of the scandal, according to four priests who attended the conference. News of the assault comes as the bulk of the church's $660million settlement with victims began being paid out Monday, with more than $500million in checks going out in the mail. The settlement with 508 alleged...

Cardinal Roger Mahony has honored Jesuit Fr. Robert Lawton, president of Loyola Marymount University of Los Angeles, as one of the recipients of the 2008 Cardinal’s Award, according to a story in the Sept. 21 edition of the Tidings, the weekly newspaper of the Los Angeles archdiocese. Since 1999, Lawton has had “the vision to integrate the university into all aspects of community life of Los Angeles,” said the Tidings’ article. Under Lawton, the archdiocese and the university have enjoyed amicable relations. With the archdiocese’s Hindu-Catholic Dialogue, the university offered an April 2005 symposium featuring “ecofeminist” Rosemary Radford Ruether, who...

Three nuns who recently learned that their Santa Barbara convent would be sold to help cover the costs of Los Angeles' multimillion-dollar priest sexual abuse settlement say they have been overwhelmed with offers of help -- and media attention."The support has been just unbelievable," said Sister Angela Escalera, the local superior of the Sisters of Bethany house. "It's come from all parts of Santa Barbara and outside too. And from all denominations. It's just astounding." She and two other nuns at the small, eastside convent received word in late August that the dwelling, which is owned by the Roman Catholic...

In order to raise the cash to make its pederasty payment, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is selling a convent that currently provides a residence for three nuns. The anticipated selling price is a drop in the bucket of the roughly $250 million needed to keep the archbishop out of the witness box meet the Archdiocese's liabilities in the sex-abuse settlements, and the convent is one of about 50 non-parish properties to be sold. The sisters have been asked to vacate the house by the end of December. From the point of view of the archdiocesan business office it's not...

Los Angeles, Sep 5, 2007 / 10:11 am (CNA).- Thanks to local preservationists and an astute developer, the former cathedral of Los Angeles was returned to its previous structural glory last week. The former St. Vibiana Cathedral, now simply named Vibiana and converted into a concert and events hall, got its 3,500-pound cupola back Aug. 30, reported the L.A. Times. The moment ended an 11-year campaign to save the downtown landmark. The historic cathedral was marked for demolition after it suffered structural damage in a 1994 earthquake. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles decided that repairs would cost more than the...

Massive PR machine? Some say Cardinal Mahony’s willingness to meet with sexual abuse victims nothing more than a public relations stunt Over the past year, Cardinal Roger Mahony has met individually with 70 victims of clergy sexual abuse. Archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg told the July 30 Los Angeles Times that Mahony has scheduled more meetings with sexual abuse victims and that “he has said he will meet with any victim who wants to meet with him.” But Lee Bashworth, 37, who claims abuse by former priest Michael Wempe, told the Times, that, though he would “relish an opportunity to tell...

...but it's not gonna happen. Why not? Two reasons: First, from all appearances, the standing policy of Rome is not to micromanage particular Churches (meaning "local dioceses and archdioceses") unless the bishop is directly involved in the abuse of victims. That's why O'Connell was removed but bishops who merely shuffled or covered up abusers are still there. This would appear to be partly due to Ut Unum Sint, which goes a long way toward articulating a role for the Pope as "first among equals" and not as an Innocent III Christian Caesar who treats all other bishops as flunkey and...

Phil Lawler of CWNews: Five years ago Cardinal Roger Mahony was reportedly encouraging Vatican officials to ask for the resignation of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law. Using the same logical arguments that the American prelate presented in 2002, the Vatican should now ask Cardinal Mahony himself to step down. The sensational cost of the sex-abuse scandal for the Los Angeles archdiocese far exceeds the devastation in Boston. The $660-million legal settlement announced on July 16 is nearly five times the total of the financial damages in Boston. Combining that settlement with previous agreements, lawyers' fees, and other associated costs, the...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The leader of the largest U.S. Roman Catholic archdiocese apologized on Sunday for what he called a "terrible sin and crime" as the church confirmed it would pay a record $660 million to people who were sexually abused by priests. Facing trial on Monday over abuse allegations dating as far back as the 1940s, the Archdiocese led by Cardinal Roger Mahony agreed to pay 508 victims the largest-ever group settlement. "I have come to understand far more deeply that I ever could the impact of this terrible sin and crime that has affected their lives," said...

Karen Hall posts: In the middle of the L.A. Times article, one happens upon this staggering statistic: In Los Angeles, some 75% of the archdiocese's 288 parishes were served at some time by a cleric accused of molesting, according to a Times study. As the scandal's details slowly emerged, it became clear that the church hierarchy knew about complaints against some priests and that at least a dozen were allowed to continue working in ministry after their conduct with children was questioned. (emphasis mine) Now, just for fun, name another industry or organization wherein the boss could have overseen operations...

Cardinal Rogery Mahony celebrates a Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los...LA Cardinal Apologizes to PlaintiffsSunday, July 15, 2007 6:27 PM EDTThe Associated PressBy GILLIAN FLACCUS LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cardinal Roger Mahony, leader of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, apologized Sunday to the hundreds of people who will get a share of a $660 million settlement over allegations of clergy sex abuse."There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them. The one thing I wish I could give the victims ... I cannot,"...

Amy Berg's documentary "Deliver Us From Evil" has powerful and horrifying material to work with: a Catholic priest, the Irish-born Fr. Oliver O'Grady, who admits--right on film--that he molested at least 25 children during his 20-odd years in parishes during the 1970s and 1980s in the Stockton diocese in rural California. The bishops of Stockton, who included Roger Mahony, now archbishop of Los Angeles, instead of yanking "Father Ollie" from his pulpit and calling the police, either ignored complaints about him or ordered "counseling" and transferred him from parish to parish, always one step ahead of the outrage of his...

Unless you're thinking mid-1940s East Coast priestly ordination, your eyes aren't deceiving you with that shot above. Then again, said conjure wouldn't have taken place on a football field: it's a scene from the aforementioned liturgy last weekend at which 60 permanent deacons were ordained for the Santa Barbara region of the archdiocese of Los Angeles, with Cardinal Roger Mahony as ordaining prelate. Glad Tidings in the archdiocesan weekly: The ordination of 60 men to the Permanent Diaconate at Santa Barbara City College's La Playa Stadium represented the largest single group of deacons ordained at one time in the...

ARCHDIOCESE BEGINS PROCESS TO FUNDFUTURE SETTLEMENTS IN CIVIL CASES By Cardinal Roger M. MahonyArchbishop of Los Angeles May 15, 2007 Last December, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles settled 46 civil cases in which clergy abuse had been alleged. The total settlement cost was $60 million, with the Archdiocese contributing approximately $40 million of the total amount. At the time of that settlement, I wrote: “Now that this settlement is finalized, our attention will focus on the resolution of all remaining cases. To reach a settlement in those cases will require the active participation of the many insurance companies who provided...

There was a time when Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, leader of the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States, was a formidably influential political figure. A decade ago, he was a member of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's inner circle and the spiritual leader of a growing community with exponentially expanding power.Today, Mahony remains one of the region's most recognized leaders and a sought-after voice on certain issues. But time, scandal and the shifting demographics of Los Angeles politics have diminished Mahony's might to the point that his recent remonstrations — in which he took to task Fabian Nuñez,...

I'd like to focus more closely on the curious case of Cardinal Mahony's two accounts (or, if you prefer, Cardinal Mahony's account in contrast with his lawyers' account) of the mystery video found in the room of child-abuser Fr. Lynn Caffoe at the rectory of St. Bede's Church in La Canada, California. The controversy surrounds two irreconcilable descriptions of the video: the first submitted by Cardinal Mahony to Cardinal Ratzinger and the CDF at an unspecified date (between June 1992 when the video turned up, and April 2005 when Ratzinger became Pope); the second prepared as a proffer by the...

I know nothing about UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge beyond what I saw on a very impressive (for a civil lawyer) resume posted on his website, but his recent post on the chronic problems in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in which he specifically calls for Cdl. Mahony's resignation is getting attention. Knowing, moreover, nothing about the underlying facts of the case except what has appeared in some secular media (a circumlocution for "I know virtually nothing about the underlying facts of this case"), I note that Prof. Bainbridge attempts to use canon law in his resignation argument, and...

From the Los Angeles Times At least six months after Cardinal Roger M. Mahony told his superiors at the Vatican that a videotape provided proof of a priest's criminal misconduct with high school boys, the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese told the public that the tape showed no sexual activity between Father Lynn Caffoe and the boys, according to court records. Documents newly filed in the Caffoe civil case provide the first glimpse into confidential priest files that Mahony sought for four years to keep sealed in the midst of a sexual abuse scandal that engulfed the archdiocese....

Just in case you missed it, there was an excellent observation made in a comment in this thread, concerning His Eminence Roger Card. Mahony’s lack of interest in those who desire the so-called "Tridentine" Mass. Here it is. ...the Archdiocese of LA boasts 5 million Catholics. If only 1% are interested in the Latin Mass as the Cardinal proposes, then that means that there will be a mere 50,000 attendees at Latin Masses every weekend. I would be happy to see the Cardinal benignly accomodate such crowds each weekend by providing the Churches and priests and resources while he focueses...

Gerald posts part of the transcript for Cardinal Mahony online chat with Adults at this years R.E. Congress.James: I've read that Pope Benedict is concerned about the liturgy and is about to issue a decree that encourages a more generous use of Latin in the liturgy including the use of the Tridentine rite. Do you support this and will you encourage the use of more traditional forms of worship in the archdiocese if he issues the decree? CardinalMahony: James: of our 5 million Catholics, only a handful are interested in the Latin Mass. I must focus upon the 99% who...

You might be at your computer right now, but just across the street from Disneyland somewhere around 40,000 of the faithful have gathered for the archdiocese of Los Angeles' Religious Education Congress, which runs through tomorrow. American Catholicism's largest annual gathering, the four-day Magisterium-fest kicked off with Thursday's Youth Day, for which a sold-out arena of 10,000 young people took part in a full plate of liturgies and workshops. Among its headliners was Tony Melendez, the local guitarist and speaker who's moved hundreds of thousands over two decades of appearances the world over, most memorably getting John Paul II...

You may remember MahonyFest 2006 with dread. The Religious Education Congress in LA showcases the cardinal's violations of liturgical norms, bad taste in music, gimpy wanna be pop stars and the oddest dancing this side of "Hair". Then there are the speakers, some of which make one wonder. Every day has a main speaker. On Saturday it's a priest specializing in "social justice". The Sunday address will be given by Jim Wallis. Who's Jim Wallis? Another "social justice" guy. Or rather, "socialist justice". A Protestant married to an Anglican priestess, he's as left as it gets. He founded the magazine...

From the California Daily Catholic (H/T Denise) about the new rector of the Los Angeles seminary, Cardinal Mahony's enterprise. Seminarians from San Diego also go there. The ones I know did however not drink Mahony's Kool Aid but simply shrugged off the "new age nuns" and such. Now Mahony has a company man in charge who's fond of Mahony's priest-undermining project, aka as "Parish life director", enabling pant suits to take charge. Cox, who holds a canon law degree from the Catholic University of America and teaches canon law at the seminary, is “a company man,” said an archdiocesan...

One of the chief symbols of the early Church is the fish symbol, the Symbolum maius. The Sacred and essential characteristic of the Christian fish symbol passes throughout time unchanged and preserved in Sacred Tradition. The holy, ancient, outward symbol represents our Lord and the Eucharist, in association with the loaves of bread and the fishes. The fish symbol was derived from the Greek word for fish, Ιχθυς [or ichthus], and became a holy acrostic for "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." [1] Contrary to Sacred Tradition, [2] Cardinal Roger Mahony's Archdiocese of Los Angeles 'Ministry with Lesbian and...

Like the three services celebrated earlier in the morning and the four that will follow into the afternoon, the 10:45 a.m. Sunday Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in the Pico-Union district of downtown Los Angeles is crammed to the rafters, even though the church holds nearly 1,000 parishioners. When I spoke on a recent Sunday to Msgr. Jarlath Cunnane, or Father Jay, as he is known by his congregation, he said: “If we had the space, I think another thousand people might well come to each Sunday Mass. We’re full, bursting at the seams, and so are most...

The largest outdoor celebration of the Rosary in Southern California in nearly 50 years will take place at the Rose Bowl, Pasadena, on May 19, 2007, Holy Cross Family Ministries announced this week. "A World at Prayer Is a World at Peace: A Rosary Celebration, The Rosary Bowl" will take place between 6-9 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Holy Cross Family Ministries, Easton, Mass., and its Hollywood-based member ministry, Family Theater Productions, are presenting the event in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Solis, archdiocesan Vicar for Ethnic (Multi-Cultural) Ministry, is the...

At the beginning of the year, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles came up with a plan to split its sex abuse liabilities into two categories. One group of cases would be litigated (i.e., contested in court) with the "hope" that the Archdiocese's insurers would step forward to pay for the losers. The second group would not go to court but would be settled for a cash payment. By what criterion did the Archdiocese decide which case belongs to which category? Well, the crimes that occurred before 1985 went into the first group, those after 1985 into the second. By a...

I received the following memo via email. The person doesn't have an access to a scanner until Monday, so here is the text in regular form as the person copied it. I cannot vouch for the authenticity but have no reason to believe that it is fabricated. Certainly, one can interpret it favorably ... a big archdiocese needs time, they don't want to rush things and so forth. But. This is Cardinal Kool Aide/Wicker Basket. Update: according to a reader "No one has mentioned that the indult had expired in March of 2005. The memo seems misleading to suggest...

A documentary film featuring an extraordinarily candid interview with a former priest convicted of molesting children has heightened interest among law enforcement officials here in considering a criminal case against Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, says a prosecutor who has been investigating sexual abuse cases involving priests.

Mexican President Vicente Fox began wrapping up a U.S. visit Friday that anti-illegal immigration groups slammed as an attempt to influence congressional debate and immigrant supporters praised for recognizing Mexico's responsibility in a binational issue. Fox's afternoon agenda in a city heavily influenced by Mexican culture included meetings with two fellow proponents of immigration reform, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Both have been high-profile supporters of marches that brought hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the streets. Fox was also met by about 50 noisy protesters as he arrived downtown at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. "We...

Dear Friend of Catholic Answers: A few weeks ago I was with my grand-niece, Haruna. She is a delightsome four. At one moment, all shyness, she hides her face in her mother's skirt. A moment later she proudly shows off her English to me. "Good morning, Karl Oji-chama [honorable uncle]," she says. "Ohayo gozaimasu [good morning]," I reply with an equally wide smile. We laugh, and then she hides herself again. Like all happy children her age, Haruna does not just walk. She skips, jumps, and even dances her way along the sidewalk or through the hotel lobby. An attempted...

Washington, D.C. -- Today, Senator Edward M. Kennedy joined Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Richard Durbin, and Cardinals Roger Mahony and Theodore McCarrick to push Congress to act by passing comprehensive immigration reform instead of criminalizing the 12 million immigrants living and working in the United States. Senator Kennedy said, "Our history teaches us that doing the right thing for people is also the right policy for our country. When we bring immigrants out of the shadows and into the sunshine of America, we improve their lives and make them less vulnerable to abuse. And in...

With so many Catholics coming to Mass each week, with so many enthusiastic young people in our schools, religious education classes and confirmation programs, with so much vitality evident in every corner of our Church of Los Angeles (witness the thousands participating in the recent Religious Education Congress), why is there such a precipitous decline in the number of priests to serve our Church? In the last two years, I have gone to deanery meetings in every part of the archdiocese, met with many principals, DRE's, youth ministers and catechists, attended lots of parent meetings, and at each I ask...

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles is right to encourage a rally on May 1 rather than a boycott to protest congressional attempts to crack down on illegal immigration. "Go to work. Go to school. And then join thousands of us at a major rally afterwards," said Mahony, who leads the nation's largest archdiocese. The cardinal, who once served in Stockton as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese, has credentials in civil rights activism that go back decades. His strategy on this issue is both wise and effective. If the goal is to persuade lawmakers and citizens that immigrants are...

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony acknowledged to Los Angeles Catholics in his 2004 "Report to the People of God" that he left five priests in ministry despite complaints that they had molested children. But a Times analysis of church records released since then shows that he left 11 other priests in ministry for periods up to 13 years after parishioners raised concerns about inappropriate behavior with children. Seven of these 11 cases were not detailed in the People of God report. The other four were mentioned incompletely; the report said they were removed when complaints were lodged but did not disclose...

After years of stonewalling, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has run out of excuses for blocking the prosecution of rogue priests accused in the Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal. While other bishops and cardinals cooperated with the authorities, Mahony became a study in arrogance who only compounded the church's embarrassment. His lawyers concocted elaborate hypotheses that church leaders and priests - under the confidentiality of "the sanctification process" - somehow enjoyed shelter from their basic duty to cooperate with criminal law enforcement. The Supreme Court put an end to the evasions on Monday in refusing to hear the cardinal's final...

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony must turn over to L.A. prosecutors the personnel files of two priests accused of molestation after the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear his request to keep them private. Though the ruling only affects the files of two priests, it likely opens the door to the release of hundreds of confidential Catholic church files sought by more than 500 people who say they were molested by priests with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

One day, Roger Mahony, then about 12, was working in his father's poultry processing plant in the San Fernando Valley when law enforcement agents searching for illegal immigrants raided the facility. "I will never forget them bursting through the doors," Mahony recalled. "I was terrified by it. And I thought, 'These poor people; they're here making a living supporting their families.' . . . It had a very deep impact on me throughout the years." One of his father's workers was taken away. Now Cardinal Roger Mahony, he leads the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It is the largest Roman Catholic...

In today’s editions of the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, there are editorials praising Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Cardinal Mahony for opposing restrictive immigration bills. If a bill with punitive measures gets passed, Cardinal Mahony wants priests and the laity to defy the law. Here’s what Catholic League president Bill Donohue had to say about this development: “The Los Angeles Times not only commends Cardinal Mahony for his latest statement on public policy, it congratulates him for ‘reinforcing the right of religious leaders to speak out on the moral ramifications of political issues.’ This is a dramatic...

When Cardinal Roger Mahony called on Roman Catholics this week to embrace immigrants regardless of legal status, he wasn't just reiterating the church's long tradition of reaching out to the downtrodden. Mahony and other U.S. Catholic bishops are increasingly weighing into the debate over what to do about the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States - a development that's being met with criticism from groups pushing for tougher immigration law enforcement. Catholic leaders have launched a "Justice for Immigrants" campaign, appealed to President Bush and congressional leaders for a legalization program, and sharply criticized a bill...

Second of two parts; 15th in a series. Myths About the Church Myth: The abuse is a result of the seminary training after the Second Vatican Council (1963-65). Fact: Almost 70 percent of the abusive priests were ordained before 1970, after attending pre-Vatican II seminaries or seminaries that had had little time to adapt to the reforms of Vatican II. Myth: This problem is unique to the Catholic Church: Fact: The John Jay report notes that in the period 1992-2000, the number of substantiated sexual abuse cases in American society as a whole has been between 89,355 and 149,800...

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony called on Roman Catholics Wednesday to embrace immigrants regardless of their legal status, criticizing what he said was increasing hostility toward the nation's bulging undocumented population. The cardinal also said he would tell priests to defy any law enacted that would try to force churches and other organizations to determine the legality of immigrants before giving them assistance. Mahony, a longtime advocate of immigrant rights who oversees a racially diverse archdiocese of more than 4 million people, used Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season to urge Catholics to "make room" for immigrants. "Unless...

The Forum: "Spin control" on the Vatican document by Phil Lawler special to CWNews.com Nov. 23 (CWNews.com) - Ordinarily the secular media in America do not become involved in theological disputes within the Catholic Church. But when the topic is as controversial as the acceptance of homosexuality, the ordinary rules do not apply. A new "Instruction" from the Vatican-- scheduled for release on November 29, but leaked one week earlier by an Italian news agency-- has stated in clear, unmistakable terms that homosexuals should not be ordained to the priesthood or admitted to seminary training. The public release of the...