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VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI told Vatican officials Monday that they must reflect on the church's culpability in its child sex-abuse scandal, but he also blamed a secular society in which he said the mistreatment of children was frighteningly common. In his traditional, end-of-the-year speech to Vatican cardinals and bishops, Benedict said revelations of abuse in 2010 reached "an unimaginable dimension" that required the church to accept the "humiliation" as a call for renewal. "We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing...

Should Pope Benedict’s Vatican advisors sincerely believe he is the victim of a smear campaign, or wonder why his call for priests to live “as angels” has been greeted with derision, they could take a look at the case of Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul. Fr. Jeyapaul was charged with sexually assaulting a 14 year old girl in Minnesota in 2005, shortly after he was discovered having an inappropriate relationship with a 16 year old girl. He was in India visiting his mother when the “relationship” was discovered by members of his church in Greenbush, Minnesota and was contacted by his...

In a surprising, yet reassuring turn of events, Pope Benedict XIV, the head of the Catholic Church has announced that he is willing to excommunicate any and all Catholic Priests who have been rightfully accused of pedophilia while in service to the Catholic Church. "It is my sworn duty to uphold the tenants of the faith which rest securely on the never changing, holy scripture, which speaks succinctly, yet passionately, against sexual sin within the body of Christ." Pope Benedict wrote in a letter addressed to "Fellow Catholics, Christians, and citizens of this great planet." ...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican did not discipline a Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing up to 200 deaf boys in the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s as Church laws do not require automatic punishment, its spokesman said on Thursday. The New York Times reported on Thursday that the Vatican did not defrock Rev. Lawrence Murphy in the late 1990s despite receiving clear warnings from his bishops that his case was serious and could embarrass the Church. The report came amid mounting allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Europe and pressure on bishops, mostly in...

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday that he hoped a letter he plans to send to Irish Catholics about the child sex abuse scandal in the church would help with "repentance, healing and renewal" there. Benedict acknowledged the Irish church had been "severely shaken" as a result of the crisis and said he was "deeply concerned." However, speaking in English at his weekly general audience, the pontiff did not make any mention of the issue in his homeland, Germany. The scandal in Germany, where some 300 former Catholic students have come forward with claims of physical or sexual...

New Haven, CT (LifeNews.com) -- Connecticut is the latest state to experience a case of abortions covering up statutory rape and again brings into question why abortion facilities are not contacting authorities about the actions. In this Northeastern state, a 22 year-old man has been charged with getting his then 14 year-old girlfriend pregnant. Kevon Walker, who was 21 at the time, got the unnamed girl pregnant three times in six months and the girl wound up having three abortions as a result.However, abortion businesses failed to report the statutory rape to authorities and officials only began investigating Walker's actions...