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Italian investigators have opened an inquiry into claims by a convicted paedophile priest that an underage prostitution ring has been operating inside the Holy Roman Church with clergymen hiring rentboys for sex inside churches. Don Patrizio Poggi, 46, told Italian authorities that a former Carabinieri pimped boys for nine clergymen. Poggi, who served a five-year sentence for abusing teenage boys while he was a parish priest at the San Filippo Neri church in Rome, said he made the allegations to "protect the Holy Church and the Christian community." The boys were chosen because they were starving and desperate, he claimed,...

The average age of men in the USA ordained to the priesthood in 2013 is 32; (on average over the past six years seminarians have been getting slightly younger) two-thirds are Caucasian, and 26 percent carry educational debt.These figures stand out in The Class of 2013: Survey of Ordinands to the Priesthood, the annual national survey of men being ordained priests for US dioceses and religious communities. The study was conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), a Georgetown University-based research center.The report is the 17th annual survey of ordinands commissioned by the Secretariat for Clergy,...

Vatican may prohibit female alter (sic) service By Michaels, Amanda Published: Tuesday, October 14, 2003Updated: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 11:09   Only nine years after the Vatican gave women permission to serve beside their male counterparts at the altar, a new proposal threatens to force them back into the crowd. On Sept. 23, the Italian Catholic monthly, "Jesus," released advanced text of an article featuring excerpts from a draft document, or directive, written by the Vatican congregations for Divine Worship and the Sacraments and for the Doctrine of the Faith. Distributed on June 5, the document was an expansion on the papal...

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Graham tells me something that I hadn’t heard about Boston Marathon bombing. As dozens of victims were sprawled across Boylston Street, many of them in danger of death, Catholic priests came running to the scene—and were turned away. Doctors and nurses were welcome at the bombing scene. Firefighters and police officers were welcome. But Catholic priests, who might have offered the solace of the sacraments, were not. ”Catholics need not apply.” That slogan was familiar in Boston years ago, before Irish and Italian immigrants took over control of the city. Now, after decades...

New York City, N.Y., Apr 24, 2013 / 04:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York will receive the 2013 William Wilberforce Award this weekend from a group of Christians for his leadership in standing up for religious freedom. “I resonate with Cardinal Dolan as much as any public religious leader in our country today,” Dr. Timothy George, chairman of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview which is bestowing the award, told CNA April 16. “Cardinal Dolan has just been tremendous, he's one of the major leaders not just of the Catholic Church in the United...

BRUSSELS, April 23, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an astonshing display of gentleness in the face of a vile attack, the head of the Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, remained calmly seated with eyes closed in prayer Tuesday as four topless women attacked him with shouts and curses and doused him with water.  It’s not the first time the bishop has been attacked for standing up for the Church’s teachings on homosexuality and expressing his concern for those who live the homosexual lifestyle. The incident took place at the ULB University in Brussels where the archbishop was participating...

Religious liberty groups are mobilizing to defend the chaplain of George Washington University’s Newman Center after gay students launched an effort to have the priest fired because he preaches against homosexuality and abortion. “It’s discrimination against Catholics,” said Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society. “Secular colleges are fast becoming a very unsafe place for Catholics who hold true to their faith. This is a very, very sad situation.” Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen said they want the university’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion to investigate the priest and they are calling for the student government association to defund...

Cardinal Peter Turkson made the comments to an American journalist He said similar sex scandals would not happen in African churches Cardinal Turkson is second favourite to take over as PopeThe African cardinal widely tipped to be the first black pope in modern history faced a firestorm of criticism last night after he laid the blame for clerical sex abuse crises at the feet of gay priests. Cardinal Peter Turkson, who comes from Ghana, told an American journalist that similar sex scandals would never convulse churches in Africa because the culture was inimical to homosexuality. ‘African traditional systems kind of...

Lynn is serving 3 to 6 years in state prison after a Common Pleas Court jury found him guilty of endangering children when he was secretary for clergy under Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua. Lynn, who managed archdiocesan priests assignments, let one remain in active ministry at a Northeast Philadelphia parish in the 1990s despite concluding that he had once abused a minor. That priest, Edward Avery, later sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy

Featured Term (selected at random):PREMONSTRATENSIANS Canons Regular of Prémontré, also called Norbertines. They were founded in 1120 by St. Norbert at Prémontré, near Laon, France, approved in 1126, and again in 1617-24. Their focus is on solemn liturgical worship, missions, parochial ministry, and the education of youth. Based on the Rule of St. Augustine, with some Cistercian influences, the constitutions include certain austerities, e.g., abstinence from meat. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Father Bernard Lynch, a homosexual Catholic priest and activist known for defying Vatican teachings, has once again challenged the Roman Catholic Church by revealing that he has been married to a man for the past 14 years. Lynch also blames teachings on celibacy for the child sex abuse cases gripping the Catholic Church.

The recent comments regarding clerical sexual abuse of minors made by Father Benedict Groeschel to a news editor of the National Catholic Register should never have been published. In no way do those comments reflect the views of the Register or EWTN. It should have been obvious to the editor that Father Benedict's physical condition and mental clarity have deteriorated and that the comments were completely inconsistent with his life's work and witness. We apologize that these remarks were published and ask for forgiveness for this error. To regular viewers of EWTN, it has been evident for some time that...

New York - A prominent Catholic priest says he believes “youngsters” are often to blame for sexual abuse by priests and that priests who are first time offenders should not be jailed for their crime. Father Benedict Groeschel, founder of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, is well known as the host of Sunday Night Prime with Father Benedict Groeschel, a weekly show on Catholic television network EWTN. It was not what he said on his television show that has sparked controversy however, it is comments he made in an interview with the National Catholic Register that has outraged many. According...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The Vatican won a major victory Monday in an Oregon federal courtroom, where a judge ruled that the Holy See is not the employer of molester priests. The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman ends a six-year question in the decade-old case and could shield the Vatican from possible monetary damages. The original lawsuit was filed in 2002 by a Seattle-area man who said the Rev. Andrew Ronan repeatedly molested him in the late 1960s. The plaintiff tried to show that Ronan and all priests are employees of the Vatican, which is therefore liable...

Catholic Elites have become part of the problem .. despite good work they do. Video: The Catholic Elite

NEW YORK, August 6, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has issued a statement opposing President Obama’s appearance at a New York fundraiser dinner for Catholic Charities. “I’m all in favor of protocol and understand the difference between respecting the President’s policies vs. respecting his office. But there comes a time when the polite putting aside of differences for a while amounts to scandal,” said Pavone in a statement emailed to LifeSiteNews.com Monday morning. LSN confirmed the president’s appearance last week. “There comes a time when enough is enough and we can no longer afford to...

On June 3, the Rev. Patric F. D’Arcy’s first Sunday officiating at his new parish as a newly ordained Roman Catholic priest in the Bronx, he offered Mass in crystal-clear Spanish in a packed sanctuary. Later, at a lunch celebration, his new parishioners welcomed him with trays of rice, beans and roasted chicken, and a white cake adorned with golden icing. It was a festive event — a thanksgiving for the blessing of a new priest — that would normally take place in early June in at least several of the 370 parishes in the Archdiocese of New York. But...

The Catholic Church's leading exorcist priest asserts that a Vatican employee's daughter thought to be buried in a mob boss's tomb was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties, reports Nick Pisa of the Daily Mail. Father Gabriel Amorth, who was ordained in 1954 and has carried out more than 70,000 exorcisms, made the claim to Italian newspaper La Stampa as police examine the contents of mobster Enrico De Pedis's tomb for clues about the 1983 disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi. Father Amorth, 85, noted that an archivist at the Vatican previously admitted to recruiting girls for parties and told La Stampa...

It takes bravery to follow Christ as priests Bishop's Column Thursday, May. 03, 2012 -- 12:00 AM This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. This past Sunday is often called, “Good Shepherd Sunday.” The word the Scriptures use is really not adequately translated in English as simply, “good.” The word really means, “honorable, worthy, noble,” or, “so excellent in every way that its goodness is itself beautiful.” And, in particular, our Gospel for this past Sunday (Jn 10:11-18) points out that the shepherd...

Peter Paul Kaspar, Academic Chaplain in Linz, author, musician, executive member of the Parish Priest Initiative helped to formulate the "Call to Disobedience" and now writes an open letter to Cardinal Christoph Schönborn THE OPEN LETTER Dear Cardinal! We - the executive of the Parish Priest Initiative - have issued at Pentecost 2011 a "Call to Disobedience," because we wanted our urgent demands for reform to be made public. This has succeeded worldwide even being cited in the Holy Thursday homily of the Pope. The decades-long internal proposals and suggestions put forward were so far always put politely in the...