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A malicious storm is being stirred up over the Pope's alleged failure to deal with abusive priests, says Damian Thompson.After a week of disastrous publicity for the Roman Catholic Church, it's a fair bet that if you conducted a word-association test in the average British high street, the results would be as follows: Catholic priest? "Paedophile." Pope? "Nazi." The reputation of the Church internationally has never been lower. On Wednesday, St Patrick's Day, Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of All Ireland, apologised for helping to persuade two boys – aged 10 and 14 – to sign letters agreeing not to tell...

Under an all-but-full moon on the opening evening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, tens of thousands of Romans poured into St Peter's Square in a torchlight procession. Called to the window of his study by the multitude, John XXIII, the man Italians called "the good pope" (a term that speaks volumes about their view of the previous 260), delivered one of the great speeches of an eloquent decade. Its emotional high point came when he told the crowd: "Returning home, you'll find the children. Give your children a caress and say: 'This is the caress of the pope.'"Forty-three...

MARCH 22, 2010 The End of Euphemism Benedict XVI and The Corruptions of Catholic Ireland. GEORGE WEIGEL In a March 20 pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI vigorously condemned the physical and sexual abuse of “children and vulnerable young people” in which Irish priests and religious women had engaged for decades, and mandated an Apostolic Visitation of various segments of the Irish Church. The visitation seems likely to result in major changes in the Church’s leadership in what was once one of the world’s most intensely Catholic countries, and is now one of the centers of...

Currently there’s a great hue and cry emanating from the world press in relation to Pope Benedict xvi’s reaction—or rather perceived lack of reaction—to the publicity being given to pedophilia charges brought against certain priests in Europe. The loudest clamor surrounds cases in Germany, particularly in Benedict’s old diocese of Freiburg, Bavaria. Nothing justifies anything but absolute condemnation of the abuse of priestly office. But what is really behind this latest outcry against the Catholic Church and its spiritual leader? Dig behind the headlines and you see an agenda. It’s an agenda driven by fear of the rising power of...

It has become fashionable to claim that the sex abuse scandal currently afflicting the Catholic Church is “its biggest crisis since the Reformation”. Oh, really? Tell me about it. The abuse issue is just a small part of the much larger crisis that has engulfed the Church since the Second Vatican Catastrophe and which is more serious than the Reformation. Abolish clerical celibacy? The last thing a priest abusing altar boys needs or wants is a wife. There is no compulsory celibacy in the Church of England, but that has not prevented vicars and boy scouts furnishing gratifying amounts of...

Charlotte's parishes add overflow Masses, think creatively to accommodate attendance boomThe pews are packed at many Charlotte-area Catholic churches, but a scarcity of priests is leaving even some of the biggest parishes short-staffed and scrambling for help from retired and visiting clergy. Recent examples aren't hard to find: Just one full-time priest for months at 13,000-member St. Gabriel in Cotswold. A pastor's heart bypass operation, with complications, that left 14,000-member St. Mark in Huntersville struggling to find substitutes to celebrate Mass. A sanctuary so crowded on Ash Wednesday that a parishioner at St. Matthew in Ballantyne, where two priests serve...

Here below in full, the text of Pope Benedict's Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland. * * * 1. Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Church in Ireland, it is with great concern that I write to you as Pastor of the universal Church. Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have...

The patron saint of parish closings   By Phil Lawler | March 17, 2010 5:11 PM Needless to say, there is no patron saint of parish closings. The closing of a parish is a tragedy. A parish church is more than just a building. It is a repository of memories: of the children baptized there, the happy couples married, the parents mourned and buried. It is a testimony to the faith of the Catholic families who scrimped and saved and sacrificed to build a suitable house of worship for their community. It is a place of prayer, sanctified by the fervent...

Vatican City, Feb 18, 2010 / 12:07 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict hosted priests from the Diocese of Rome in the Vatican's Benediction Hall on Thursday morning for a "lectio divina" during their traditional Lenten audience. The Pope used his reflection on St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews to encourage priests to protect communion between God and man, especially in areas under attack by society. Referring to the Letter to the Hebrews, the Holy Father shed light on the nature of the priest. "The author of the Letter," he said, "understood that in Christ two premises are united: (that) Christ is...

Good news from Rome: the Vatican has further underlined the freedom of priests to celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form whenever they choose. Two important points have been clarified by Ecclesia Dei, which will make it more difficult for the English, Welsh and above all Scottish bishops to stall the implementation of Summorum Pontificum: 1. A priest does NOT have to be approached by a “stable group” of the faithful in order to schedule a PUBLIC celebration of the Extraordinary Form – he may choose to do so, for example, in order to introduce his parishioners to this ancient form...

Featured Term (selected at random):REDEMPTORISTS Members of the congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, founded by St. Alphonso Maria de' Liguori at Scala, Italy, in 1732. They form a clerical religious congregation engaged in the preaching and writing apostolate among the faithful, in giving parish missions and spiritual exercises and in missionary work among non-Christians. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Featured Term (selected at random):PRIEST An authorized mediator who offers a true sacrifice in acknowledgment of God's supreme dominion over human beings and in expiation for their sins. A priest's mediation is the reverse of that of a prophet, who communicates from God to the people. A priest mediates from the people to God. Christ, who is God and man, is the first, last, and greatest priest of the New Law. He is the eternal high priest who offered himself once and for all on the Cross, a victim of infinite value, and he continually renews that sacrifice on the...

100 Prayers For PriestsNOTES1. This collection of Prayers for Priests was gleaned over a 12-month period, from mid-February 2003 to mid-February 2004. It was planned as a short one. But it grew and grew and is still expanding. Most of these prayers were posted to Franciscan_Spirit@yahoogroups.com by Nadine Mansour <nadine.mansour@mbnet.fi>.2. Your best prayer is your own. However, if you wish to consult an example, do not read these 100 all at once; be selective. Reading several prayers may become boring. Choose only one -- at random if you wish -- and stay with it. Meditate on it, deepen it out....

USCCB News Release 10-008January 11, 2010FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Priest Offers 'Ten Things That Promote Vocations' In Honor Of National Vocation Awareness WeekWASHINGTON—The Catholic Church celebrates National Vocation Awareness Week January 10-16. To encourage Catholics to foster vocations, Father David Toups, interim director of the Office of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) offers “Ten Things” Catholics can do to promote vocations to priesthood and religious life. The first five steps on this list are directed toward all Catholics. The second five are specifically an invitation to younger Catholics to consider saying “yes” to...

OVER 4,000 Anglican priests all over the world, including married ones, are expected to join the Catholic Church, Bishop Matthias Ssekamanya announced on Friday. Ssekamanya, who doubles as the chancellor of Uganda Martyrs University, said this does not mean that the Catholic Church is removing the requirement for priests to remain unmarried. “We are not becoming soft on celibacy for Catholic priests. We shall also not tolerate homosexuals and polygamous marriages in the Catholic Church,” he added. He was officiating at the 15th graduation ceremony of the Nkozi-based university. Vatican officials announced that married Anglican priests would be allowed to...

WILMINGTON, Del.-- The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington is obligated to pay retirement benefits to six priests who are confirmed pedophiles, church officials argued in a bankruptcy court filing Thursday seeking permission to keep making the payments. After filing for bankruptcy last month, the diocese agreed not to make payments to priests accused of sexual abuse without court approval. That agreement was made after objections were raised by attorneys for alleged abuse victims who now sit on a creditors committee. Attorneys for the diocese now seek authorization to provide pensions, housing costs and medical coverage to six confirmed child abusers. They...

A Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Daniel Sysoyev, who carried out missionary work among immigrants from ex-Soviet republics, many of them Muslims, received over a dozen death threats before his murder on Thursday, a Russian paper said. Fr. Daniel of St. Thomas Church in Moscow foresaw his death, writing in his internet diary that he had received telephone threats from Muslims. Fr. Daniel’s evening ‘talks’ for inquirers included several especially designed for Muslims.

Researchers at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, reporting initial findings in their look into causes of the Catholic church's 2002 sexual-abuse scandal, yesterday said they can't attribute it to gay priests or seminaries for teenagers. "We do not have data to support ... those assertions," said Karen Terry, lead researcher for the $1.8 million study commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is meeting this week in Baltimore. Dr. Terry presented her interim report on the same day that the bishops conference also adopted a pastoral letter on marriage and a statement on reproductive technologies...

Acting Bishop of Basrah, Imad Al Banna, holds a Catholic Mass at Contingency Operating Base Adder, Nov. 7. Banna also had lunch with troops and civilians and was given a Liberty Bell statuette by the 28th Combat Air Brigade, Pennsylvania National Guard. Photo by Sgt. Matthew Jones, 28th Combat Aviation Brigade. COB ADDER — The acting Bishop of Basrah held Catholic Mass here in honor of the service members and civilians working toward a safer, more secure Iraq, Nov. 7. Bishop Imad Al Banna, a Chaldean priest, spoke Aramaic, an ancient language spoken in Palestine 2,000 years ago and still...

Former Episcopalians who have found a traditional refuge in Catholicism, where the priesthood remains closed to women and openly gay clergy, are applauding the Vatican’s plan to help additional dissatisfied conservatives convert. But while the welcome extends to married priests — a narrow loophole in the Catholic Church’s celibacy requirement — most of those who have already converted say they want to remain rare exceptions. “We trust the church’s wisdom regarding the discipline of celibacy,” said the Rev. D. Paul Sullins, who left the Episcopal Church 10 years ago with his wife and recently surveyed his colleagues on this issue....