Free Republic

Dear Reader, I have some bad news for you. I know, you've gotten all you can take for a while. But still, this is important, and you won't be hearing it anywhere else. I just got back from a visit to Rome and the Vatican. On the bright side, the weather was great and the city is as beautiful as ever. Unfortunately, that's where the good news ends. My reason for the trip was to talk to Vatican officials about the sexual abuse scandal in the United States. Just like you, I've been wondering why Rome doesn't seem to be...

The Catholic Church in America is at a watershed. The current crisis is the culmination of decades of bad management, errant theology, and sinful behavior. It is partly about sex and partly about bishops. It is also about deluded therapies and an institutional Church that often goes flopping along with the mainstream on moral issues. The crisis is mostly, however, about active homosexuals in the priesthood. Anyone (including an archbishop) who does not admit this is simply part of the problem. The media have framed the issue as one of pedophilia – that is, the sexual abuse of prepubescent children....

A top aide to Bernard Cardinal Law was urged in 1994 to notify parishioners that a dozen archdiocese priests had been pulled from churches for molesting children - but chose to keep it a secret from those affected, sources said yesterday. Despite pleas from an alarmed nun who served as his key deputy, Bishop John B. McCormack, now of Manchester, N.H., actively hid from Bay State churchgoers the fact that priests were yanked from parishes amid abuse cases, church files to be released this week indicate. Among those noted were Revs. Bernard J. Lane, Paul J. Mahan, Paul R. Shanley,...

A routine is settling in on Monday nights at St. John the Evangelist parish in Wellesley, where hundreds of Roman Catholics have been gathering to discuss ways to 9invrease their say in church affairs. Dr. James Muller, the Nobel Prize-winning physician who serves as president of Voice of the Faithful, gives a brief, PowerPoint presentation to the crowd, composed each week of newcomers. He tells a joke or two. The line about the woman who wants to gauge his orthodoxy by asking whether he and his wife use birth control always draws laughter. Next, someone leads the group in song...

The Rev. Matthew Fitzgerald accumulated three accusations of improper behavior with adults between 1992 and 1997, but he only recently lost his priestly privileges when he tried to say public Mass and recruit people for a pilgrimage, according to the Diocese of Palm Beach. Fitzgerald, 59, had his privileges to say Mass and perform sacramental duties revoked earlier this month because "his presence as a priest in the area where his pattern of behavior is known would continue to cause further scandal," according to a diocese statement released Monday. That led to his being fired last week from Food for...