Pontiff to receive treatment for bronchitis after having difficulty breathing during meeting
Pope Francis has cancelled his scheduled events over the next few days after being hospitalised, the Vatican said.
The pontiff, who has been suffering from bronchitis, was admitted to Gemelli hospital in Rome on Friday after reportedly having breathing difficulties during one of his meetings.
Continue reading...Victim support groups call for investigation into whether Saints flouted NFL’s own commitments to prevent abuse
Clergy sexual abuse survivor support groups have called on the National Football League to investigate whether leaders of the New Orleans Saints flouted the NFL’s goals by campaigning alongside the city’s Roman Catholic archdiocese to soften critical media coverage of how the church handled its clerical molestation scandal.
A statement from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (Snap) pointed out how the NFL’s website expresses a commitment to “addressing and preventing domestic violence and sexual assault”. Yet emails first reported on Monday morning by the Guardian, its reporting partner WWL Louisiana, the Associated Press and the New York Times establish how the Saints – owned by the devout New Orleans Catholic Gayle Benson – and team executives were far more involved in helping its local archdiocese spin media coverage of the abuse scandal than the organizations had previously acknowledged.
Continue reading...Clergy abuse survivors and their supporters express pain over sports officials’ efforts to soften coverage of scandal
Survivors of Catholic clergy abuse and their supporters expressed disgust, pain and disbelief after the Guardian and WWL Louisiana’s investigation on Monday into hundreds of emails showing officials with the NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans aided New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese efforts to soften critical media coverage about the church’s management of a clerical molestation scandal.
Richard Windmann said it was “disturbing” to see the emails mention his decision to go public about his abuse as a child at the hands of a priest and janitor at Jesuit high school in New Orleans in the 1970s.
Continue reading...Sodalitium of Christian Life ended after investigation found sexual and spiritual abuses and financial mismanagement
Pope Francis has taken the remarkable step of dissolving a Peruvian-based Catholic movement, the Sodalitium of Christian Life (SCV), after years of attempts at reform and a Vatican investigation. The investigation uncovered sexual abuses by its founder, financial mismanagement by its leaders and spiritual abuses by its top members.
The Sodalitium on Monday confirmed the dissolution, which was conveyed to an assembly of its members in Aparecida, Brazil at the weekend by the pope’s top legal adviser, Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda. In revealing the dissolution in a statement, the group lamented that news of Francis’s decision had been leaked by two members attending the assembly, who were “definitively expelled”.
Continue reading...Appointment of progressive Robert McElroy comes as rightwing Catholics wield significant influence in US capital
When the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, sought to shut down a Catholic charity that was was providing shelter and aid to undocumented migrants at the border, the San Diego cardinal, Robert McElroy, took a robust public stand against the attempt.
“The state of Texas is using governmental pressure to curtail the work of the Church in one of its most fundamental obligations: to feed the hungry, to shelter the homeless, and to provide drink to the thirsty,” McElroy said in a statement at the time. “No government can morally tell us to abandon or limit this mission.”
Continue reading...Beatification ceremony for Clare Crockett, former party girl from Derry, draws more than 100 people to Madrid
A nun from Northern Ireland who was killed in an earthquake while she was teaching music in Ecuador has taken a step closer to sainthood.
A ceremony on Sunday afternoon started the process of beatification for Clare Crockett, who died in Portoviejo, Ecuador during an earthquake in April 2016. The 33-year-old had been working in the country as part of her work as a nun, which had also taken in placements in Spain and the US.
Continue reading...Move marks shift in views but sexually active gay men will not be admitted to Roman Catholic seminaries
Gay men will be allowed to train as priests in Roman Catholic seminaries, so long as they observe celibacy, according to new guidelines announced by the Italian Bishops Conference (CIE).
The decision marks a shift from the view previously held by Pope Francis that gay men should not be admitted to seminaries owing to the risk of them leading a double life.
Continue reading...Lawrence Hecker, 93, is set to receive a life sentence after admitting to attacking boy in church bell tower
Shortly before a jury was supposed to be chosen for his trial on criminal charges of kidnapping and raping a boy in the mid-1970s, the self-acknowledged serial child molester and retired Roman Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker pleaded guilty on Tuesday morning.
The 93-year-old is scheduled to receive a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment on 18 December in New Orleans’s state criminal courthouse, where it has been rare for a Catholic clergyman to be charged – much less convicted – in connection with the church’s decades-old clerical molestation scandal.
Continue reading...Revelation emerges at hearing for Anthony Odiong, 55, charged with several counts and held in Texas on $5.5m bail
A Roman Catholic priest with links to Texas and Louisiana who is facing criminal charges for allegedly abusing his position of authority within the church to pursue sex with vulnerable women fathered at least two children with victims of his behavior, authorities have alleged.
The stunning information about Anthony Odiong surfaced at a bail hearing on Tuesday in Waco, Texas, where prosecutors have charged him with several counts of sexually assaulting women to whom he ministered.
Continue reading...Gigantiello, who let singer film in church, stripped of duties after inquiry shows he sent parish funds to Eric Adams aide
The leader of a New York City church where pop star Sabrina Carpenter filmed provocative scenes for a music video was stripped of his duties on Monday after church officials said an investigation revealed other instances of mismanagement.
Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello was relieved of “any pastoral oversight or governance role” at his church located in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, Bishop Robert Brennan said in a statement issued by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.
Continue reading...Lawrence Hecker, 93, self-admitted serial child molester, grapples with Alzheimer’s dementia and had trial delayed
With less than a month to go before his latest scheduled trial date, a self-admitted serial child molester and retired Roman Catholic priest from New Orleans remains competent to proceed with his oft-delayed rape and kidnapping case – albeit marginally as the 93-year-old grapples with Alzheimer’s dementia, according to his most recent medical evaluation.
A pair of doctors who evaluated Lawrence Hecker on 6 November made it a point to note that his illness is “a chronic and progressive disease”, suggesting additional delays beyond several already seen in the case create a risk that the clergyman declines into a state of legal incompetence preventing him from ever standing trial given his advanced age.
Continue reading...Gregory Aymond’s offer, required because he turns 75, says he wants to stay for resolution of institution’s bankruptcy but adds it is up to Pope Francis
New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archbishop Gregory Aymond is submitting his resignation Tuesday, on his 75th birthday, fulfilling a church requirement – though it is unclear if Vatican officials would immediately accept it with his scandal-plagued organization’s expensive, highly contentious bankruptcy case still unresolved.
In a letter issued on Friday to priests and deacons under his command, Aymond cited canon – or church – law that required him to offer to retire because of his age. But he said he also offered to remain in office until the resolution of the bankruptcy.
Continue reading...Former pupils of Catholic schools say corporal punishment was ‘hourly occurence’ in 60s and 70s
The Irish government has been urged to extend the scope of a statutory inquiry into historical child abuse in schools to include corporal punishment, including a practice known as “leathering”.
Survivors of physical assault in Catholic schools have complained they were told there was no scope to include corporal punishment in an investigation into sexual abuse, announced in September.
Continue reading...Mohsin ‘Mo’ Meghji was paid $350,000 to advise on conflicting settlement proposals from the church and clergy abuse victims
An outside expert brought in to help resolve the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans’ expensive, highly contentious bankruptcy protection case has suggested deferring pay to all professionals involved in the matter for three months.
The move is to see if that prompts the church and clergy abuse victims to compromise on conflicting settlement proposals which are hundreds of millions of dollars apart.
Continue reading...Dominican friar hailed as ‘prophet of the poor’ for belief that the church had political duty to end poverty
Gustavo Gutiérrez, the influential Peruvian priest known as “the father of liberation theology” and hailed as a “prophet of the poor”, has died in Lima at the age of 96.
Gutiérrez, a theologian and Dominican friar, was a celebrated – and sometimes controversial – proponent of the idea that the church needed to side with the poor and to fight to improve their lot.
Continue reading...Archbishop expresses sorrow in announcement to pay 1,353 people who alleged they were abused as children by priests
The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880m to 1,353 people who alleged that they were sexually abused as children by Catholic priests, in the largest settlement by a US diocese over decades-old abuse claims.
Archbishop Jose H Gomez expressed sorrow for the abuse in announcing the settlement on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Michigan governor accused of mocking communion, while she says stunt was meant to promote Biden’s Chips Act
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer has apologized for feeding a Dorito chip to a social media influencer who dropped to her knees after Roman Catholic organizations accused the Democratic politician of insulting their religion by mocking the sacrament of communion.
“I would never do something to denigrate someone’s faith,” Whitmer said in a statement that her office provided to the Michigan television news station WJBK on Friday.
Continue reading...Mohsin Meghji’s conduct in a separate case raised ethics questions as ex-judge he was linked to faces investigation
A nationally renowned business-turnaround expert hired to help resolve the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans’ contentious and costly bankruptcy – which has ensnared hundreds of clergy molestation survivors – is now facing scrutiny from the FBI after his conduct in a separate case raised ethics-related questions.
The Wall Street Journal published reporting on Mohsin “Mo” Meghji on Wednesday, the day he was due to complete an assessment on the viability of two competing archdiocesan restructuring plans drafted by the church as well as those to whom it is indebted, among them hundreds of victims of sexually abusive clergymen.
Continue reading...Ukraine-born Mikola Bychok will become the only Australian resident in the powerful Catholic church position and the youngest cardinal overall
At just 44, Ukraine-born Melbourne bishop Mikola Bychok has ascended to one of the most powerful positions in the Catholic church, where he will have a say in who becomes the next pope.
Pope Francis named him as one of 21 new cardinals, making him the only Australian resident who will don the signature red vestments, and the youngest cardinal overall.
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Continue reading...Newlyweds nicknamed ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by Italian media had both refused to resign so other could keep job
A man and woman have been fired from their jobs at the Vatican bank because they flouted a ban on marriage between employees.
The young couple, nicknamed “Romeo and Juliet” by the Italian media, got married in August, after the bank imposed a rule banning marriage between employees aimed at preventing nepotism.
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