Tributes have been paid to David O’Connell, who was shot on Saturday
The husband of an Irish bishop’s housekeeper has been arrested in connection with the bishop’s murder in Los Angeles.
David O’Connell, a prominent liberal bishop, was shot on Saturday in Los Angeles.
Continue reading...Killing in Hacienda Heights being investigated as homicide, LA county sheriff’s department says
A Catholic bishop in southern California who was hailed as a “peacemaker” was shot and killed on Saturday blocks away from a church, stunning the Los Angeles religious community.
Detectives were investigating the death of Bishop David O’Connell as a homicide, the Los Angeles county sheriff’s department said.
Continue reading...Independent commission reaches conclusion after hearing evidence from over 500 survivors last year
Catholic clergy in Portugal have abused nearly 5,000 children since 1950, an independent commission said on Monday after hearing hundreds of survivors’ accounts.
Thousands of reports of paedophilia within the church have surfaced around the world, and Pope Francis is under pressure to tackle the scandal.
Continue reading...Two nuns told they ‘disobeyed the church’ by trying to stay at seven-centuries-old site in Ravello
The Vatican has expelled two cloistered sisters from the nunhood after the pair disobeyed a request to leave a seven-centuries-old monastery along Italy’s Amalfi coast.
Known in the clifftop town of Ravello as “the rebel nuns”, Massimiliana Panza and Angela Maria Punnackal left the Santa Chiara monastery on Saturday after receiving a letter signed by Pope Francis telling them they were being relieved of “the obligations of sacred ordination”.
Continue reading...Pontiff says on peace mission that religious leaders ‘cannot remain neutral’ amid abuses of power
Pope Francis has said churches in South Sudan “cannot remain neutral” but must raise their voices against injustice and abuse of power, as he and two other Christian leaders conducted a peace mission to the world’s newest country.
On his first full day in South Sudan, Francis addressed Catholic bishops, priests and nuns in St Theresa Cathedral in the capital, Juba, as the archbishop of Canterbury and the head of the Church of Scotland held services elsewhere.
Continue reading...LGBTQ+ protesters condemn cardinal’s record on same-sex marriage, women’s rights and protecting children from clergy abuse
Hundreds of people have marched in protest outside Cardinal George Pell’s funeral service at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, with heated exchanges between his detractors and admirers.
Campaign group Community Action for Rainbow Rights (Carr) planned the protest through Sydney to the cathedral on the day of Pell’s requiem mass, in condemnation of his opposition to same-sex marriage and women’s rights, and his failure to protect children from widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic church.
Continue reading...Former PM says the cardinal was ‘the greatest man I’ve ever known’, likening his treatment to a ‘modern-day crucifixion’
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has described George Pell, a man found to have failed to act on knowledge of child abuse, as “the greatest man I’ve ever known”, likening him to a saint and comparing his treatment to “modern-day crucifixion”.
Abbott spoke at Pell’s funeral on Thursday and variously described him as “one of our country’s greatest sons”, a “great hero” and a “saint for our times”.
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Continue reading...Advocates furious the church keeps removing ribbons intended to give voice to survivors of clergy abuse
Francis Sullivan, the former head of the Catholic church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council, says the removal of ribbons commemorating abuse survivors from St Mary’s Cathedral appears designed to prevent the scandal from being “associated with Cardinal [George] Pell” in the days leading up to his funeral.
Survivors and their supporters are furious that the church is continually removing ribbons they have tied to the fence surrounding Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral before the requiem mass planned for Pell on Thursday.
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Continue reading...Head of Anglican church in South Sudan said archbishop of Canterbury was ‘failing to defend biblical truth’
Pope Francis and the archbishop of Canterbury will begin a historic joint visit to South Sudan on Friday against the backdrop of potential tensions over LGBTQ+ rights.
The leaders of the global Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, whose numbers are growing in sub-Saharan Africa in contrast to the west, will be joined on their “pilgrimage of peace” by the leader of the Church of Scotland.
Continue reading...Victorian MPs are adamant the premier’s views are based on principle, not political instincts
Responding to the death of George Pell – a staunch conservative found guilty and then acquitted of child sexual abuse – is inevitably a political minefield. But Daniel Andrews and the Victorian government chose to go where others didn’t.
Mere minutes after the Vatican confirmed the cardinal’s death at the age of 81, the government minister Steve Dimopoulos acknowledged the news could be triggering for survivors of child sexual abuse.
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Continue reading...Around 20 people were seen kneeling in prayer in the church – typically used for baptisms and weddings – prior to funeral for Australia’s most senior Catholic
George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, is lying in state in a closed dark brown wooden coffin behind the walls of the Vatican as preparations continue for his funeral, which will be blessed by Pope Francis.
Pell, who was the subject of damning findings by Australia’s child abuse royal commission, is in a coffin on the floor of the small church of St Stephen of the Abyssinians, inside the Vatican walls.
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Continue reading...Journalist who published the anonymous memo criticising ‘politically correct’ decisions reveals cardinal was its author
Cardinal George Pell was the author of an anonymous memo condemning the papacy of Pope Francis as a “catastrophe” where political correctness held sway while global wrongs were ignored, says the journalist who published it.
Released last year under the pseudonym Demos, the document accuses the pope of silence on moral issues, including the German Catholic church’s openness to the LGBTQ community, female priests and communion for the divorced.
Continue reading...Victorian premier says there will not be a state service for cardinal, out of respect for victim-survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. Follow live
Visa processing problems in spotlight
Pat Conroy acknowledged ongoing visa processing issues and said the government was “hopeful that we can get a resolution on that issue”:
People in Papua New Guinea are also very keen on our Pacific engagement visa, which is about creating 3,000 permanent migration spots each year into Australia … and there’s also lots of interest in Papua New Guineans working, studying in Australia as well.
His message around democracies is that [it is] incumbent upon politicians in both countries [to] defend democracy and we defend democracy by demonstrating it’s the best system to deliver actual benefits for the people that we govern. So that’s about investing in stronger health outcomes, lifting stronger economic outcomes.
Continue reading...Victorian premier says those abused ‘at the hands of the Catholic church’ are foremost in his thoughts
Two Australian state governments will not offer taxpayer-funded public funerals for Cardinal George Pell, with the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, saying his decision was made out of respect for victims of institutional child sexual abuse.
The nation’s most senior Catholic, who was a former archbishop of both Melbourne and Sydney, died on Wednesday morning (AEDT) from heart complications arising from hip replacement surgery in Rome. He was 81.
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Continue reading...Pontiff praises ‘determination and wisdom’ of Pell, who was convicted but then acquitted of child sexual abuse
Pope Francis has praised George Pell for his “determination and wisdom”, in a statement dedicated to the controversial cardinal after his death at the age of 81.
Pell, who was Australia’s most senior Catholic and was found guilty and then acquitted of child sexual abuse, had undergone a hip operation in Rome and died after a cardiac arrest. Days earlier, he attended the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.
Continue reading...Un-redacted report released in 2020 revealed how archbishop failed to take proper steps to act on complaints about dangerous priests
The child sexual abuse royal commission in 2020 released a bombshell un-redacted report examining the failings of George Pell during his time as an assistant priest, bishop, auxiliary bishop and cardinal in Australia.
The report found he both knew about child abuse, particularly within the Victorian diocese of Ballarat, and failed to take proper steps to act on complaints about dangerous priests.
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Continue reading...Conservative politicians remember Pell as a ‘saint’ and a ‘martyr’, while others prefer to acknowledge victims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic church
The death of Cardinal George Pell has prompted dramatically polarised reactions, with church officials praising his service while others shared messages of support for victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.
The former prime minister Tony Abbott called Pell “a saint for our times”, saying in a statement the cardinal’s overturned convictions on charges of child sex abuse was “a modern form of crucifixion … a kind of living death”.
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Continue reading...Emanuela Orlandi case has triggered several theories but never yielded any concrete answers
The Vatican has reopened an investigation into the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a case that has gripped Italy for almost 40 years and embroiled the powerful Holy See.
Emanuela was 15 when she vanished on 22 June 1983 while making her way home from a flute lesson in Rome. The Orlandi family lived in Vatican City, where her father was a lay employee in the papal household.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands gather to see Pope Francis bury his predecessor
An estimated 100,000 Catholics have descended on St Peter’s Square for the funeral of the former pope Benedict XVI.
Benedict died on Saturday, aged 95, almost a decade after becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign. He will become the first former pontiff in the modern history of the Catholic church to be buried by an incumbent pope, Francis, who arrived outside St Peter’s Basilica in a wheelchair on Thursday.
Continue reading...Unique case may set precedent as family alleges church’s failings caused man’s violence in later life
A Victorian court has paved the way for the children and wife of an abused altar boy to sue the Catholic church, alleging the church’s failings caused their father and husband to become a violent alcoholic and drug addict who beat them later in life.
The abuse victim, now dead, was an altar boy in north-west Victoria in the mid-1970s when he was allegedly raped by Father Bryan Coffey, a parish priest who allegedly used his role as the supervisor of the local school’s cross-country team to prey on children.
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