Pope Francis tells enthusiastic worshipper: ‘I’ll give you a kiss but stay calm’
Pope Francis jokingly told a woman not to bite him as he greeted pilgrims before his weekly general audience.
It was the pontiff’s first walkabout among worshippers after he angrily slapped the hand of a woman in response to her abruptly grabbing his arm on New Year’s Eve.
Continue reading...Pontiff admits ‘sometime even I lose patience’, referring to incident with pilgrim at Vatican
Pope Francis has apologised after slapping a woman’s hand as he greeted pilgrims at the Vatican on New Year’s Eve.
Francis lost his cool when the woman abruptly grabbed his hand and yanked him towards her just after he reached out to greet a child during a visit to the Vatican’s nativity scene on Tuesday night.
Continue reading...A visibly annoyed Pope Francis had to pull himself away from a woman in a crowd in St Peter's Square on New Year's Eve after she grabbed his hand and yanked him towards her. Pope Francis was walking through the square and greeting pilgrims. After reaching out to greet a child, the pope turned away from the crowd only for a nearby woman to seize his hand and pull her towards him. The abrupt gesture appeared to cause him pain and Francis swiftly slapped at her hand before pulling his hand free
Italian TV show to reveal alleged abuse at Vatican’s youth seminary in 1980s and 90s
Three more former altar boys have claimed they were sexually abused by two priests in the Vatican, as the child abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic church zeroed in for a second time on its headquarters.
The allegations of abuse in the Vatican’s youth seminary, to be set out in an Italian TV show on Sunday, date back to the 1980s and 90s when the boys were aged between 10 and 14.
Continue reading...Full bench of seven judges will decide on Cardinal Pell’s appeal, likely to be heard in 2020
Cardinal George Pell will have a final chance to overturn his conviction on historical child sexual abuse offences after the high court in Canberra agreed to hear appeal arguments in a special full court sitting.
A date for the appeal hearing is yet to be set but it is likely to be early in 2020, by the full bench of seven judges. Led by the high-profile silk Bret Walker SC, Pell’s legal team will argue that the majority of judges in Victoria’s court of appeal erred by finding in August that jurors were not unreasonable to believe the testimony of Pell’s victim.
Continue reading...Incident at end of Francis’s Amazon synod blamed on conservatives and ‘racists’
Pope Francis has apologised to Amazonian bishops and tribal leaders after thieves stole indigenous statues from a church close to the Vatican and tossed them into the River Tiber in a show of conservative opposition to the first Latin American pope.
Speaking as “the bishop of Rome”, Francis dismissed allegations that the wooden statues of naked pregnant women were pagan symbols and said they had been placed in the church “without any intention of idolatry”.
Continue reading...Prince Charles described Victorian theologian as a ‘fearless defender of the truth’
Prince Charles described John Henry Newman as a “fearless defender of the truth” after the British cardinal became a saint in front of an estimated 20,000 pilgrims in St Peter’s Square.
Newman, also a theologian, scholar and poet, was regarded as one of the most influential figures of the Victorian age and is the first Briton to be made a saint since 1976, when John Ogilvie was canonised by Pope Paul VI.
Continue reading...Peter Comensoli says he accepts victim was abused but wonders whether he was wrong in naming cardinal as abuser
Catholic archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli says he believes convicted paedophile Cardinal George Pell when he protests his innocence, and has speculated if the sole living victim got the name of his abuser wrong.
A day after Victoria’s court of appeal upheld Pell’s conviction for the rape of a 13-year-old choirboy and sexual assault of another at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996, Comensoli said while he respected the courts, he also believed his friend and would continue to visit him in prison.
Continue reading...Former Vatican treasurer, and most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual assault, maintains innocence after losing appeal
The most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell, has lost his appeal against his conviction, but maintains he is innocent.
In a brief statement issued after the decision the Vatican reiterated that Pell maintained his innocence, and that it was now “Pell’s right to appeal to the high court”.
Continue reading...Appeal dismissed by a majority of two to one for the 78-year-old who will remain in prison until October 2022. He was sentenced in March for sexually assaulting two choirboys in 1996
By the way - this is a huge testament to the value of the jury system. I will have so much to say about that. There is NO strong evidence judges alone are less biased or more correct than a jury of 12. #Pell.
Interesting that Morrison said the decision to strip Pell of his honours is independent to the government. Back In February my colleague Paul Karp was told that if Pell lost the appeal the prime minister would write to the Council of the Order of Australia recommending it review and revoke the honour, a decision made on its recommendation by the governor general.
Related: PM to strip George Pell of Order of Australia honour if cardinal loses appeal
Continue reading...A missing teenager, an empty tomb, a swirl of dark theories, and the closed doors and habitual secrecy of the Vatican. It sounds like fiction, but it is a real-life mystery that has gripped Italy for more than three decades and has embroiled the powerful and inscrutable Holy See.
For 36 years, the family of Emanuela Orlandi has sought answers about the fate of the 15-year-old girl who vanished from the streets of Rome on her way to a flute lesson.
Continue reading...One of Rome’s most enduring mysteries – the 1983 disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, a Vatican employee’s daughter – took a new twist on Saturday when papal authorities announced that they had discovered two sets of bones under a stone manhole.
On Thursday the Vatican had pried open the tombs of two 19th-century German princesses in the cemetery of the Pontifical Teutonic College after Emanuela’s family had received a tip that her remains might be buried there. But the tombs turned out to be completely empty, creating yet another mystery over the whereabouts of the dead princesses.
Continue reading...Pope Francis aide crawls into manhole to return power for hundreds of homeless in unused state-owned building
An aide to pope Francis has shimmied down a Rome manhole in order to restore electricity for hundreds of homeless people living in an unused state-owned building.
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski broke a police seal to turn the electricity back on on Saturday evening in the building where 450 people, including about 100 children, had been living without lights or hot water since 6 May, according to Italian news reports
Continue reading...Family has asked for tomb in grounds to be opened in search for Emanuela Orlandi
The Vatican has launched an internal investigation into the disappearance of a teenage girl in 1983, in what could be a breakthrough for police investigating one of the country’s darkest mysteries.
Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican police officer, was 15 when she was last seen leaving a music class on 22 June 1983.
Continue reading...Cherie Blair was right to mention the problem of forced pregnancy among young schoolgirls in Africa (Cherie Blair accused of reinforcing stereotypes about African women, 27 March). She was speaking at a Catholic school, and Catholics are currently struggling with the whole problem of unwanted pregnancy and women’s (and men’s) rights.
In traditional societies in Africa, a girl’s reproductive capacity was “owned” by her birth family, and there were recognised customs to enforce damages for “seduction”, which to some extent protected young girls. These protections have vanished with modernity, and organisations such as Cafod can provide in-depth information about the attrition of girls in school past puberty, which puts a question mark over every attempt at social development (we are talking about girls as young as 11). Of course African leaders, including bishops, would rather not talk about this. But a demographic disaster is unfolding in southern Africa, and silencing talk about it will not make it go away.
Jenny Tillyard
(Lived 30 years in Zimbabwe), Seaford, East Sussex
Spokesman responds to viral video of Pope Francis refusing to let his ring be kissed saying the reason was simply hygiene
Pope Francis has attempted to set the record straight after a video showed him repeatedly snatching his hand away from well-wishers who tried to kiss his ring, saying that he was worried about spreading germs.
Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said that Francis was concerned about hygiene when, after greeting dozens of people in a lengthy receiving line, he began pulling his hand away to discourage people from kissing his ring.
Continue reading...Chief judge calls Pell’s crimes ‘breathtakingly arrogant’ as he sentences Pell to six years in jail, with non-parole period of three years and eight months
• George Pell sentenced to six years in jail – live updates
Cardinal George Pell may spend at least three years and eight months in jail after being convicted of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996, with the judge describing his offending as “brazen and forceful” and “breathtakingly arrogant” because he believed the victims would never complain.
The 77-year-old was sentenced to six years, with a non-parole period of three years and eight months.
Continue reading...Philippe Barbarin handed six-month suspended sentence after surprise verdict
A French archbishop has been found guilty of covering up child sexual abuse by a priest in his diocese in yet another crushing blow to the Catholic church’s credibility on the most damaging issue it has faced in recent history.
Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, was given a six-month suspended prison sentence on Thursday for failing to report to the authorities accusations made against the priest.
Continue reading...Holy See says convicted child abuser will remain a cardinal at least until appeal is heard, but he is no longer prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy
The Vatican has confirmed that Cardinal George Pell’s position as the prefect of its Secretariat for the Economy has not been renewed, with the role one of the highest in the Catholic hierarchy.
In December Pell was found guilty of one charge of sexual penetration of a child under the age of 16 and four counts of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16. The verdict could not be widely reported until Tuesday owing to a suppression order.
Continue reading...Close associate of Pope Francis faces jail sentence for child sexual abuse crimes
The Catholic church’s already shaky credibility on sexual abuse was dealt another hammer blow on Tuesday, with its third most powerful figure and a close associate of Pope Francis facing a jail sentence for crimes committed against two choirboys in the 1990s.
The news that Cardinal George Pell – who until the weekend was in charge of the Holy See’s finances and of rooting out corruption at the heart of the church – had been found guilty on five charges of sexual abuse was painful and shocking, said the Vatican.
Continue reading...