The Church & the Children
Benedict XVI during his Easter break at Castel Gandolfo. AP photo
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If there was ever an easy moral question, it should have been what to do with priests who molest children. -- Chris Matthews
We should give more consideration to the quality of homosexual relationships. A stable relationship is certainly better than if someone chooses to be promiscuous. - Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, head of the Austrian Church and close friend of the Pope
Irish Times July 25: "The Vatican has recalled its envoy to Ireland following Taoiseach Enda Kenny's trenchant criticism of the Holy See’s role in covering up cases of clerical child sex abuse. Deputy Vatican spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini said Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, the Apostolic Nuncio of Ireland, had been recalled from Dublin for consultations in the wake of the Cloyne report."
New York Times, July 12: "The Catholic Church in was still covering up sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, long after it issued guidelines meant to protect children, and the tacitly encouraged the cover-up by ignoring the guidelines, according to a scathing report issued on Wednesday by the Irish government." The full Cloyne Report via the NYT is here; however, I kept getting errors on the page; the Irish Times has a pdf of the full report here. The Irish Times' main story is here, & their main page for the report, with multiple links, is here. The IT has a very brief rundown of the Cloyne Report's main findings here.
"Blame Woodstock." Laurie Goldstein of the New York Times, May 17: "A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that ... the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s. Known occurrences of sexual abuse of minors by priests rose sharply during those decades, the report found, and the problem grew worse when the church’s hierarchy responded by showing more care for the perpetrators than the victims." The study is to be released today (Wednesday).
Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times, March 25: "Nine years after a scandal in Boston prompted America’s Roman Catholic bishops to announce sweeping policy changes to protect children from sexual abuse by priests, the bishops are scrambling to contain the damage from a growing crisis in Philadelphia that has challenged the credibility of their own safeguards.... Church officials are ... deeply troubled by how it is possible that in the bishops’ most recent annual 'audit' — conducted by an outside agency to monitor each diocese’s compliance with the policy changes — Philadelphia passed with flying colors...."
New York Times, March 25: "A Roman Catholic religious order in the Northwest has agreed to pay $166 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse, many of whom are American Indians and Alaska Natives who were abused decades ago at Indian boarding schools and in remote villages, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Friday. The settlement, with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, known as the Northwest Jesuits, is the largest abuse settlement by far from a Catholic religious order, as opposed to a diocese, and it is one of the largest abuse settlements of any kind by the Catholic Church."
New York Times, March 25: "In a blistering courtroom session on Friday, the judge overseeing the case involving priests accused in the sexual abuse scandal in the Philadelphia Archdiocese granted the prosecution’s request to bypass a preliminary hearing and scheduled arraignment for April 15.... The judge, Renee Cardwell Hughes, also agreed to the district attorney’s belated request to charge all five with conspiracy."
New York Times, March 8: "The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Tuesday that it had suspended 21 priests from active ministry in connection with accusations that involved sexual abuse or otherwise inappropriate behavior with minors." The Philadelphia Inquirer story is here.
** Katharine Seelye of the New York Time, March 4: "Three weeks after a scathing grand jury report accused the Philadelphia Archdiocese of providing safe haven for as many as 37 priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior toward minors, most of those priests remain active in the ministry. The possibility that even one predatory priest, not to mention three dozen, might still be serving in parishes — 'on duty in the archdiocese today, with open access to new young prey,' as the grand jury put it — has unnerved many Roman Catholics here and sent the church reeling in the latest and one of the most damning episodes in the American church since it became engulfed in the sexual abuse scandal nearly a decade ago."
New York Times Editors, February 15: "The Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country has promised accountability and justice for children sexually abused by priests. We fear it has a long way to go. A new inquiry [conducted in Philadelphia] has found that nearly a decade after the scandal engulfed the American church, children are still in peril and some leaders are still stonewalling investigations." ...
... The backstory by David O'Reilly of the Philadelphia Inquirer, February 11: "A Philadelphia grand jury on Thursday brought felony charges against a former high-ranking official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for 'purposefully' shielding sexually abusive priests and endangering children in the late 1990s, and said it was uncertain whether retired archbishop Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua was culpable as well." ...
... And by Dave Warner of Reuters, February 14: "The Archbishop of Philadelphia and his predecessor were accused on Monday in a civil lawsuit of endangering children by concealing the identity and sexual abuse of predatory priests from law enforcement to save the church from a costly scandal."
New York Times, February 13: "A lawyer for victims of sexual abuse by priests says he plans to seek depositions from Archbishop Timothy R. Dolan and other church officials over the lawyer’s accusations that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee, while Archbishop Dolan was its leader, moved $130 million off its books to avoid paying abuse claims."
New York Times, February 12: "A priest [Martin P. O’Loghlen] accused of having a long-term sexual relationship with a teenage girl..., is being removed from ministry in a parish, and the diocese’s vicar of clergy [Msgr. Michael Meyers] has also resigned, officials of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles said Friday. O'Loghlen ... was appointed to an archdiocesan sexual abuse advisory board, although officials at both the order and the archdiocese knew at the time about his admission of sexual abuse and addiction." Los Angeles Times story here.
New York Times, January 18: "A newly disclosed document reveals that Vatican officials instructed the bishops of Ireland in 1997 that they must not adopt a policy of reporting priests suspected of child abuse to the police or civil authorities. The document appears to contradict Vatican claims that the hierarchy in Rome never determined the actions of local bishops in abuse cases, and that the church did not impede criminal investigations of accused child abusers. Abuse victims in Ireland and the United States quickly proclaimed the document to be a 'smoking gun' that would serve as important evidence in lawsuits against the Vatican." A pdf of the Vatican's letter is here.
New York Times, January 4, 2011: "The Roman Catholic archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome E. Listecki, announced Tuesday that the archdiocese had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, saying it would allow the church to continue its ministry while giving fair compensation to the victims of sexual abuse by priests. But advocates for the victims say the church’s real motivation is to avoid disclosing information about priests accused of abuse and officials who covered it up."
Belfast Telegraph, December 21: "Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn't considered an 'absolute evil' as recently as the 1970s. In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered 'normal' by society.'In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,' the Pope said."
AP, December 20: "Pope Benedict XVI said Monday the Catholic Church must reflect on what is wrong with its message and Christian life in general that allowed for the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests. While accepting responsibility for the scandal, Benedict said the abuse must also be seen in the broader social context, in which child pornography and sexual tourism are rampant, and where as recently as the 1970s pedophilia wasn't considered the absolute evil that it is today."
New York Times, December 17: "A once-influential Roman Catholic monsignor who oversaw fund-raising for the Archdiocese of New York, running the annual Alfred E. Smith political dinner during the tenure of Cardinal John J. O’Connor, has been removed from the priesthood after an eight-year church review of sexual abuse accusations against him, the archdiocese announced on Friday. The monsignor, Charles M. Kavanagh, 73, has denied the charges."
AP, December 17: "The Vatican tried to stop church leaders [in Ireland] from defrocking a particularly dangerous pedophile priest [Tony Walsh] and relented only after he raped a boy in a restroom at a pub, according to an investigation released Friday."
AP, December 17: "A federal judge has denied bail to a priest who is fighting extradition to his native Ireland where he's wanted on sex abuse charges. Irish authorities accuse Patrick Joseph McCabe of molesting six boys from 1973 to 1981."
New York Times, December 9: "The Roman Catholic Church ... is facing a new set of allegations now in the Netherlands. Figures released Thursday by an investigative commission showed that almost 2,000 people have made complaints of sexual or physical abuse against the church, in a country with only 4 million Catholics."
AP: "Italian paramilitary police blocked a boulevard Sunday to prevent a march by victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clerics from reaching St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican."
New York Times, October 27: "For years, [Chilean Roman Catholic] church officials, including Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, archbishop of Santiago, tried to shame accusers into dropping claims [of sexual abuse by a priest], refused to meet with them or failed to carry out formal investigations, according to interviews and court testimony."
AP, October 24: "Lawyers for nearly 150 people who claim they were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests in the San Diego Diocese released thousands of pages of previously sealed church documents on Sunday with details of complaints against the priests that include medical records and correspondence between priests and their superiors." ...
... San Diego Union-Tribune: "Three years after the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego settled scores of claims of sexual abuse by its priests, lawyers for the plaintiffs released thousands of documents Sunday from church files showing diocese officials quietly moved some problem priests from parish to parish." A slightly more extensive Los Angeles Times report is here.
AP, September 18: "Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday he was deeply ashamed of the 'unspeakable' sexual abuse of children by priests, telling the British faithful during Mass in Westminster Cathedral that he hoped the church's humiliation would help victims heal."
Roger Cohen of the New York Times on Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the British Isles: "Britain would have done well to heed tradition and deny the honor of a state visit to this pope, a blunder-prone spiritual leader of rigid intellect and uncommunicative soul, too remote to heal a church in crisis."
New York Times, September 16: "As Pope Benedict XVI arrived [in Edinburgh, Scotland] Thursday for the first state visit to Britain by a pope, he offered his strongest criticism yet of the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of the sex abuse crisis, saying it had not been 'sufficiently vigilant' or 'sufficiently swift and decisive' in cracking down on abusers."
It's about the Money. New York Times: "The day after the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium responded to its crisis over sexual abuse, a senior bishop said the church had not made a clear apology because it feared opening the door to a flood of claims for financial compensation."
New York Times, September 13: Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, "the head of the [Belgian] Roman Catholic Church, acknowledged on Monday the enormity of the scandal that has engulfed Belgium over sexual abuse by priests and promised new steps to listen to victims.... A report published Friday..., from an internal commission set up by the church, included harrowing testimony from victims and said that one had first been abused from the age of two."
New York Times, September 11: "The former bishop at the center of a child sexual abuse scandal in Belgium announced Saturday that he would leave the Trappist monastery where he had been living and go into hiding to contemplate his future."
New York Times, August 29: "The former leader of Belgium’s Roman Catholic Church urged a victim of serial sexual abuse by a bishop to keep silent for a year, until the bishop – the victim’s own uncle – could retire, according to tapes made by the victim last April and published over the weekend in two Belgian newspapers."
Stephen Colbert on the Church's new, post-scandal image:
New York Times, July 16: "The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on Thursday making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia. The decision to link the issues appears to reflect the determination of embattled Vatican leaders to resist any suggestion that pedophilia within the priesthood can be addressed by ending the celibacy requirement or by allowing women to become priests." ...
... And Another Thing. AFP, July 15: "The ordination of women as Roman Catholic priests is a crime against the faith,' the Vatican said Thursday as it issued a raft of new disciplinary rules." ...
... AP, July 15: "The Vatican issued a revised set of in-house rules Thursday to respond to clerical sex abuse, targeting priests who molest the mentally disabled as well as children and priests who use child pornography, but making few substantive changes to existing practice."
Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges. Reuters picture.Holy Shit. Doreen Carvajal & Stephen Castle of the New York Times, July 12: "Behind an aggressive investigation of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Belgium that drew condemnation from the pope himself lies a stark family tragedy: the molestation, for years, of a youth by his uncle, the bishop of Bruges [Roger Vangheluwe]; the prelate’s abrupt resignation when a friend of the nephew finally threatened to make the abuse public; and now the grass-roots fury of almost 500 people complaining of abuse by priests."
AP, June 28: "A lawsuit against the Vatican ... moved forward when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the Holy See. Monday's development represents a significant advance for what many believed to be a long-shot claim that the Vatican bears legal responsibility for molester priests."
New York Times, June 28: "The Vatican ... issued an extraordinary communiqué on Monday chastising a powerful cardinal who had criticized another powerful cardinal ... over the ... handling of the sexual abuse crisis." ...
... New York Times, June 28: "Four days after a series of police raids of Catholic institutions in Belgium that drew sharp criticism from the pope, the reason for the unusually aggressive operation has emerged: a formal accusation that the church was hiding information on sexual abuse...."
AP, June 27: "The pope on Sunday called the raids carried out by Belgian police investigating priestly sex abuse 'deplorable' and asserted the right of the Catholic Church to investigate abuse alongside civil law enforcement authorities." New York Times story here.
AP, June 25: "The Vatican said Friday it was astonished and outraged that Belgian police investigating priestly sex abuse had conducted raids that also targeted the graves of two archbishops."
National Catholic Reporter, June 25: "Vatican attorneys filed a brief on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Kentucky in the case of O’Bryan v. Holy See, opposing requests from lawyers representing three sex abuse victims for depositions of four figures at the very top of the church’s power structure," including Pope Benedict XVI.
New York Times, June 11: "Addressing the sex abuse crisis for the first time from the seat of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI begged forgiveness on Friday, saying the church would do “everything possible” to prevent priests from abusing children."
New York Times, May 31: "In one of his most concrete actions since a sexual abuse scandal began sweeping the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, Pope Benedict XVI on Monday appointed a high-profile team of prelates...to investigate Irish dioceses and seminaries.... Some American victims groups criticized the appointments of Cardinal O’Malley [of Boston] and Archbishop Dolan [of New York] because of their mixed records on handling abuse cases within their own dioceses." Here's more from the Boston Globe, including text of statements from Benedict, Cardinal O'Malley & Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.
New York Times, May 17: over his career in other dioceses, the Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan has tried, not always successfully, to balance the needs of victims of sexual abuse by clergy with the demands of Rome to sweep the issue under the rug.
New York Times, May 11: "In his most direct condemnation of the sexual abuse crisis that has swept the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday said that the 'sins inside the church' posed the greatest threat to the church, adding that 'forgiveness does not substitute justice.'”
May 8: The Tablet: Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna & "head of the Austrian Church, has launched an attack of one of the most senior cardinals in the Vatican, saying that Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, 'deeply wronged' the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy when he dismissed media reports of the scandal. Schönborn also said ... that lasting gay relationships deserved respect."
May 2: In a Washington Post op-ed, Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson tells Pope Benedict how the Episcopal church handled its own sex abuse scandal 20 years ago.
New York Times, May 2: "Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday took control of the Legionaries of Christ, a powerful and wealthy Roman Catholic religious order whose founder, a friend of Pope John Paul II, was found to have molested seminarians and fathered several children." AP story here.
New York Times, April 26: the future Pope Benedict XVI played "an ambiguous role" in the matter of Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna, an accused child molester.
Rachel Zoll of the AP, April 25: "One of the next tests for Pope Benedict XVI in the burgeoning clergy abuse crisis is deciding the fate of a once-prominent, strict religious order that now admits its late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, fathered at least one child and molested underage seminarians."
Guardian, April 25: "The [British] Foreign Office was last night forced to issue a public apology after an official document suggested Britain should mark the Pope's visit this year by asking him to open an abortion clinic, bless a gay marriage and launch a range of Benedict-branded condoms." More from the AP here. Times: oh, dear, His Holiness is not amused.
Update: Telegraph, April 26: "A 'puerile' Foreign Office memo which has thrown the Pope’s state visit to Britain into doubt was circulated by a 23-year-old Oxford graduate who once included 'drinking a lot' among his hobbies." Here's last week's AP story that reports the document dustup.
AP, April 23: a 1995 "letter to Cardinal Angelo Sodano from one of the Rev. Lawrence Murphy's alleged victims is more evidence for ... what Vatican officials knew about abuse claims at St. John's School for the Deaf outside "Milwaukee and when. The document...is significant because it involves Sodano, a strong defender of Pope Benedict XVI ... and a man whose own record on a separate high-profile case has come under scrutiny."
AP, April 22: Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg, Germany, a leading conservative Roman Catholic, "has written to Pope Benedict XVI offering to resign amid persistent allegations of physical abuse and financial misconduct."
AP, April 22: "/2010/04/22/world/europe/22vatican.html?hp" target="_blank">a rare direct comment on the sexual abuse crisis, promised Wednesday that the Roman Catholic Church would take action to deal with the widening scandal."
AP, April 21: the Vatican issued a statement saying that "Pope Benedict XVI has promised 'church action' to confront the clerical abuse scandal."
Irish Times April 19: "A former vicar-general in the archdiocese of Munich has claimed that he was pressurised last month into taking the blame for a mistake made 30 years ago by the then Archbishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), concerning the case of a paedophile priest."
New York Times, April 18: Pope Benedict XVI has traveled to Malta to celebrate the supposed 1950th anniversary of the Christian apostle Paul, but "there seemed to be two narratives at play during the Malta visit, with the pope focusing Saturday on such issues as the secularization of Europe and the historic travails of St. Paul, while the news media and critics continued to ask questions about the current crisis." ...
... AP Update: in Valletta, Malta, "Pope Benedict XVI met Sunday with a group of clerical sex-abuse victims and told them with tears in his eyes that the Catholic Church would seek justice for pedophile priests and implement 'effective measures' to protect young people from abuse, the Vatican and victims said." New York Times story here.
AP, April 17: "Spanish media are quoting a retired Vatican cardinal as saying the late Pope John Paul II backed his letter congratulating a French bishop for risking jail for shielding a priest convicted of raping minors."
AP, April 15: "Pope Benedict XVI spoke Thursday about 'attacks' on the church and the need for Catholics to repent for sins and recognize their mistakes, in an apparent reference to the clerical abuse scandal." New York Times story here.
"In an investigation spanning 21 countries across six continents, The Associated Press found 30 cases of priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad. Some escaped police investigations. Many had access to children in another country, and some abused again."
Reuters, April 14: Gay groups, politicians & even some pro-Vatican Catholic blogs condemned Cardinal Tarcisco Bertone, Pope Benedict's number two "for calling homosexuality a 'pathology' and linking it directly to sexual abuse of children." New York Times story here.
AP, April 14: "The Vatican has gone into full-fledged damage control mode in the priest sex abuse scandal."
AP, April 12: for the first time the Vatican made clear "that bishops and clerics worldwide should report [sex abuse] crimes to police if they are required to by law." The Vatican posted its policy its Website.
AP, April 12: The Vatican's second-highest authority, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, "says the sex scandals haunting the Catholic Church are linked to homosexuality rather than celibacy vows among priests."
New York Times, April 11: Melinda Costello "who says she was molested by the Oakland priest at the center of a case that has raised questions about Pope Benedict XVI’s handling of sexually abusive clergy members described in vivid terms on Sunday how she was sexually abused and intimidated by her attack."
AP: "Even in his seminary days in the early 1970s, there were questions about California priest Stephen Kiesle: Colleagues said he had trouble relating to adults, lacked spirituality and didn't seem committed to anything but youth ministry."
Rick Hertzberg on the Roman Catholic Church's history of refusing to protect children from sexual exploitation. "Our largely democratic, secularist, liberal, pluralist modern world, against which the Church has so often set its face, turns out to be its best teacher—and the savior, you might say, of its most vulnerable, most trusting communicants."
Ross Douthat of the New York Times says Pope Benedict XVI is doing a better job at dealing with sexually abusive priests than did his predecessor John Paul II, who consistently ignored the problem.
Maureen Dowd writes another powerful column against Pope Benedict XVI & his anti-feminist brethren. She adds her own a mea culpa, something the Unholy Father is just too infallible to do.
It's Time to Blame It on "The Jews": Tom Kington of The Guardian: Italian newspapers are quoting statements by Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, Italy, suggesting "that Jews were behind the current criticism of the Catholic church's record on tackling clerical sex abuse." Babini denies he made the statements attributed to him, but he has a history of making anti- Semitic remarks.
Atheist Gentiles Plot Against the Pope: Marc Home of the London Times: Richard Dawkins & Christopher Hitchens plan "a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain 'for crimes against humanity'."
New York Times, April 10: the Vatican claims it acted "expeditiously" when it took years to defrock a California priest convicted of molesting 6 boys, blames media for "a rush to judgment."
New York Times, April 9: "A German diocese said Friday that it had filed a criminal complaint this week against a Roman Catholic priest on charges of sexually abusing minors in the 1980s and ’90s.... Although church officials were aware of one of the sexual abuse accusations against him, the priest was allowed to work in a juvenile detention facility from January 2004 to August 2006 without informing the authorities of his history."
The New York Times (April 9) has more on the California case in which the future Pope Benedict XVI refused to defrock a priest who had been convicted of typing up & abusing two young boys, writing that "the case needed more time and that 'the good of the Universal Church' had to be considered in the final decision.... John S. Cummins, the former bishop of Oakland who repeatedly wrote his superiors in Rome urging that the priest be defrocked, said the Vatican in that era, after the Second Vatican Council, was especially reluctant to dismiss priests because so many were abandoning the priesthood." The Times has the document trail here....
... AP, April 9: "The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including the good of the universal church,' according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature. The correspondence ... is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office."
In the Washington Post, Michael Gerson defends Pope Benedict XVI as the hero who saved children from pedophile priests.
Blame It on "The Gays"! AND the Pro-Choice Lobby! AP: "The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic 'hate' campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage."
New York Times, April 6: "A Roman Catholic priest in southern India charged with the 2004 sexual assault on a teenage girl in Minnesota said Tuesday that he had been unaware of any criminal case against him until he was contacted by reporters a day earlier and that he would be willing to return to the United States to prove his innocence.
Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post: "The Vatican has been in a bubble for so long that ordinary journalistic scrutiny feels like a smear."
New York Times, April 5: the Vatican brushed off cases alleging sexual assaults on teenaged girls by a priest in Minnesota despite appeals & warnings from the American bishop. The priest, who is now in India, "works on school projects."
Lisa Miller of Newsweek: "The cause of the Catholic clergy's sex-abuse scandal is no mystery: insular groups of men often do bad things." One thing that would help is bringing more women to positions of power.
AFP, April 4: "The pedophile priest crisis has cost the US Roman Catholic church nearly three billion dollars, but only a fraction of the perpetrators faced prison and little has been done to punish those who covered up the crimes."
AP, April 4: During Easter mass, Pope Benedict stays silent, lets the Dean of Cardinals, Angelo Sardano, praise his "unfailing leadership" & defend him against "petty gossip."
AP, April 4: "At a solemn Good Friday service, Pope Benedict XVI's personal preacher likened the tide of allegations that the pontiff has covered up sex abuse cases to the 'more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.' But within hours, facing a storm of criticism at the comparison, the Vatican felt it necessary to distance the pope from the preacher's remarks." ...
... Washington Post, April 4: a comment issued from the pulpit, in the presence of the Pope, that likened criticism of Benedict to persecution of Jews stunned & angered both Jewish groups & the victims of the pedophile priests whom Benedict chose to ignore....
Bob Schieffer of CBS News: "Child abuse is everyone's business":
Maureen Dowd finds the Roman Catholic Church's response to the child abuse scandal "hopelessly inadequate."
The Pope Must Think He's Infallible. Nicole Winfield & Victor Simpson of the AP: "Pope Benedict XVI has surrounded himself with a small group of men he feels he can trust, but he acts very much on his own. That isolation and shunning of advice have frequently created problems and are increasingly under scrutiny as the clerical sex scandal inches closer to him."
...New York Times, April 3: Father Lawrence Murphy, the pedophile priest who was removed from the Milwaukee diocese after years of molesting boys at a school for the deaf, continued to work with boys in his new position in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, where he seems to have continued to sexually abuse boys....
... The Arizona Star, April 1, has more on the sexual abuse cases of two Tuscon-area priests; one, which now-Pope Benedict XVI let pend for years, & the other, in which he tried -- against the pleas of Tuscon's Bishop Manuel Moreno -- to allow the priest to retire in good standing....
... CBS/AP, April 3: "On Friday, revelations in the abuse cases of two Arizona priests cast doubt on the Catholic Church's insistence that Pope Benedict XVI played no role in shielding pedophiles before he became pope. And in a newly released court deposition, a top Vatican official who is a former Portland archbishop defended not telling Oregon parishioners about the sex abuse allegations against a priest he restored to duty." ...
... Adding Fuel to the (Hell)Fire & Brimstone. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury & leader of the Anglican/ Episcopal church, said "the Roman Catholic church in Ireland has lost its credibility because of its mishandling of abuse by priests." ...
... When Faith Trumps Facts. AP, April 3: "Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley yesterday came to the defense of Pope Benedict XVI, saying the embattled pontiff was the U.S. church’s 'strongest ally' in dealing with its clergy sex abuse scandal." You can read Cardinal O'Malley's post here.
Daniel Wakin of the New York Times, April 1: "Several prominent European churchmen on Thursday denounced suggestions that Pope Benedict XVI was anything but a vigorous defender of victims of priestly sexual abuse, arguing that the pope should not be criticized for his oversight of such cases."
Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times, April 1: "The case that has raised questions about the future pope’s handling of a pedophile priest in Germany came to light three decades after it occurred, and then almost by chance. It happened when Wilfried Fesselmann, an early victim, said he stumbled on Internet photographs of the priest who sexually abused him, still working with children."
AP, March 31: "A top Vatican official strongly defended the church's decision not to defrock a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting deaf boys, saying the lengthy trial process would have been 'useless' because the priest was dying."
New York Times, March 26: "A powerful Roman Catholic religious order acknowledged in a statement on Friday that its founder, a close ally of the late Pope John Paul II, molested seminarians and fathered several children.”
Laurie Goodstein & David Callender of the New York Times, March 26: "For decades, a group of men who were sexually abused as children by the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin reported to every type of official they could think of that he was a danger, according to the victims and church documents."
New York Times, March 25: "Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger...was copied on a memo that informed him that a priest, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish."
Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times, March 24: "Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest [Lawrence Murphy] who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit."
New York Times, March 24: "The fallout from the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church settled across Europe on Wednesday, as prosecutors said they were weighing criminal charges against a priest suspected of molesting children in Germany, and Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of a bishop accused of mishandling allegations of abuse in Ireland."
Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times, March 22: "The investigation into sexual abuse by clergy members in Germany expanded Monday to take in four more priests and two nuns in the Regensburg Diocese in Bavaria after new victims came forward there...."
New York Times, March 18: "A psychiatrist said that the German archdiocese led by the future Pope Benedict XVI ignored his warnings in the early 1980s about a priest accused of sexually abusing boys."
Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times, March 15: "The priest at the center of a German sexual-abuse scandal that has embroiled Pope Benedict XVI continued working with children for more than 30 years, even though a German court convicted him of molesting boys. The priest, Peter Hullermann..., was suspended from his duties only on Monday."
Nicholas Kulish & Rachel Donadio of the New York Times, March 12: "A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged Friday that a German archdiocese made 'serious mistakes' in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop."
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