Michael Cook
Fifth AnniversaryMichael Cook | 19 Apr 2010Today is the fifth anniversary of the election of Joseph Ratzinger to the Papacy. His critics say that these five years have been a public relations disaster which has brought the Catholic Church to the brink of collapse. The dissident theologian Hans Küng says that the Church is “in the worst credibility crisis since the Reformation”. Is this true?Schadenfreude 101Michael Cook | 19 Apr 2010This clip from Der Untergang (Downfall) has been subtitled so many times that it should be called Schadenfreude (Schadenfreude). It is silly, triumphalistic, and unoriginal. Enjoy. Thanks to Damien Thompson, of the London Telegraph, for the tip.US psychiatrist backs up claim that paedophilia is linked to homosexualityMichael Cook | 17 Apr 2010Despite a storm of controversy, an American psychiatrist has backed up a Cardinal’s claim that many of abusive priests were homosexuals. Dr Richard Fitzgibbons, a Pennsylvania psychiatrist who has treated many sexually abusive priests, told Catholic News Agency that Cardinal Tarciso Bertone was right.The context of the problem (2)Michael Cook | 17 Apr 2010This week a civil jury in Oregon found the Boy Scouts of America and its local Scout council liable for $1.4 million in damages for abuse by a scoutmaster in the 1980s. Punitive damages could be more than $20 million.Measuring the changeMichael Cook | 16 Apr 2010There’s not much room for doubt about whether the Catholic Church’s attitude towards reporting sex abuse to civil authorities has changed after reading a 2001 letter from the former prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy. Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos congratulated a French bishop for not reporting an abuser priest to the police. He wrote to Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux-Lisieux, in France:Evangelical columnist says Pope gets "a bad rap"Michael Cook | 16 Apr 2010Conservative US columnist Michael Gerson has defended Benedict XVI’s record in the Washington Post. “Far from being indifferent or complicit, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was among the first in Rome to take the scandal seriously,” he writes.Pope may meet sex abuse victims in MaltaMichael Cook | 14 Apr 2010In Malta, the pope could meet with victims of sexual abuse committed by priests. The victims have asked to meet with Benedict XVI to heal their wounds and to overcome this trauma.Atheists in an existential crisis want to arrest Pope, says atheistMichael Cook | 14 Apr 2010More from the editor of the UK magazine Spiked, Brendan O'Neill, on the "hysterical" campaign to arrest the Pope. O'Neill describes himself as an "atheistic libertarian" and is a quasi-Marxist:If the Vatican isn't a sovereign state, can we bomb it?Michael Cook | 14 Apr 2010The Economist has a gift for simplifying complex situations and complicating seemingly simple ones. In its latest issue it offers an interesting angle on the argument that the Holy See is not a sovereign state advanced by British barrister Geoffrey Robertson ...Vatican's DA speaks out on crisisMichael Cook | 13 Apr 2010Msgr Charles Scicluna has been called the Vatican’s DA – the official in charge of prosecuting priests who are accused of sexual abuse and other offenses under the law of the Catholic Church. He gave an interview to the Times of Malta before the Pope’s visit there on April 17 and 18. Here are some excerpts in which he speaks about the Church’s effort to reform procedures dealing with sex abuse.subscribe donate
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