Just B16

Pope Benedict goes where no pontiff has gone before…

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 05:02:24 GMT

Benedict XVI sent his first Twitter message this week (June 28) to announce the launch of the new Vatican website. Read more...

No “smoking gun” in Irish TV revelations

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:31:40 GMT

A programme about clerical sexual abuse aired January 17 by Irish broadcaster RTE attempted to prove that the Vatican had a worldwide policy encouraging bishops to conceal sexual abuse by priests. Read more...

Pope and clerical abuse: evidence for the defence

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:30:07 GMT

Pope Benedict is still “in the dock” over clerical sexual abuse as far as leading media are concerned. Read more...

US “surprised” at election of Benedict - Wikileaks

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:29:24 GMT

Apparently, not even the sophisticated U.S. intelligence services were able to penetrate the walls of the Sistine Chapel. Read more...

“Our fathers in the faith” - Benedict on the Jews

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 21:58:29 GMT

Pope Benedict's thoughts on the Jews and Israel in his book interview, though unfavourably heralded by out-of-context remarks on Pope Pius XII, receive attentive and positive coverage in a report in The Jerusalem Post. Read more...

The Pope’s new book covers more than one topic

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:57:53 GMT

The Pope's new book isn't just about condoms. Rome Reports gives a good overview. Read more...

Pope’s comments on condoms launch controversy

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:34:13 GMT

Well, I’m glad that I am not handling Vatican public relations. Here’s a curly one about condoms from Joseph Ratzinger speaking as a private individual, and not as “The Vatican”, or “The Holy Father”. Understandably, it is difficult to separate the two, which is why we have a controversy. See Jack Valero, of Catholic Voices, a UK group, attempting to explain it to the BBC in the YouTube video above. Read more...

Judge helps lawyer flog a dead horse—or cash cow

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 23:23:46 GMT

A federal U.S. judge is asking the Vatican to cooperate in serving the pope and two other top officials with court papers that stem from decades-old allegations of priest sexual abuse in Wisconsin. Read more...

Popularity of the Pope’s visit ‘confounded’ opponents, says Daily Mail

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 04:54:01 GMT

The Daily Mail has just published online a great wrap-up of the papal visit with a fantastic photo selection showing the face of British Catholicism. Read more...

Crowd of 60,000 welcomes the Pope in Glasgow

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 00:14:28 GMT

London Telegraph blogger Damian Thompson says the Papal Mass in Glasgow on the first day of Pope Benedict's visit to the UK was a "spiritual triumph". Read more...

The Pope and those life-saving stem cells

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 02:33:41 GMT

Pope Benedict’s arrival in the UK for his state visit to Britain has developed significant discussion on the Catholic belief, particularly around Church teaching on moral issues. The screening of Peter Tatchell’s documentary “The Trouble with the Pope” aimed various criticisms at the position taken by Rome on moral issues, including stem cell research. His insinuation that in his opposition to experiments using human embryos the Pope is callously blocking research that could lead to cures for terminally ill patients is as ridiculous as it is untrue. Read more...

A warm welcome from UK PM

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 23:57:05 GMT

Prime Minister David Cameron has sent Pope Benedict XVI a “very warm welcome” to Britain ahead of his “incredibly important and historic visit”. “These will be a very special four days not just for our six million Catholics but for many people of faith right across Britain”, said Cameron. “This is the first ever Official Papal Visit to these shores. And it’s a great honour for our country", he added. “These will be a very special four days not just for our six million Catholics but for many people of faith right across Britain, and millions more watching around the world”. Read more...

Belgian court rules raid ‘disproportionate’

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:43:46 GMT

A police raid on Catholic Church sites in June was illegal, the Brussels Court of Appeals said on September 9. The court also held that measures taken were "disproportionate", and that documents seized must be returned and cannot be considered as valid evidence in any trial. Read more...

Belgian church scandal adds to Pope’s burdens

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 01:10:57 GMT

The release last Friday of a report on sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy in Belgium added to Pope Benedict’s burdens as he prepares for his imminent visit to Britain. Read more...

Tatchell’s cant

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 04:25:27 GMT

‘The Problem With The Pope’ narrates a fascinating tale which begins in 1962 when the Second Vatican Council kicks off and the Church experiences the spritual equivalent of Britain’s first Isle of Wight Festival. Joseph Ratzinger was headlining, blasting out ‘Talking ‘Bout Your Liberation’ and the whole of the Catholic Church was smoking Peace and Love. Read more...

Tatchell’s rant

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 04:08:52 GMT

Peter Tatchell makes one honest statement in his programme on Channel 4 on Monday evening, "The Trouble With The Pope". At the start he declares "I have an issue with the Pope". What a pity he does not go on to state openly what his problem really is. Read more...

Critics of the Pope’s visit to the UK are a minority

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 00:50:56 GMT

Francis Campbell, Britain's ambassador to the Vatican, has said that criticism in anticipation of the pope's visit to the UK is not widespread, nor representative of the views of most people. Read more...

Personal conversion, not changing ‘structures’, the remedy for clerical abuse

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 22:14:54 GMT

This week, while speaking about the great twelfth century German nun and mystic St Hildegard of Bingen, Pope Benedict noted that she opposed a reform movement that wanted to change the whole Church in order to address individual clerical abuses. Read more...

‘Papal cover-up’ critic wants lower ages of consent

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 03:58:08 GMT

A high profile British homosexual activist wants the age of sexual consent lowered to 14. Peter Tatchell has called for Pope Benedict to be prosecuted for "covering up" clerical sexual abuse. Read more...

The Catholic Church has always gone through crises

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 03:40:52 GMT

Translation of an earlier post -- an interview in La Figaro with a young French intellectual who puts the clerical sexual abuse scandal in historical perspective. Read more...

Young French intellectual defends the Pope

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:20:53 GMT

A prominent young French intellectual has remarked that attacks on the Catholic Church reflect a general “instinct about the special purity of its mission.” Read more...

Kentucky sex abuse case against the Vatican dropped

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:49:58 GMT

Three men who sought to hold the Vatican liable in an American court for sexual abuses by Roman Catholic priests are abandoning the case, according to a court motion filed Monday, the Associated Press reports. Read more...

Benedict XVI seventh-oldest pope in history

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:27:15 GMT

On July 19, 2010, Benedict XVI passed Gregory XIII to become the seventh-oldest pope in history. Read more...

The bad news from Brussels goes back a long way

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:28:32 GMT

Sometimes I am glad that I cannot read other languages fluently. It insulates you from some pretty nasty stuff. But this news in the Brussels Journal should have emerged in the English-speaking world long ago because it helps to explain why the Catholic Church in Belgium has been racked by scandal in recent weeks. Read more...

Holier than thou in Times Square

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 22:20:25 GMT

Whatever the Holy See does to correct the problem of clerical sexual abuse it is never enough for the Holy Office of The Holier Than Thou Media -- the editorial department of the New York Times. This bastion of sexual propriety has used the codification of norms dealing with "grave offences" by Catholics to once again attack the Vatican for not doing things exactly the way the high priests of the media would like. Read more...

New Vatican rules on abuse do not replace state laws

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:51:00 GMT

The Vatican prosecutor for sex abuse cases has presented the new Church rules to combat sex abuse and to judge priests who have committed crimes more quickly. Read more...

Lawyers cannot judge institutions

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:12:00 GMT

A United States sexual abuse case alleging Vatican responsibility shows the legal profession over-reaching itself, says an Italian professor. Read more...

Mandatory reporting of child porn possession by priests under new church rules

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:31:48 GMT

New rules will consolidate existing norms. Read more...

Keeping ‘the case’ against Pope Benedict simmering

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:25:29 GMT

The New York Times has stirred its pot of selected facts about clerical child abuse and the Pope, again, in a 4000-word ramble. Read more...

Abuse suit against the Vatican can proceed

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 01:07:51 GMT

June 29 was the final day of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2009-2010 term. The high Court declined to hear an appeal by the Vatican in the case of Holy See v. John Doe, which allows the case to proceed in an Oregon court. Read more...

Belgian police raids ‘deplorable’ says Pope

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:24:54 GMT

It is not often that the Pope comments directly on the unfolding of the sexual abuse crisis, but the actions of Belgian authorities last week stung Benedict into denouncing them on Sunday as “surprising and deplorable”. Read more...

Book addresses pedophilia in the Church

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:59:26 GMT

Confronted with the problem of sexual abuses committed by priests, the Pope has asked for clarity. That's what two psychologist-priests hope to find with the book, The Church and Pedophilia: An Open Wound. (Video) Read more...

Defrocking not always the best punishment

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 22:40:56 GMT

The Church's law provides for various punishments when her sons or daughters go astray, but in the case of priest sexual abusers, perhaps the most serious canonical punishment is not always the best one, according to one canon lawyer. Read more...

Media dwelt on allegations against the Pope—Pew study

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 02:23:21 GMT

Americans might find it difficult to believe but a Pew Research Center analysis of the media coverage of the recent clergy sexual abuse scandal shows that English-language European newspapers published three times as many articles on the scandal as U.S. papers did. Read more...

‘God works through the ministry of weak and fallen human persons’

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 01:54:45 GMT

Pope Benedict said said that it was no coincidence that the sex-abuse scandal struck during a year set aside for celebration of the priesthood. Read more...

‘We cannot tolerate conduct unworthy of priestly life’ Benedict tells priests’ gathering

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:24:55 GMT

“Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated," Read more...

‘Celibacy is a great sign of faith’

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:25:30 GMT

At a meeting in St Peters Square with thousands of priests to mark the end of the Year of the Priest, Pope Benedict prayed for an end of scandals. Read more...

‘Hell and damnation’ warning for abusive priests

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:01:25 GMT

The Vatican's top sexual abuser prosecutor did not mince words when condemning the abuse of children during a homily given at St Peter's at the weekend. He said that priests who abused children would suffer more in hell because of their sacred profession -- if they failed to acknowledge their sins. Read more...

La donna non e mobile

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:56:05 GMT

The earthquake of scandal has passed; it is now the season of aftershocks. These range from painfully unsettling to tragicomic. In the latter category belongs an open letter to the Pope from concubines of Italian priests who demand an end to priestly celibacy. Read more...

At last, all the facts between two covers

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:31:51 GMT

Getting there firstest with the mostest is the way to win wars, according to Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. A couple of Catholic journalists for Our Sunday Visitor, Gregory Erlandson and Matthew Bunson, have taken this to heart and rushed to press with a crisp, clear account of the recent turmoil in the Catholic Church. Read more...

Flogging a red herring

Sun, 30 May 2010 19:46:56 GMT

Why is the Associated Press putting out a long story about why Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger could not authorize the instant defrocking of a priest in the 1980s and giving it a heading suggesting he was at fault: “Future pope refused defrocking of convicted priest”? Read more...

Pope to priests: ‘penance, forgiveness, justice’

Fri, 28 May 2010 17:20:22 GMT

Benedict XVI showed again the necessity of penance, forgiveness and justice to overcome the cases of sexual abuse committed by priests. Read more...

US government not keen on suits against the Vatican

Thu, 27 May 2010 13:47:38 GMT

As we might have expected, efforts by American lawyers to sue the Vatican and/or the Pope over sexual abuse in their country are not finding favour on high. In a strongly worded brief for the United States Supreme Court, the U.S government has taken the side of the Vatican in an Oregon lawsuit that names the Holy See as a defendant for its role in the sexual abuse crisis. Read more...

‘Good troops, bad generals’

Tue, 25 May 2010 20:31:04 GMT

An emerging “meta-narrative” about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal goes like this: The scandal is the fruit of a morally conservative, inhuman power elite in the Church. This top hierarchy will overlook any abuse or crime rather than admit the Church needs changing. This is the Bad Catholic Church, which is out of step with grassroots Catholics, especially some courageous priests and religious. These guys, the Good Catholic Church, know that it has to discard its ideas about contraception, abortion, gay sex, celibacy for priests, and embrace modern sexual ethics. Read more...

‘Forgiveness does not replace justice’

Sun, 23 May 2010 16:35:06 GMT

Pope Benedict live: Speaking to journalists on his trip to Fatima the Pope said that "the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from external enemies, but is born of sin within the Church." Read more...

Belgium’s bishops say ‘sorry’

Thu, 20 May 2010 21:59:05 GMT

Belgium’s bishops, just returned from a visit to Pope Benedict in Rome, issued a pastoral letter this week in which they asked pardon from all victims of clerical sexual abuse and promised to improve the way they exercised authority in the Church. Read more...

Undiplomatic manners

Thu, 20 May 2010 20:58:07 GMT

Bolivian president Evo Morales tells the Pope how to run the Church. Read more...

Vatican seeks dismissal of US class action suit

Mon, 17 May 2010 20:40:28 GMT

The Vatican this week has filed a motion to dismiss a class action suit in Kentucky that is attempting to put the blame for clerical sex abuse on the Pope and the Holy See. The suit claims that bishops are employees or officials of the Holy See, which “orchestrated a decades-long cover up of priests sexually abusing children throughout the US,” in the words of an AP report. Read more...

Balloons and banners

Mon, 17 May 2010 20:30:28 GMT

Here's a video of the vast crowd gathered to support the Pope on Sunday. “It’s great to see this multitude of people in St. Peter’s Square, as it was to see so many people in Fatima, praying at the Shrine for the conversion of hearts,” he told them. He also had a more sombre message. Christians should fear sin, not the world: “The true enemy to fear and fight against is sin, the spiritual evil that unfortunately sometimes infects even members of the Church.” Read more...

Crowd fills St Peter’s Square to support Pope

Sun, 16 May 2010 23:44:18 GMT

A crowd of 150,000 filled St Peter’s Square on Sunday to support Pope Benedict XVI in the midst of the clerical sex abuse scandal. The Pope said that he appreciated this "beautiful and spontaneous show of faith and solidarity" and again denounced what he called the "sin" that has infected the church and needs to be purified, a theme in his addresses which has become stronger in recent weeks. Read more...