The whole world now knows about Father Stephen Kiesle of Oakland the priest who tied up young boys and molested them sexually and whose request to be defrocked came before then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger The press is swarming with assertions that as the Washington Post headlined its story Future

One factor you don t see listed by the National Review Board in their 2002 report to the U S bishops on the causes of clergy abuse is celibacy Because celibacy does not cause pedophilia But that hasn t stopped otherwise thoughtful pundits and commentators and among them even some Catholics from

Like many other Catholic publications nbsp America nbsp has nbsp urged the church to step forward with all it knows as quickly as possible if for no other reason than to put an end to this brutal media dissection Surely someone was aware during the past weeks of protests to the contrary that the

When I was a kid I really really wanted an Astronaut Barbie She seemed fully capable of taking on the final frontier despite the impracticality of her shiny pink-and-silver space suit and her not-quite-airtight helmet These days with NASA s manned space program coming to an end the plastic ico

Over the past two days the story of the healing at the Beautiful Gate of a man ldquo lame from birth rdquo has been read Acts 3 1-26 Peter and John encounter him at this Temple gate where he asks for alms Peter responds that he has no silver or gold but that he can offer something much bette

Buried in a church news round-up in the Italian newspaper La Stampa lurks a highly significant story the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith CDF is working on a global policy to deal with clerical sex abuse which effectively extends worldwide the norms currently existing in the US and the

A frank commentary by Frederico Lombardi S J the Vatican press officer on sexual abuse The debate concerning sexual abuse and not only that committed by the clergy continues with news items and comments of various kinds How can we sail through these stormy waters while maintaining a secure co

This is a fine article by Timothy Radcliffe O P the former master general nbsp of the Dominicans on why one remains Catholic in difficult terrible times nbsp Why stay I must lay my cards on the table even if the Church were obviously worse than other Churches I still would not go I am not

Earlier this week the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia Bob McDonnell issued a proclamation declaring April Confederate History Month Not mind you Civil War History Month Next year is the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War and it is undoubtedly a good thing to call

We mentioned this protest in the April 12 Signs of the Times A group of Palestinian Christians and supporters march after Palm Sunday Mass from the Church of Nativity to Jerusalem and caught Israeli border police by surprise I think everybody was surprised how far they got past the checkpoint befo

A recent dialogue between Bill Keller the executive editor for The New York Times and Scott Appleby history professor at the University of Notre Dame started out on the wrong foot Their exchange began with comments made by Appleby made during an interview for On Point a program aired on NPR st

GetReligion has an interesting post on how the media handled one aspect of the abuse crisis engulfing the church nbsp nbsp The story and their analysis is complicated but worth reading nbsp Here we go For Catholics and non-Catholics alike it rsquo s difficult to read the stories attempting t

One hundred years hence it is possible that the history books will note the on-going ups-and-downs of the clergy sex abuse crisis Perhaps the treaty the President nbsp signed this morning nbsp to reduce the number of nuclear weapons will be the first of many which will in one hundred years reac

I ve blogged about this once before but just a reminder that we have set up a special page for teachers featuring selected articles on subjects such as sacraments and liturgy the saints and Catholics and politics We ve also just uploaded our monthly teacher newsletters to the page so you can no

From the New York Times The board of St Vincent Catholic Medical Centers voted on Tuesday night to close its flagship hospital in Greenwich Village ending its long struggle to stay afloat despite millions of dollars of debt The exact timing for the closing of St Vincent rsquo s Hospital Manhatt

My friend and colleague Austen Ivereigh has a post below about the revelations of corruption contained in a new investigative report by Jason Berry over at NCR I concur with everything that Ivereigh says except this It makes for shocking reading I was not shocked in the least Perhaps Austen ha

The first of two parts of a new Jason Berry investigation into the way the Legionaries of Christ oiled the Roman Curia through money and gifts is posted at NCR It makes for shocking reading The Pope emerges unscathed indeed is singled out for refusing an envelope of cash And it was Benedict XVI

My youngest of four daughters has moved out of the house She is now sharing an apartment with one of her sorority sisters only 50 miles from home She is halfway through her freshman year of college She is lovely witty compassionate intelligent thoughtful and completely ready to be out of th

This week begins America s Easter break hiatus but we will still be posting new content online including this interview with Scott Korb author of Life in Year One What the World Was Like in First-Century Palestine What did people eat where did they work and worship and what was their relation

One of the most surprising aspects of the reaction to the return of the clergy sex abuse scandal has been the way some commentators especially those on the Left have used the crisis to advance causes that do not actually have much to do with the underlying problems My colleague Father Martin has