Austen Ivereigh

Pope Benedict XVI – Catholics like me have been insisting these past weeks on TV and radio – is a key part of the solution to the clerical sexual abuse crisis which is why the media attempt to scapegoat him is so misguided Indeed what has surfaced from the recent firestorm is how providential it

The general secretary of the Catholic bishops conference of England and Wales issued the following statement this morning in response to Cardinal Bertone s attempt to link sex abuse of minors to homosexuality To the best of my knowledge there is no empirical data which concludes that sexual orien

The second part of Jason Berry s gruesomely compelling expose of the sordid life of Maciel Degollado pictured founder of the Legionaries of Christ has been published by NCR Part 1 is here It contains more evidence of how Maciel suborned his opponents through lavish funds What is sad is how c

The misinterpretation and misreporting of the 1985 Ratzinger letter in the Kiesle case — my points in this BBC TV interview over the weekend are similar to those in MSW s excellent analysis — indicate not just poor quality coverage but something altogether nastier It was the great theorist Ren ea

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

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

News in the UK has been dominated this weekend by the religious equivalent of a diplomatic row In comments to be broadcast tomorrow on a BBC radio programme the Archbishop of Canterbury said the Church in Ireland had lost all credibility over its handling of sex abuse nbsp The comment provoked

It seemed as if it was all over for the UK s 11 Catholic adoption agencies After the UK government passed legislation in 2007 making it impossible for adoption agencies in receipt of public funds to refuse same-sex couples the right to adopt one by one they folded declared independence from the d

The so-called Anglican Catholic Church in Canada ACCC which has about 45 parishes has written to Rome to apply for an ordinariate Its three active bishops propose setting up a governing council to suggest a terna from which the Pope can select the Canadian ordinariate s first ordinary or canoni

Tom Heneghan at Reuters has an excellent analysis piece on the developing central European abuse crisis The more the scandal of Catholic priests sexually abusing boys in Germany spreads the more the focus turns to Rome to see how Pope Benedict reacts The story is getting ever closer to the German