I can no longer in good conscience call Jean Vanier a saint, but I cannot accept the disturbing truth about him as proof, as some have understood it, that sanctity does not exist.
Sexual Abuse
Posted inFaith, News
Internal report finds that L’Arche founder Jean Vanier engaged in decades of sexual misconduct
According to L’Arche USA, an investigation “reveals that Jean Vanier himself has been accused of manipulative sexual relationships and emotional abuse between 1970 and 2005.”
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Deaf survivors call on Vatican to release documents on abusers
Three former students at a school for the deaf in Argentina traveled to Rome to demand Pope Francis and Vatican officials release records on priests who abused them and other students.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Priests of disgraced Legion of Christ face trial for obstruction claim
The case is significant because it calls into question the effectiveness of the Vatican reform since the alleged crimes occurred at the end of the Holy See’s four-year effort to turn the Legion around.
Posted inFaith, News
Cardinal Pell’s appeal of abuse conviction to be heard in March
If the High Court fails to overturn the verdict of a 12-person jury that found him guilty of four counts of sexual assault and one count of child rape, Pell, 78, will spend at least 32 more months in prison.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
How did the Saints get involved in the abuse crisis? Inside the NFL team’s deep Catholic ties
The New Orleans Saints football team is the subject of an investigation by the Associated Press for its ties to the Catholic Church in New Orleans and how it has run “interference” for the heavily Catholic city when it comes to dealing with sex abuse and other issues.
Posted inFaith, Short Take
Why Catholics should welcome ProPublica’s clergy sex abuse database
ProPublica is advancing the painfully slow disclosure of the names of sexual abusers, writes Kathleen McChesney, who headed the U.S. bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Graduate of Loyola University Maryland elected as Superior-General of the Legionaries of Christ
Father O’Connor is the first non-Mexican to lead the order that was founded in 1941 by the Mexican priest, the Rev. Marcial Maciel. Benedict XVI removed Father Marcial from public ministry in 2006, after finding him guilty of sexually abusing minors, and ordered him to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penance.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Fr. Hans Zollner: Clergy abuse has damaged the church, but ‘more damage has been done to human beings’
The crisis is one of “institutional traumatization” in which wrongdoings have been perpetrated by an institution upon individuals dependent on that institution, according to Father Zollner, who said “steps forward” to address it globally are being made in Rome.
Posted inColumns, Faith
Who knew what about former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick?
As early as 1994, while McCarrick was archbishop of Newark, a woman expressed concerns about McCarrick to the papal nuncio in Washington, Agostino Cacciavillan.