Vatican turns to Internet to stem sexual abuse scandals
The Roman Catholic Church, often accused of dragging its feet on sexual abuse scandals, will turn to the Internet with a new e-learning center to help safeguard children and the victims of molestation. The Vatican presented the move at a news conference on Saturday flagging an international conference on sexual abuse of children by clergy to be held next February at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University with church backing.
“The e-learning center will work with medical institutions and universities to develop a constant response to the problems of sexual abuse,” Monsignor Klaus Peter Franzl of the archdiocese of Munich. It will be posted in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian and help bishops and other church workers put into place Vatican guidelines to protect children.
“We want people to know that we are serious about this and that we think the Church has to be at the center of a solution,” said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi. “This is not a flash in the pan initiative but something we are committed to in the long-term.”
The e-learning center will offer guidance to those who have to respond to abuse cases as well as information for victims.
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U.S. Catholic bishops approve slight shifts in clerical sexual abuse policy
U.S. Roman Catholic bishops on Thursday approved slight revisions to their policy governing child sex abuse, saying the church would not tolerate offending priests. But critics said children were still vulnerable. After minimal debate, the bishops passed revisions to its decade-old Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which for the first time listed child pornography as equivalent to sexual abuse and cited the need to protect mentally disabled people from abuse.
The bishops voted 187 in favor of the revised charter, with five opposed and four bishops abstaining. A two-thirds vote was needed for approval.
“We are not going to put the priest offenders first,” Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, told reporters after the vote. “We learned the hard way the advice we got from psychology that people could be rehabilitated was bad advice … they re-offended. You cannot take that risk,” said Cupich, who headed the bishops’ committee on the topic.
Victims’ groups have argued the church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis has been inadequate, since some offending priests have been reassigned to unsuspecting parishes, or received “treatment” and put back into ministry. “The bishops had a choice between being complacent or being vigilant. They chose to be complacent,” said Barbara Dorris of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We fear that the charter, as it stands, with no consequences for failure to observe it or to in any way protect children, is dangerous,” she said. “The kids are no safer than they were yesterday.”
Critics of the church’s response say U.S. church officials are given a free hand to discipline offending clergy, yet some ignored reporting requirements and covered up crimes.
The charter, which was previously revised in 2005, was created under pressure after a rash of clergy abuse cases were uncovered in the Boston diocese. Abuse discoveries subsequently spread across the United States and then around the world. Additions to the sex abuse charter approved on Thursday align American church policy with Vatican dictates and statements by Pope Benedict urging healing and no tolerance for offenders.
Read the full story by Elaine Porterfield here. See also Catholic bishops defend policy on sex abuse
Why does anyone allow the Catholic church to police themselves?
They should use RICO laws to investigate the entire institution. This is organized crime, where the crime is child rape. Thousands of priests raped thousands of children in the US alone, and bishops clearly, willfully hid them. They moved them to rape again. This has been proven over and over and over again.
Want proof? See what they found in Philadelphia http://bit.ly/jyfXni
It is a consistent, institutional practice. It’s organized crime, and should be investigated.
China says respects religious freedom after pope laments pressure
China’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday it hoped the Vatican could acknowledge the reality of religious freedom in the country, after the pope said Beijing was putting pressure on the faithful who want to remain loyal to the Vatican.
“We hope the Vatican can squarely face the reality of religious freedom in China and the continuous development of Chinese Catholics, and take concrete actions to create conditions for developing Sino-Vatican ties,” ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news briefing.
China’s 8 to 12 million Catholics are divided between the state-sanctioned church that names bishops without the Vatican’s approval and an underground church wary of government ties. China forced several bishops and priests loyal to the pope to attend a meeting of the state-backed church last year, rankling the Vatican. Read the full story here.
Pope Benedict has said China’s communist authorities were putting pressure on faithful who want to remain loyal to the Vatican and he hoped the Chinese church could survive attempts to divide it from Rome. He called on Wednesday for all Catholics to pray for the faithful in China, who are not allowed to recognise the pope’s authority but forced to be members of a state-backed Church.
“We know that among our brother bishops, there are some that suffer and are under pressure,” the pope said at his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square. “By praying we can ensure that the Church in China remains one, holy and Catholic.” Read the full story here.
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I bet the catholic bishops from china won’t be able to touch the pope, without being touched by him first. 2000 years of traditional warfare tactics, and the mind of the most philophically, and tactically familiar mind of the pope will prevail, I swear on my own name.
Report says U.S. Catholic sex abuse “historical”, critics see coverup
A church-sponsored study on Wednesday blamed poorly trained priests and a deviant society for the Roman Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis, but victims dismissed it as a whitewash of an institutional coverup. The largest study ever done on youth sexual abuse by U.S. Catholic clergy concluded that priests were no more likely to abuse than anyone else, gay priests were not more likely than straight priests to abuse, and the priestly vow of celibacy was not directly to blame.
The study, conducted by researchers at John Jay College in New York and covering the past 50 years, also found clergy abuse cases have dropped since the 1980s.
“There’s no single cause of the sexual abuse crisis … and the problem is largely historical,” study researcher Karen Terry told reporters at a Washington news conference. “It is consistent with patterns of increased deviance in society during that time” in the 1960s and 1970s, she said, adding that rates of abuse within the Church were comparable to that of organizations like schools and clubs.
Priests unprepared for a life of celibacy turned mentoring relationships into abusive ones, she said. Poor reporting of clergy abuse cases to civil authorities and a pattern of transferring of abusive priests to other parishes by some bishops have cast a cloud over the Church.
A group that represents victims of clergy abuse said bishops continue to cover up crimes, and that shame leaves many more victims of abuse silent. “Predictably and conveniently, the bishops have funded a report that tells them precisely what they want to hear: it was all unforeseeable, long ago, wasn’t that bad and wasn’t their fault,” said David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
Read the full story here. The full text of the report is on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) here.
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Top Vatican expert on sexual abuse explains new Catholic guidelines
Mons. Charles Scicluna, the Justice Promoter in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and its top expert on clerical sexual abuse issues, gave the following interview to Reuters Television on Monday to explain the Roman Catholic Church’s new guidelines for dealing with priests accused of molesting children. The Vatican told bishops around the world earlier on Monday that they must make it a global priority to root out sexual abuse and cooperate with civil authorities to end the scandals that have tarnished the Roman Catholic Church’s image around the world.
Scicluna, who hails from Malta, has been a key contributor to Vatican documents on sexual abuse.
WHAT DOES THIS LETTER INTEND TO DO? “The circular letter intends to help individual bishops around the world to develop guidelines on how to process cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics, by priests, and also to produce a set of best practice guidelines which would ensure the creation of safe environments for young people in the Church. It’s intended to help and to strengthen the resolve of bishops in responding adequately to the cases they have in their local situations.”
WHAT KIND OF STANDARDS IS THIS TRYING TO SET? “It talks about formation of communities and clerics, the ability to recognise the signs of abuse — because that’s the first point in adequately responding to abuse — but also future formation of priests, the respect of boundaries, and also information that would insure and ensure that priests have the necessary skills to lead celibate lives, as they should.”
WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT HOW LOCAL CHURCHES SHOULD DEAL WITH CIVIL AUTHORITIES? “Local Churches have to take account and take into consideration the civil law which is in their own countries. They have to follow any laws which specifically concern reporting cases to the civil authorities. They have to follow the civil law in their country.”
IS THERE ANY CONFLICT BETWEEN CHURCH AND CIVIL LAW? “There is no conflict between Church and civil law to the extent that the civil legislation considers sex abuse of a minor a crime and asks that people are brought to justice and that they are assured a fair trial.”
THIS SEEMS TO BE SENDING A CLEAR SIGNAL TO BISHOPS THAT THEY ARE ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT GOES ON IN THEIR DIOCESE. IS THAT RIGHT?
Here we are in 2011 and they’ve finally been given permission to cooperate with the authorities. However, when the Belgium cases first started coming out, the Pope condemned the priest that worked with the authorities. Then it was discovered that 13 victims committed suicide…then the Pope apologized. Which has to make one wonder if he was more concerned about being discovered than he was about the children. I have little ability to take anything the Vatican says as anything other than blowing smoke when more and more cases of coverups keep coming out. How are they able to lead their congregations going into the future when they haven’t done everything they could to make up for the past? And how can anyone take an institution seriously when it talks to children about telling the truth when the men at the top dabble in so much deception. The truth is that the fact that pederasty is even mentioned confirms that there have been priests doing it from the beginning. Why would they start an ancient European practice out of no where?
Philippine Catholic bishops clash with Aquino over contraception bill
Philippine Catholic bishops on Tuesday walked out of talks with the government over a planned bill allowing contraception in open opposition to President Benigno Aquino who vowed to push the bill into law. Aquino pledged last month to push for the enactment of a reproductive health bill in Congress in a bid to lower the maternal death rate in the Philippines, even at the risk of excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church.
The church, a major social and political force in the poor Southeast Asian nation, has blocked similar bills since the 1990s by talking to lawmakers and has denounced Aquino’s support for contraception, considered a sin.
The bishops’ decision could lead to more policy clashes between the church and state, analysts say. Since 1986, bishops have been instrumental in mobilizing people to help oust two presidents. They are also blocking mining contracts in the provinces in another big challenge to the government.
The Philippines has one of Asia’s fastest-growing populations, which is nearing 100 million people, and slowing the increase is seen as one way of cutting poverty.
“The bishops do not see any reason to further undertake a serious study or dialogue” on the bill, Monsignor Juanito Figura, secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said. The bishops said the proposed law would encourage abortion, which is illegal in the Philippines.
Read the full story by Manny Mogato here.
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It amazes me how men that are celibate think they have any right to judge or direct the masses on sexual matters. You would think they’d want to focus all of their attention on the skeletons in their own closet rather than condemn the rest of the planet. If I were to measure sins, I’d say child molestation seriously outweighs the use of contraceptions.
Filipinos back contraception bill despite Catholic Church-poll
Seven in 10 Filipinos support a reproductive health bill permitting education on contraception which would also help check population growth, despite opposition from the powerful Roman Catholic Church, a survey showed on Tuesday.
The Church, a major social and political force in the poor Southeast Asian nation of about 95 million, has blocked similar bills since the 1990s and earlier this year denounced President Benigno Aquino’s support for contraception.
The bill is in the early stages of consideration by Congress, and proponents are confident it can be enacted into law given it has the backing of Aquino, who says slowing population growth will help fight poverty.
Father Melvin Castro of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines said the bill was “an attack to the sanctity of life and indirectly promotes abortion”. The Church backs “natural” contraception while opposing “artificial” methods, including condoms, pills and other means. Ana Maria Tabunda of Pulse Asia, the group which conducted the survey, told Reuters the Church’s attack on Aquino over education had raised awareness of and support for the bill.
Read the full story by Manny Mogato here.
Pope Benedict praised Philippine bishops for opposing the bill during their once-every-five-years ad limina visit to the Vatican on Monday: “I commend the Church in the Philippines for seeking to play its part in support of human life from conception until natural death, and in defence of the integrity of marriage and the family. In these areas you are promoting truths about the human person and about society.”
Pope seeks Mideast religious liberty, bishops criticise Israel
Pope Benedict called on Islamic countries in the Middle East on Sunday to guarantee freedom of worship to non-Muslims and said peace in the region was the best remedy for a worrying exodus of Christians.
He made his a appeal at a solemn mass in St Peter’s Basilica ending a two week Vatican summit of bishops from the Middle East, whose final document criticized Israel and urged the Jewish state to end its occupation of Palestinian territories.
In his sermon at the gathering’s ceremonial end, the pope said freedom of religion was “one of the fundamental human rights that each state should always respect.” While some states in the Middle East allowed freedom of belief, he added, “the space given to the freedom to practice religion is often quite limited.”
At least 3.5 million Christians of all denominations live in the Gulf Arab region, the birthplace of Islam and home to some of the most conservative Arab Muslim societies in the world.
In their concluding message after two weeks of meetings at the Vatican, bishops from the Middle East said on Saturday they hoped a two-state solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinians could be made a reality and called for peaceful conditions that would stop a Christian exodus from the region.
what are the states where religion is practiced freely(and, of course, belief)?
Polish bishops call IVF “younger sister of eugenics”
Bishops of Poland’s influential Roman Catholic Church have branded in vitro fertilization (IVF) “the younger sister of eugenics” in a letter aimed at swaying lawmakers ahead of a parliamentary debate.
Their intervention, two weeks after the Vatican condemned the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Prize for medicine to IVF pioneer Robert Edwards, triggered an unusually sharp response from lawmakers who say the clergy should not meddle in politics.
“The in vitro method comes at great human cost. To give birth to one child … many humans suffer death at different stages of the medical process,” said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.
The letter alluded indirectly to the practice of eugenics by Nazi Germany during World War Two, which involved ruthless medical experiments on prisoners and ethnic minorities as part of a drive to strengthen the “purity” of the German race.
Poland lacks laws precisely regulating IVF. Parliament will debate several bills ranging from a complete ban to ensuring full state co-financing of the procedure.
Read the full story by Gabriela Baczynska here. See also IVF spawns host of ethical issues.
Dr. Edwards is the reason why about 4 million more people exist. But to be ‘pro-life’ is to be pro-embryo, turning a blind eye to children who are wanted by their parents.
Excerpts from Pope Benedict’s speech to bishops of England, Wales and Scotland
Pope Benedict urged the Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland on Sunday to confront the assumptions of modern culture, help the poor, protect children and work together with Anglicans.
Here are excerpts from his speech to them:
“… In the course of my visit it has become clear to me how deep a thirst there is among the British people for the Good News of Jesus Christ. You have been chosen by God to offer them the living water of the Gospel, encouraging them to place their hopes, not in the vain enticements of this world, but in the firm assurances of the next. As you proclaim the coming of the Kingdom, with its promise of hope for the poor and the needy, the sick and the elderly, the unborn and the neglected, be sure to present in its fullness the life-giving message of the Gospel, including those elements which call into question the widespread assumptions of today’s culture. As you know, a Pontifical Council has recently been established for the New Evangelization of countries of long-standing Christian tradition, and I would encourage you to avail yourselves of its services in addressing the task before you…
“… The spectre of unemployment is casting its shadow over many people’s lives, and the long-term cost of the ill-advised investment practices of recent times is becoming all too evident. In these circumstances, there will be additional calls on the characteristic generosity of British Catholics, and I know that you will take a lead in calling for solidarity with those in need. The prophetic voice of Christians has an important role in highlighting the needs of the poor and disadvantaged, who can so easily be overlooked in the allocation of limited resources. In their teaching document Choosing the Common Good, the Bishops of England and Wales underlined the importance of the practice of virtue in public life. Today’s circumstances provide a good opportunity to reinforce that message, and indeed to encourage people to aspire to higher moral values in every area of their lives, against a background of growing cynicism regarding even the possibility of virtuous living.
“Another matter which has received much attention in recent months, and which seriously undermines the moral credibility of Church leaders, is the shameful abuse of children and young people by priests and religious. I have spoken on many occasions of the deep wounds that such behaviour causes, in the victims first and foremost, but also in the relationships of trust that should exist between priests and people, between priests and their bishops, and between the Church authorities and the public. I know that you have taken serious steps to remedy this situation, to ensure that children are effectively protected from harm and to deal properly and transparently with allegations as they arise. You have publicly acknowledged your deep regret over what has happened, and the often inadequate ways it was addressed in the past. Your growing awareness of the extent of child abuse in society, its devastating effects, and the need to provide proper victim support should serve as an incentive to share the lessons you have learned with the wider community. Indeed, what better way could there be of making reparation for these sins than by reaching out, in a humble spirit of compassion, towards children who continue to suffer abuse elsewhere? Our duty of care towards the young demands nothing les
“… I asked you to be generous in implementing the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. This should be seen as a prophetic gesture that can contribute positively to the developing relations between Anglicans and Catholics. It helps us to set our sights on the ultimate goal of all ecumenical activity: the restoration of full ecclesial communion in the context of which the mutual exchange of gifts from our respective spiritual patrimonies serves as an enrichment to us all. Let us continue to pray and work unceasingly in order to hasten the joyful day when that goal can be accomplished.”
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