Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

The Pope said the right words in Australia: 
 

“Dear friends, may this celebration, in the presence of the Successor of Peter, be a moment of rededication and renewal for the whole Church in Australia!
“Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of [...]

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Bishop Fisher, the youthful bishop who is the organizer of World Youth Day, has demonstrated by his remarks what bishops really think. We learn from this article and this article  in The Age:
The bishop organising World Youth Day, Anthony Fisher, made the remarks in response to questions about two Melbourne women who were repeatedly raped [...]

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As a young man in Australia Anthony Jones was forcibly molested by the Rev Terence Goodall. Jones made a formal complaint to the church, which ordered an investigation. Australian Lateline reports

While the report says that Father Goodall raised the issue of an element of consent, the investigator recommended that Anthony Jones’ allegations be sustained without [...]

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I have been mulling over the comments that Benedict has made about sexual abuse. His public acknowledgment of the evil of abuse, his acknowledgment that it was badly handled, and his meeting with victims were far more that John Paul II could bring himself to do. When one cardinal begged John Paul to make a [...]

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European governments keep a close eye on cults. The German government has kept a wary eye on Scientology. With more reason, the French government is keeping an eye on Satanism.  Le Monde reports that the “Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires” (The interministerial mission of vigilance and combat against  sectarian [...]

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What the admirers of clerics see are devoted ministers, faithful stewards, men prepared to be patient with everyone, spending the love of their hearts on those they want to help, men who seek not their own interests but those of Jesus Christ. The observers praise such conduct but forget that these good men are interspersed [...]

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Like the Franciscan Bruce Ritter, Gelmini founded homes for the outcast and was accused of abusing young men. They also both managed to escape supervision. Ritter was a Franciscan, but the Franciscan assumed the Archdiocese of New York was keeping an eye on him, and the Archdiocese assumed the Franciscans were supervising him.
Gelmini said something [...]

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Pietro Gelmini (which news stories also spell Gelimini) founded centers for the homeless and drug addicts. He was prominent, popular, influential, and well connected to the Italian right, including Silvio Berluscone and Rocco Butiglione.

Then the accusations began. Young men said he had sexually abused them. He said that he had kicked them out for stealing, [...]

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In San Diego I met with Cardinal Schönborn to discuss, among other things, my book Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. He said it was painful to read, but that it was important that the truth be told about what had happened. He is a Dominican, and the motto of the Dominicans is Veritas, [...]

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A factoid has taken root in the minds of the Vatican: that less than one percent of Catholic priests have been accused of pedophilia. According to CNA, 
The prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, said pedophilia is one of the gravest problems of sexual misconduct, but he asserted that the media exaggerated [...]

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Marcial Maciel has died, some reports say here in Naples, Florida, others in Houston.
He has been accused by scores of people of sexual abuse. Pope Benedict to all appearances thought him guilty, but because of his age did not have a formal trial.
The administrative acts of the popes are not infallible. The Legionaries, of whom [...]

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Although Father Richard Neuhaus of First Things does not like my book (he does not like my tone), he and I agree in our dislike of clericalism and our strong suspicion that it was a major cause of the abuse. In commenting on a survey of Catholic attitudes Neuhaus writes in the February First Things:
As [...]

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            President Bush wondered and why the Allies did not bomb the Nazi extermination camps. Der Spiegel discusses this in an article Why the Allies Did Not Bomb Auschwitz.
The allies of course knew the Nazis were anti-Semitic, but first heard of the plans for the Holocaust in August 1942, In November 1942 a Polish officer, [...]

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Msgr. Bernard prince is being tried in Canada on numerous charges of child molestation. The Ottawa Citizen is covering the trial.
 
Msgr. Prince, who is Polish, was a close friend of John Paul II
 and was highly placed in the Vatican and in the Canadian Church:
 
His career included posts at the Vatican as the secretary general of [...]

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  Cardinal Hummes has asked the bishops of the world to form groups to pray for the victims of sexual abuse; According to Reuters 
A top Vatican official has proposed creating prayer groups to pray for victims of sexual abuse by priests, in an effort to help heal wounds from recent abuse scandals that have rocked the [...]

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