Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

When sinners repent, we are informed by the highest authority, the angels in heaven rejoice.
 
Michael Anthony Rodriguez paid a hit man to kill his wife because he was infatuated with a young woman. He was imprisoned in Texas, and with the Texas Seven escaped on Christmas Eve 2000. They killed a young police officer who [...]

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The Naples Daily  News reports

A Brevard County woman claiming to be God’s messenger has been charged with attempted murder after reportedly shooting at a family on their back porch.
The sheriff’s office reports that 47-year-old Kathleen Aceto showed up with a gun and began shooting Friday morning. A man in the house grabbed a gun and [...]

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The New York Times has described the new cooperation between the Unites States and Mexico in combating the drug trade. What the Times (perhaps wisely) did not mention is that the narcotraficantes are popular in Mexico, at least in some areas. 
Popular Catholicism, as Arturo Vasquez reminds us in his blog Reditus, has some unusual saints. [...]

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As the Murphy Report noted, church discipline in Ireland was almost totally neglected in Ireland. In thirty years only two canonical trials were held, and these were held in opposition to the chief canonist. 
The Roman Catholic Church sometimes suffers from legalism, to which voluntarist moral theology and casuistry contributed. But law has a place in [...]

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Roman Polanski promised and crossed his heart and hoped to die that he would not leave Switzerland if he were let out of jail. He would wait patiently to see whether he would be extradited to the U.S. where he would be put in prison in uncomfortable circumstances. He would under no circumstances consider crossing [...]

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Nightmares are a hazard of those who investigate child abuse, and one of the most potent sources of the nightmares is the explicit sacrilege that is sometimes, perhaps often, involved in the abuse. Some abusive priests have dressed boys as Jesus and then assaulted them.
 
Bishop Lahey not only had child porn on his computer (bad [...]

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The merde has hit the fan in the Canadian Church: 

An arrest warrant has been issued for a former Roman Catholic bishop from Nova Scotia charged with possession and importation of child pornography. The Chronicle Hearld reports:
The Ottawa Police Service Internet child exploitation unit charged Raymond Lahey, 69, on Sept. 25, 10 days after he was [...]

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If I may quote from my 1998 book Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church:

Both literary critics for whom transgressive is a word of praise and whose hero is the Marquis de Sade, and psychologists who desire an ever-expanding field of sexual; liberation put forward the idea that sex with boys is the next area [...]

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The abortionist George Tiller was apparently killed by a pro-lifer. This has led to attacks on the pro-life movement at innately violent.
The widespread denunciations of the Vietnam War as illegal, unjust, cruel, and criminal, led students at Brandeis to plot the violent overthrow of the government.

On Sept. 23, 1970, Brandeis University woke up to [...]

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Santa Muerte and “Bishop” David Romo Guillén

The faithful followers of Santa Muerte, the Death Saint, are unhappy that the government destroyed the shrines they had built on public land (see blog below).

One bishop, according to the Washington Post, agreed with them
But the destruction enraged Death Saint church leaders, including archbishop David Romo who in [...]

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White-collar perpetrators of fraud are a popular target of rage, with good reason. I have lost a substantial amount to fraud over the years, including some to Bernie Madoff – and I’m not even Jewish. It is therefore extremely satisfying to see such crooks enjoy the hospitality of the Department of Corrections.

The New York Times [...]

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The future Dr. Svensson of Sweden

One possible source of the Vatican’s lax attitude to sexual abusers in the clergy is that the Vatican is staffed by Europeans who consider America’s harsh punishments of crime barbaric.

Sweden, the New York Times reports, has a convicted neo-Nazi murderer in medical school.

Mr. Svensson…was convicted in the 1999 hate [...]

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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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Throughout the history of the world, the weak have been exploited by the strong. One version of this bad human habit is sex tourism. Pedophiles from the First World go to the Third World to buy sex with children cheaply and safely. Thailand is a major destination.
Some countries have acted, According to Pédophilie: les lois [...]

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