Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

Cardinal Schonbörn and Wir sind Kirche, the lay reform group in Austria last night held a penitential service in St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. (from Die Presse, Der Standard, and n-tv).
3000 entered a cathedral darkened except for the candles of the victims around the altar. Cardinal Schonbörn entered clad all in black, except for his [...]

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Now that he has made a public statement, I feel I can now reveal what Cardinal Schönborn told me two years ago.
 I know him a little, and I sent him my book Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. We met in San Diego, and I asked him what he thought of the book, especially [...]

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Nicholas Kristof has an article in the New York Times (The Boys Have Fallen Behind) about the growing alienation of boys from education and about the consequent decline in their academic achievement. This decline is disguised by the fact that the people at the top of most professions are still male; but under them the [...]

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The NYT has the story of how everyone: bishops, priests, Pope, police, failed the deaf children who were molested by Father Murphy. Some critics have asked why victims sometimes take so long to come forward. As the experience of the deaf children showed, even going directly to the police, even leafleting in front of the [...]

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John Paul II and Paul VI did not listen to the cries of violated children. Why?

I have a few sources with Vatican connections and have received fairly reliable second-hand information, and my guess at the scenario is this. 
John Paul, for reasons he refused to explain even to a cardinal who questioned him, would not act against [...]

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 We are witnessing a cruel irony of history: Joseph Ratzinger, one of the few ecclesiastics to evidence genuine horror at the sexual abuse of children by priests and the one pope since perhaps Pius V to act against corruption in the Church, is receiving a massive international attack for his failures in handling abuse cases. 
It [...]

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The tragedy of sexual abuse is unrolling in Germany like a Greek drama, and Nemesis is in the wings awaiting her cue.
The Austrian dramatist Felix Mitterer wrote a two-man drama “Die Beichte” (“The Confession’) which recently opened in Regensburg, although it was scheduled over twelve months ago. The timing is eerie. NBC reports:

The [...]

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Kiev

The New York Times has discovered the existence of an Eastern Catholic Church with a married clergy. Today’s issue contains a good article on Father Yuriy Volevetskiy and his six children.
The Times is also correct in that the attitude of the Vatican is more of toleration of the Eastern (or Greek Catholic) churches rather [...]

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Benedict’s letter on sexual abuse, addressed to the Church in Ireland, has disappointed almost everyone.
Confession that is a requirement of repentance involves confessing the whole truth and a desire to make reparation.
Benedict makes some dubious assertions, half-truths at best. He claims that a misunderstanding of Vatican II led to a neglect of the penal [...]

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The inimitable Bishop Gerhard Mueller of Regensburg has opened his episcopal mouth and put a red-slippered foot into it. His attitude to sexual abuse and his general humaneness can be studied by looking at my case study of an abuser in his diocese:  Peter Kramer. 
 
Now he has decided the Freemasons are to blame for all [...]

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Ratzinger’s action or inaction led to a child being molested.
 
Sometimes before 1980 the Rev. Peter Hullermann plied a boy with alcohol and then molested him. The parents went to the diocese, who told them not to go to the police, that the case would be handled inside the Church, and that Hullermann would never work [...]

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 For some reason I do not understand, German newspapers will not print the names of convicted  criminals. However, the Italian press is more like the American. 
The abuser identified only as Father “H” in the German press has been identified as Peter Hullermann by La Stampa. He is still a priest in Bad Tölz in Germany. 
He [...]

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In his interview, Msgr. Scicluna, who was the Vatican investigator in the Maciel case, refers directly but not by name to Maciel. Spanish-language newspapers have picked this up, but the English-language press may have missed it: 

Only with the 2001 “Motu Proprio” did the crime of paedophilia again become our exclusive remit. From that moment Cardinal [...]

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Although the abuse that has been revealed in Germany is neither as widespread or as deeply corrupt as the abuse that was revealed in the U.S. and Ireland (let me simply say that some priests found novel uses for the Eucharist and the crucifix), the revelations in Germany have shaken the Vatican more than the [...]

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Joseph Ratzinger was Archbishop of Munich -  Freising from 1977 to 1982. In 1980 there were about 1200 diocesan priests in that archdiocese.
 
In 1980 there were also about 1200 diocesan priest in the Boston archdiocese.
 
In Boston there have been about 200 priests (diocesan and religious) accused of sexual abuse.
 
Therefore it would be surprising if there [...]

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