“I think we’ve learnt a lot of things about what is appropriate behaviour and what’s not appropriate behaviour.”

One Australian bishop’s monstrously banal response to 26 suicides attributed to priestly abuse.

Following Kenny speech, Vatican withdraws envoy from Ireland

A nation with an 87 percent Catholic population no longer has an ambassador to Rome. Via Irish Times: The Vatican has recalled its envoy to Ireland following Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s trenchant criticism of the Holy See’s role in covering up cases of clerical child sex abuse. Deputy Vatican spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini said Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, [...]

Vatican obstructed abuse investigations as late as 2007

Via the Irish Times: [Roman Catholic parliamentarian and leader of the conservative-Christian democratic Fine Gael party] Taoiseach Enda Kenny today told the Dáil the Cloyne report exposed an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate the inquiry into clerical sex abuse. Addressing the House, Mr Kenny said: “The rape and torture of children were downplayed or [...]

Brooklyn bishop bans donations, speaking engagements by lawmakers who voted for NY same-sex marriage

Via Christian Post: Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio has asked all Catholic churches and schools in the Diocese of Brooklyn to ban state lawmakers who voted for gay marriage in New York. DiMarzio, the leader of the Brooklyn diocese, has urged the Catholic institutions to decline donations and speaking engagements from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and any lawmaker [...]

The cult of Chavez

Caitlin Flannagan, reflecting on her own childhood with union activist parents and Miriam Pawell’s biography The Union of their Dreams, reexamines the life and work of Cesar Chavez: To understand Chavez, you have to understand that he was grafting together two life philosophies that were, at best, an idiosyncratic pairing. One was grounded in union-organizing [...]

The problem with the flotillas

Christopher Hitchens writing in Slate: At a time of widespread democratic and pluralist revolution in the region, Hamas imposes its own version of theocracy on Gaza and seems otherwise aligned with the forces that stand athwart the hope of continued and deeper change. Who wants to volunteer time to make this outfit look more presentable? [...]

Priest served on board of Dutch NAMBLA-like group

Via the reliably yellow Daily Fail Mail, so take it with a grain of salt: The Dutch Catholic Church and the Salesian order are investigating revelations that a Salesian priest served on the board of a group that promotes paedophilia with the full knowledge of his boss. The order’s top official in the Netherlands, Delegate Herman [...]

Priest from parish of pope’s advisor on child abuse arrested for child abuse

Via Time: The latest sex-abuse case to rock the Catholic Church is unfolding in the archdiocese of an influential Italian Cardinal who has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests. Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was [...]

Robert Mugabe was a front-row guest at JPII’s beatification ceremonies

 The crusader against Polish communism has now been commemorated with a ceremony at which a genocidal Marxist dictator was a guest of honor. Via James Kirchick of The New Republic: On May 1, Pope John Paul II was beatified. The second-to-last step in the road to sainthood, beatification occurs when the Catholic Church declares that a [...]

OBL’s 5th wife in Pakistani hospital; US and Pakistan spar over custody

This contradicts previous reports that the woman with bin Laden was not his wife, and that she died in the raid. Via the Telegraph: Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, who was shot in the leg during the raid, is being treated at the military hospital in Rawalpindi, according to reports on the Arabic news network Al-Arabiya. It [...]