Image via @princess_redd / Twitter Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has been burning for hours. It appears there will not be much left of France’s most iconic Catholic church by tomorrow morning. The blaze, which has already consumed the cathedral’s spire and collapsed the roof, was reported to have begun with a small fire, possibly…
As we go through the present crisis in the Church, there are some who criticize the revealers of truth, claiming that it is better to live a good Catholic life as best as you can and ignore all the news. “It is better we don’t know,” they may say. “After all, curiosity killed the cat.”…
Yesterday, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI broke his post-pontificate “silence” yet again in a 6,000-word essay about the crisis of clerical sex abuse in the Church, and his perspective on its origins. The letter was, he says, written in response to the February summit in Rome in which the heads of the world’s episcopal conferences came…
Martha Alegria Reichman is the widow of the late Alejandro Vallardes, who served as the Honduran ambassador to the Holy See for over two decades. She recently published a book about Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, the leader of the pope’s council of cardinal-advisers and a figure increasingly associated with scandal. The book, entitled Sacred…
As had been widely speculated, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta was appointed Thursday to succeed Cardinal Donald Wuerl as the archbishop of Washington. The archdiocese has fallen under heavy scrutiny after its two most recent bishops have become emblematic of the clerical sex abuse crisis — Theodore McCarrick for his alleged abuse of priests, seminarians, and…
Asked by a journalist during the in-flight press conference home from Morocco about the potential consequences of his visit “for the future, for world peace, for coexistence in the dialogue between cultures,” Pope Francis responded: I will say that now there are flowers, the fruits will come later, but the flowers are promising. I am…
When I was about 16 years old, I remember lying in my bed and hearing the muffled conversation of my parents in the next room. All of my five younger siblings were asleep, and whatever it was that my parents were talking about, whatever stresses were upon them in that moment, I felt this overwhelming…
Last year, Archbishop Viganò alleged that Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis’s handpicked secretary of state, was “complicit in covering up the misdeeds” of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Despite that grave accusation, Antonio Socci says that meetings of cardinals about a possible conclave have been taking place, with Parolin as the clear frontrunner. A year ago, Parolin…
LIGEN, Germany, March 14, 2019—Issues of celibacy and “sexual orientation” will receive clarification within a “binding synodal path” in Germany, says Cardinal Reinhard Marx in remarks to katholisch.de after the conclusion of the spring conference of German Bishops, Thursday. Emphasizing the need for more “theological discoveries while integrating modern humanities”, he added that the intimate…
After a deeply controversial guilty verdict in a child sexual abuse case stemming from decades-old allegations, Cardinal George Pell has been sentenced to six years in prison on on five counts of abuse of minors. He will be eligible for parole in 3 years and 8 months. Pell has maintained his innocence throughout the trial,…
Last week, it was announced by the Australian court system that Cardinal George Pell had been convicted in December of child sex abuse. The media had been prevented from reporting on the verdict because there was a hope of moving forward with yet another trial against the cardinal. That trial against Pell fell apart. Another,…
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