News

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing - If you spend enough time studying the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church… certain patterns emerge. Some of these patterns are confounding, others are simply infuriating: a failure to take allegations seriously; a tendency to underestimate the trauma caused by sexual abuse in children; a powerful instinct to protect the reputation and assets of the institution, even at the cost of harming victims and putting others at risk; a willingness to trust experts who gave bad advice, particularly about the safety of returning “rehabilitated” offenders to ministry.

By Fr. Dwight Longenecker - In the ancient world it was commonplace to regard sickness as a punishment or a curse. If you were sick you must have done something to deserve it or someone must have cursed you. People did not understand the pathology of different diseases so, with a superstitious mindset they blamed the person who was sick, or if that person didn’t seem to be a bad individual they blamed his parents, they blamed the gods… While we look on such ideas now as silly superstition, in some ways it’s not that far off.

By Dorothy Cummings McLean, LifeSiteNews - An elderly Italian priest is in trouble with civil authorities for celebrating a public Sunday Mass… Father Antonio Lunghi, an 88-year-old priest of Castello d’Agogna, a small village in Pavia, was reported to the local public prosecutor after offering Mass in the parish church. Eight people were present, apparently violating an ordinance by both civil and ecclesial authorities against saying Mass in public.