News

By George Weigel, Denver Catholic - The plague of sexually abusive clergy manifests itself in different ways in different ecclesiastical contexts. In the so-called developed world, the plague seems to have largely involved the sexual abuse or exploitation of young men; but there are many other ways in which a subset of Catholic clergy, both priests and bishops, lead duplicitous lives in violation of the promise of celibate chastity they made to God and the Church.

By Martin Rothweiler, EWTN - Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, the archbishop of Cologne, spoke with EWTN TV German-language program director Martin Rothweiler Feb. 13 about the Church in Germany and the worldwide abuse crises... The German cardinal is committed to keeping God alive in the modern world and preserving Church teaching on Communion and other doctrinal matters, including sexual morality and the dignity of human life. He also finds hope in the witness of young Catholics.

By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register - Cardinal Raymond Burke and Cardinal Walter Brandmüller have written an open letter to the presidents of bishops’ conferences attending this week’s Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse, calling on them to end their silence and return to upholding the divine and natural law… they argue that the abuse crisis is only part of a wider and much deeper problem that owes itself to a society that openly calls into question an absolute moral law, and Church leaders who have “gone away from the truth of the Gospel.”… “A decisive act now is urgent and necessary,” the cardinals say, and call for an end to the “plague of the homosexual agenda” in the Church, organized networks of protection, and a “climate of complicity and a conspiracy of silence.”