Tag: Church

A senior Catholic Church official has threatened controversy by saying that it would be safer not to “defrock” priests who had been convicted of sexually abusing children.

By the time thousands of parishioners stream into the 3,000-seat Ebenezer AME Church on Easter Sunday, church leaders hope to have something else to celebrate: financial revival.

The growing scandal about child abuse reaches the top of the Vatican.

Raymond Jessop, 38, is set to stand trial Monday, 18 months after agents raided the group’s remote ranch and carted off more than 400 children in the largest child custody case in American history.

The long-standing theory has been that the higher educated someone is the less religious he will be. But new research in 60 countries proves otherwise. It is economic security that leaves churches empty.

Abuse victims across Northern Ireland are to launch a landmark legal case against several religious orders, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.

Decades after suffering horrific abuse at the hands of nuns and priests in church-run industrial schools and orphanages a growing number of victims are now turning to the courts for retribution and closure. They are also planning legal action against the government bodies that were responsible for child welfare at the time, for failing to protect them.

What’s funny at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church? Poop jokes, of course

There are many things Evangelical Christians are good at, such as bake sales and talking to me on planes. They’re less adept at other things, such as comedy and fighting lions. Christians aren’t funny because they tend to be literal-minded. Also because they’re sad about having had sex with only one person.

Church leaders, gathering in Anaheim for their first national convention in three years, also consider repealing a de facto ban on the consecration of gay bishops.

A church in Belfast, Ireland, which gave sanctuary to more than a hundred Romanians when they fled from racist violence, has been attacked by vandals. The Romanians had sheltered in the church after being driven from their homes in south Belfast by “disturbances” earlier in the month. Now, all but 14 of them have asked to return to Romania, and the government of Northern Ireland is paying to send the back.

The Catholic orders responsible for abusing Ireland’s poorest children say they’re struggling to produce money to help their victims. Yet investigations into their net worth paint a very different picture — that of nuns and brothers with billions’ worth of carefully sheltered assets worldwide.

Health surgeries post offices and day care centres should be put in churches under plans published in a report backed by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham. /// post offices