Tag: Vatican

On 13 September, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) filed an 84-page complaint and over 20,000 pages of supporting materials with the International Criminal Court, documenting the charge that the Pope and Vatican officials have tolerated and enabled the systematic and widespread concealing of rape and child sex crimes throughout the world.

Human rights lawyers and victims of clergy sexual abuse filed a complaint on Tuesday urging the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate and prosecute Pope Benedict XVI and three top Vatican officials for crimes against humanity for what they described as abetting and covering up the rape and sexual assault of children by priests.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny criticizes the Vatican for its efforts to frustrate the Cloyne inquiry, accusing it of downplaying the rape of children to protect its power and reputation.

Catholicism’s leading newspaper says the Vatican has never been attacked “so virulently” by an Irish Prime Minister before Enda Kenny’s scathing assault over child abuse.
Prime Minister Kenny was commenting on the Cloyne Report, which looks at how allegations against clerics of child abuse were handled in the Cloyne diocese in County Cork.
“The rape and torture of children were downplayed or managed to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and reputation,” Kenny said earlier this week.

A newly revealed 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland’s Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police.

The Vatican’s head of the Pontifical Academy for Life grudgingly conceded that the winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, a pioneer of the test-tube baby, “inaugurated a new and important chapter in the field of human reproduction.”

A TIME correspondent—and Catholic—examines his church’s criminalization of attempts to ordain women as priests

Suits name the Vatican as a respondent on grounds that it employed clergy suspected of abuse. Papal spokesmen say it is a sovereign entity and immune from the American court system.

In a sign of sharply rising tensions between the Vatican and Belgium, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday criticized as “surprising and deplorable” a raid on church property last week by Belgian police investigating sex abuse by clerics.

The church expressed “shock” after clerics were detained as part of an inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse.

Sam Harris has launched an appeal to fund a legal bid to have the Pope arrested when he visits Britain.

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

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican – which have been engaged in a power-struggle for centuries – are moving to form a strategic alliance under the banner of fighting secularism.

Randy Cohen discusses whether it’s ok to criticize the Vatican’s attempts to poach Anglicans who disagree with the Church of England’s acceptance of gay and women priests.  “If a secular institution, Wal-Mart or Microsoft, for example, made a similar offer — Tired of leadership positions being open to women and gay employees? Join us! — it would be slammed for appealing to bigotry.”

For many disillusioned by the Church of England’s liberal bent, the offer from Rome to include conservative parishes in the Roman Catholic fold is a godsend. Pope Benedict XVI’s stunning announcement this week of a new dispensation that would, in effect, give traditionally minded Anglicans their own niche within the Catholic Church seems almost too good an offer to pass up.

Another mordant indictment of religion from Penn & Teller, this time aimed at the Vatican, has predictably raised the ire of the Catholic Church.  Be sure to watch the great video.

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, looking to clarify their position on interfaith dialogue with Jews, have instead caused an uproar by issuing a recent statement that appears to endorse attempts to convert them. Jews are accusing American bishops of backtracking on a statement that explicitly directs Catholics to not attempt to convert Jews.

Pope Benedict XVI’s scientists have given their blessing to genetically modified crops as a possible solution to world hunger and poverty

New Archbishop gets rap from NSS for self-serving “faith school” comments

Cultural conservatives who were gearing up to use Obama’s first Supreme Court nomination as a fundraising opportunity will find Sonia Sotomayor a difficult sell.