John L. Rabb, bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland for 12 years, is planning to step down on Jan. 1.

“I am responding to what God is calling me to in a new season of ministry," Rabb, the second highest ranking Episcopal official in Maryland, told clergy and lay members of the diocese Friday morning at the opening of their 226th convention.

"I will be doing a combination of teaching, continued work in ministry development, preaching in a different venue, my Franciscan studies and writing," Rabb said. "I love the Diocese of Maryland, all of you, each congregation and everything we have done. I have felt loved by this diocese, far more than I would have imagined. So my very good friends, it is with love that I say thank you.”

As bishop suffrgan of Maryland, Rabb oversees the ordination process, clergy deployment, deacon formation and deployment and Christian formation, according to the diocese. He shares visitations and confirmations with Eugene Taylor Sutton, the bishop of Maryland.

Rabb served as bishop-in-charge of the diocese between the retirement of Bishop Robert Ihloff in 2007 and the consecration of Sutton in 2008.

Under the canons and constitutions of the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Maryland, Rabb is will submit his resignation to the Presiding Bishop and the House of Bishops in the fall of 2010. As of January 1, 2011, Bishop Rabb will have been ordained a priest 34 years.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The No. 2 official in the conservative Legionaries of Christ order has broken his silence on revelations that the group's founder had fathered children and abused seminarians, giving an interview on the eve of a Vatican meeting to discuss the order's fate, the Associated Press reports.

The Rev. Luis Garza Medina told Rome's La Repubblica newspaper Thursday that he did not know before 2006 that founder Rev. Marcial Maciel had fathered a child. He also said cases of sexual abuse by priests should be referred to civil law enforcement.

On Friday, five Vatican experts are to discuss their investigation into the order with the Vatican's No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Bertone ordered the probe in 2009 after the Legionaries acknowledged that Maciel had fathered a daughter who is now in her 20s and lives in Spain.

The case against Maciel is being closely watched as the Vatican struggles to show that it is serious about rooting out clerical sex abuse and being more transparent. The Maciel case has long been seen as emblematic of Vatican inaction on abuse complaints, since sex abuse victims had tried in the 1990s to bring a canonical trial against Maciel but were shut down by his supporters at the Vatican.

Only in March of this year did the Legionaries acknowledge that Maciel had also sexually abused seminarians and that two men are claiming to be his sons. One of those men has asked the Legionaries for $26 million and says Maciel had promised him and his two brothers a trust fund when he died as financial compensation for the alleged sexual abuse they endured at Maciel's hands. The third son was adopted.

Maciel died in 2008 at age 87.

The Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, has said no decisions on the order are expected after Friday's meeting, although a statement will be issued. Pope Benedict XVI, he said, will make the final decision on the order's future after studying the case.

The Legion, founded in Mexico, claims a membership of more than 800 priests and 2,500 seminarians in 22 countries, along with 70,000 members in its lay arm, Regnum Christi. It runs schools, charities, Catholic news outlets, seminaries for young boys, and universities in Mexico, Italy, Spain and elsewhere. Its U.S. headquarters are in Orange, Connecticut.

The revelations of Maciel's double life raised many questions that the Legion still hasn't publicly answered, including whether any current leaders covered up Maciel's misdeeds and whether any donations were used to facilitate the sexual misconduct or pay its victims.

Garza Medina said he only realized the accusations surrounding Maciel were true in 2006, when the Vatican sentenced Maciel to a "reserved life of penance and prayer."

"It seemed impossible, the behavior of the founder seemed impeccable," Garza Medina told La Repubblica. "With the investigation finished, I verified the paternity that was attributed to Father Maciel; at which point it was clear that the accusations were well-founded."

Asked how even Maciel's closest advisers — including himself — could have been kept in the dark, the Legionaries' vicar general said: "It was difficult to understand that there were such immoral and aberrant actions on his part."

While the Vatican issued its sentence in 2006, neither the Vatican nor the Legionaries have ever said everything that Maciel had done wrong.

Italian news reports say the most likely scenario for Benedict would be to appoint an external "commissioner" with full powers to run the order while reforms are enacted.

What becomes of the current leadership — in particular Garza Medina — is unclear. Veteran Vatican correspondent Sandro Magister recently wrote in Italian newsweekly L'Espresso that Garza Medina heads the holding company that acts as the treasury for the Legion, with assets totaling euro25 billion ($33 billion).

In the interview Thursday, Garza Medina laughed at the figure, saying such estimates were "false." He said any profits that are made are immediately reinvested or put in pensions or medical care funds for its members.

"In 2009, our activities in all the world produced about $40 million, which was reinvested," he said.

Jason Berry, co-author of the book and documentary "Vows of Silence," about victims' attempts to persuade the Vatican to discipline Maciel, said Garza Medina's acknowledgment that he was convinced of Maciel's crimes only in 2006 is problematic, since the order continued holding Maciel up as a role model until 2010.

"Why on earth would he allow a public statement to go out when Maciel had died saying he had gone to heaven?" Berry asked. "They did not apologize to the victims nor acknowledge that the abuse occurred until March of this year."

The Legion was founded in Mexico in 1941 and its culture was built around Maciel. His photo adorned every Legion building, his biography and writings were studied, and his birthday was celebrated as a feast day. Until recently, Legion members took a vow not to criticize their superiors, including Maciel.

Pope John Paul II had long championed the Legionaries for their orthodoxy and ability to bring in vocations and money.

The revelations of Maciel's double life caused enormous turmoil inside the Legionaries and its lay affiliate Regnum Christie, with priests leaving the order and Legion officials steadily announcing changes meant to demonstrate the movement is reforming.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

The Roman Catholic bishop of Providence has withdrawn two hospitals sponsored by his diocese from membership in a Catholic hospital group that supports health care reform, the Associated Press reports.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed reform legislation because of fears it would allow for public funding of abortion, but the Catholic Health Association disagreed and supported it. Sister Carol Keehan, head of the group that represents about 600 hospitals, met with President Barack Obama at the White House days before the bill passed. The bill was signed into law March 23.

The diocese on Wednesday released a letter written March 29 by Bishop Thomas Tobin to Keehan in which he complained that even an association with the group was embarrassing.

"Your enthusiastic support of the legislation, in contradiction of the bishops of the United States, provided an excuse for members of Congress, misled the public and caused a serious scandal for many members of the church," Tobin wrote.

The two hospitals removed from the group are run by St. Joseph Health Services of Rhode Island, which Tobin noted in his letter doesn't pay membership fees because it is considered "distressed."

Keehan said in an interview Wednesday that she replied to Tobin that the group would honor his request. She noted that very few Catholic hospitals are sponsored by dioceses, and that while she had great regard for St. Joseph, it is a small hospital group.

She said she believed groups on the far right were using the issue of abortion funding as a way to kill health care reform, and that the language, while not the way she would have written it, does not allow federal funding of abortions.

"It certainly does the job," she said.

Fred Caesar, a spokesman for the association, said one other hospital has said it will not renew its membership, but he said it was up to the institution to identify itself.

Tobin is known for taking strong stands against abortion. Most recently, he got into a protracted public argument with Rep. Patrick Kennedy over Kennedy's support for abortion rights, culminating in the revelation that Tobin had asked Kennedy not to take Holy Communion because of his views.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

The pope's hand-picked replacement to oversee abuse cases at the Vatican did nothing to restrict a California priest after learning in 1995 that the priest had molested a 13-year-old boy a decade earlier, the Associated Press reports.

Cardinal William Levada, then archbishop of San Francisco, said in a 2005 deposition obtained by The Associated Press that he did nothing and didn't contact police because he trusted the Rev. Milton Walsh would not re-offend and his predecessor handled the case adequately.

There were no known allegations of later abuse by the priest and a Vatican attorney says Levada acted appropriately under standards of the time.

When Levada learned of the abuse, Walsh had been pastor for six years at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, a parish of about 1,000 people. He remained there for two more years and was removed from active ministry in 2002, when U.S. bishops passed a "zero tolerance" policy on sex abuse and police started investigating.

Levada is now the highest-ranking American at the Vatican and head of the office that defrocks pedophile priests. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger held the post before he became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

The Vatican's lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, says Levada handled the case properly by the era's norms, which have evolved significantly in recent years. The Holy See told bishops this month they should report abuse to police rather than keep cases quiet as had been the practice for decades.

"One thing the law teaches: it is fundamentally unfair to apply standards of conduct retroactively," Lena said. "And yet, even if one were to do so, it must be acknowledged there was no re-offense by the priest. So in this case, the old approach did work."

Levada's critics say it's an example of his disregard for abused children.

"When it comes right down to it, he absolutely never reached out in this clear-cut case. I think that's typical of Levada and that's perhaps why he's in the position he's in," said Diane Josephs, the attorney for Walsh's victim, Jay Seaman.

Levada's involvement with the San Francisco case began shortly after he left his post as archbishop of the Diocese of Portland, Ore., in the fall of 1995.

The victim's aunt wrote Levada to say Walsh molested her nephew in 1984 and complained he was still a minister at St. Mary's. She begged him not to "not let this man slip through the cracks," according to a copy of the Sept. 20, 1995, letter provided by Seaman's attorney.

Levada consulted his predecessor, Archbishop John Quinn, who encouraged Levada to speak with the priest, according to Levada's 2005 deposition to attorneys for alleged clergy abuse victims.

Walsh confirmed he fondled the boy's genitals when staying with the family but he stopped when the boy objected and returned to his own bed, Levada said.

Letters among the family, Quinn and Walsh show Seaman's parents — who were devout Catholics — decided not to go to the police, but instead sought spiritual guidance. Quinn told them he would make sure Walsh received therapy and with time, "the boy will forget."

Walsh soon returned to Rome, where he was studying for his doctorate in theology. He returned the following year and spent four years teaching seminary before being promoted to pastor of the San Francisco cathedral.

Quinn, now 81 and retired, declined to comment when reached at his home in Menlo Park.

Levada said he trusted Quinn's decision and found Walsh "completely frank and truthful."

"He was completely committed — had repented of that action and was completely committed to — to acting in a way that was entirely above reproach in his ministry going forward," Levada said in the deposition.

Lena, the Vatican lawyer, noted that an independent psychiatrist determined the priest was not a pedophile and there was no risk returning him to ministry.

In 1995, the recently extended statute of limitations in California could have covered Walsh's 1984 abuse if it had been reported to police. Walsh was eventually charged with two felony counts in 2002, but the charges were thrown out when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down California's law.

Walsh, now 58, continues to live "within the archdiocese," spokesman Maurice Healy said. Archdiocese officials did not return calls seeking an interview with him. An attorney who once represented Walsh did not return a call.

Levada now acknowledges that, in hindsight, he could have better handled allegations of sexual abuse when he was an archbishop and he now understands the limits of therapy.

The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a leading canon lawyer, said leaving abusive priests in the ministry is a risk too many U.S. bishops took.

"In the normal world, if you were a teacher and the superintendent found out one of the teachers was abusing children, do you think he'd leave him in the classroom?" Doyle said.

Seaman, now 39, is outraged by Levada's current role. As an altar boy, Seaman dreamed of becoming a priest and considered Walsh his spiritual mentor. He was molested the night of his 13th birthday party.

"It really ruined me," said Seaman, who works on a maintenance crew for the Golden Gate bridge. "I believe I'm still a Christian, but I don't go to church to find my religion."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Pope Benedict XVI may issue a mea culpa for clerical sex abuse at a June meeting of the world's priests at the Vatican, the Associated Press reports.

The June 9-11 summit, initially called to mark the end of the Vatican's year of the priest, had already morphed into a pep rally for the pope as he came under fire amid a new wave of reports on sex abuse by clerics.

Now, according to the top Vatican official dealing with abuse, it's possible that Benedict may issue some form of an apology at the meeting.

Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told U.S. public broadcaster PBS on Tuesday that he "wouldn't be surprised" if the pontiff issues a mea culpa at the meeting.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

The Rev. Jason Poling is pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.

When the 2005 publication of the Mohammed cartoons in a Dutch newspaper made headlines, I felt torn. As a libertarian, I wouldn’t want to say it should be illegal to publish such cartoons. But as someone who tries to be sensitive to the religious views of others, I would also not want to publish them in order to avoid giving offense. Perhaps it’s cowardice for me to want a world where they can be published but where I don’t publish them.

The same angst returned for me when South Park’s portrayal of Mohammed in their 200th episode was censored by Comedy Central. A pornographic from the Bible, of all things, has resolved the tension for me.

A few years back I preached through the book of Ezekiel. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s one of the longer prophetic books in the Bible; it’s also one of the most outrageous. Not once but twice (in chapters 16 and 23, if you’re interested) God describes the unfaithfulness of his people with language that would make a sailor blush. Naturally, I was pretty fired up to preach these passages.

When I got to chapter 16, I was five minutes into my sermon when a family with young kids slipped into the back of the church and sat down without hearing the warning during our announcements that the sermon would be dealing with some R-rated material. Rapidly downshifting from R to PG, I still managed to get my point across. (But I never saw them again.) When I came to chapter 23, I gave strict instructions to the ushers not to let that happen again. I also made sure that folks were aware that the sermon that day would deal with some mature subject matter, providing warnings in our bulletin, in the announcements, and at the beginning of my sermon.

The sermon was not well received by everyone. One visitor contacted the senior pastor of the church that planted us to express her disapproval, and wrote a long letter excoriating me for…well, preaching the text that I had in front of me. She said she would not be returning to New Hope until we changed our ways. I had the good manners not to ask if that was a promise or a threat.

You won’t find these passages preached in most churches; most aren’t willing to go into that kind of territory, even when the Bible does. At New Hope, we believe that having a high view of Scripture means that we treat all of it as inspired — the red letters, the black letters, and the purple prose, too. And I must say that I feel no responsibility whatsoever for the offense our visitors took that day: They were made aware of what was coming three different ways. They were warned that they were about to be exposed to offensive material, so they really couldn’t complain when it happened as promised. Even if the [WARNING: Gratuitous male nudity ahead] Pompeiian fresco of Priapus was projected on the front wall of the sanctuary. Which it was.

Much the same thing can be said of those who are offended by South Park. Frankly, if you’ve watched the show much and haven’t been offended then you probably haven’t been paying attention. Offending anyone and everyone is its modus operandi, and it was in response to an episode making fun of Scientology that one of its practitioners, Isaac Hayes, quit his role as “Chef.” Matt Stone, one of the show’s creators, quite rightly noted that Hayes “has no problem – and he's cashed plenty of checks – with our show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons or Jews.”

I have not made an extensive search but I do not recall seeing those objecting to the portrayal (however oblique) of Mohammed objecting to the show’s treatment of other religious figures, including the 98-pound-weakling version of Jesus that is a recurring character.

Among your rights in a free society is the right to free speech. Among your other rights is the right to ignore the speech of others. If you have any sort of cultural awareness, you know that South Park is likely to offend you. If you don’t want to be offended, don’t watch it. If you watch it and you’re offended, you have no right to complain. It’s like stepping into a boxing ring and complaining that somebody hit you.

I still think it unwise and uncharitable to gratuitously offend the sensibilities of others. I still don’t think I would want to publish an image of Mohammed because I really don’t want to do that to my Muslim neighbors. But I am horrified by the notion that the threat of violence has prevented others from freely exercising poor judgment.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

A Haitian judge said Monday he has dismissed kidnapping and criminal association charges against 10 American missionaries detained for trying to take a busload of children out of the country after the Jan. 12 earthquake, the Associated Press reports.

Judge Bernard Saint-Vil said Laura Silsby, the last of the 10 missionaries jailed in Haiti, still faced a lesser charge for allegedly organizing the effort to transport the 33 children to an orphanage they were setting up in the Dominican Republic.

Silsby faces up to three years in prison if convicted on the remaining charge, the "organization of irregular trips," from a 1980 statute restricting travel out of Haiti signed by then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.

Silsby declined comment from her jail cell. Shiller Roi, a lawyer for Silsby, declined comment, saying he hadn't yet received the judge's written decision.

The judge told The Associated Press that the charge of organizing the trip was also pending against Jean Sainvil, a Haitian-born pastor from Atlanta who also helped organize the venture. Sainvil did not immediately respond to message left on his voicemail.

The judge, who spoke to AP in a brief phone interview, did not explain the reasons for his decisions.

It was the latest development in a case that emerged amid the chaos following the devastating earthquake, which the government said killed an estimated 230,000 people and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

Border guards detained the Americans on Jan. 29 as they tried to enter the Dominican Republic from Haiti without the required documents for the children.

A relative of two members of the group of Baptists said at the time that they intended to take the children, all of whom still had at least one living parent, to an orphanage they were setting up in the Dominican Republic for Haitian children.

On Feb. 17, the judge released eight of the Americans after concluding that parents voluntarily gave up their children in the belief that the Americans would give them a better life. He freed the ninth March 8, leaving only Silsby in custody.

Supporters of the group said they were only trying to help the children and simply misunderstood Haitian adoption rules intended to prevent child trafficking following the earthquake.

Lawyers for some of the former detainees welcomed the judge's decision.

Caleb Stegall, an attorney in Perry, Kansas, who represents four of the missionaries, said he had expected the charges to be dropped once his clients were allowed to leave Haiti. Still, he said, "They can have some closure."

Hiram Sasser, lawyer for former detainee Jim Allen of Amarillo, Texas, said Allen's family and friends were grateful.

"Obviously, we think it's great," said Sasser, a lawyer with the Liberty Institute, a non-profit religious rights activist group based in Plano, Texas.

Child trafficking has long been a serious problem in Haiti.

In a separate case Monday, three suspected Haitian traffickers were caught driving 24 children in the town of Mirebalais. The group was traveling with the children's birth certificates, suggesting they meant to put them up for adoption, local judge Vicran Charles said.

The judge said the suspects said they were taking the children to a woman who runs an orphanage in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and promised the children a better life.

The children, who were placed in a nearby orphanage, range in age from 1 to 13. None appeared to be orphans.

"I have a mom and a dad," said 8-year-old Jolen Plaisir. "They didn't tell me why they were sending me to an orphanage."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
        

Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. He writes in response to recent controversy over the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in the satirical cartoon series "South Park."

Islam does not prohibit pictorial representations.

Muslim clerics all over the world are desperate for relevance. In the early days of Islam people worshipped idols. The prohibition of pictorial representations during the prophet’s time was intended to discourage this practice. Pictorial representations of the Prophet Muhammad are not banned in the Quran; any references in the Quran are by reference to substituting images for God. I reproduce for you the relevant verse that refers to dedication of stones/statues in place of God.

005.090 YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination, - of Satan's handwork: eschew such (abomination) that ye may prosper. PICKTHAL: O ye who believe! Strong drink and games of chance and idols and divining arrows are only an infamy of Satan's handiwork. Leave it aside in order that ye may succeed. SHAKIR: O you who believe! Intoxicants and games of chance and (sacrificing to) stones set up and (dividing by) arrows are only uncleanness, the Satan’s work; shun it therefore that you may be successful.

Clerics also use sayings of the prophet or “Hadith” that were written a century after the prophet’s death by self-serving males to ban pictorial representation of the holy prophet. Even if the prophet said something about statues, it was in the context of his time and bears no relevance to today’s world. Of course in the Arabia of 1400 years ago there were no Picassos, cameras, or cartoonists to make people think.

Any depiction of the messenger of 1.2 billion people as long as it is not intended to insult the Muslims should not always be looked at in a negative light and be responded to with threats of murder. Of course, we must respect religious sensibilities.

The mad Taliban destroyed beautiful murals that were painted into the ceilings of the palace in Kabul and also the Bahamian statues of Buddha, by following such fales interpretations and inferences.

I do not think a believing Muslim would start worshipping or praying to a depiction of the holy prophet. The religious clerics and extremists have carried this prohibition far enough without offering logical reasons for wanting to kill someone for a simple expression of thought.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
        

The Vatican will finance new research, led by the University of Maryland's School of Medicine, into the potential use of adult stem cells in the treatment of intestinal and possibly other diseases, Baltimore Sun colleague Kelly Brewington reports.

The Italian-American partnership, known as the International Intestinal Stem Cell Consortium, brings together researchers from the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Maryland; The University of Salerno, Bambino Gesu — an Italian children's hospital; and the Istituto Superiore di Sanita — the Italian equivalent of the National Institutes of Health.

The project is at a preliminary phase and it will be years before any clinical treatment might be available, Vatican officials said.

Cardinal Renato Martino said he expected the Vatican to help finance the project through Bambino Gesu, but the exact amount must still be worked out in future meetings with the University of Maryland. An initial announcement by the university said the Vatican had already agreed to donate $2.7 million to the research.

Read more at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Producers of "South Park" said Thursday that Comedy Central removed a speech about intimidation and fear from their show after a radical Muslim group warned that they could be killed for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, the Associated Press reports.

It came during about 35 seconds of dialogue between the cartoon characters of Kyle, Jesus Christ and Santa Claus that was bleeped out.

"It wasn't some meta-joke on our part," producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone said. Comedy Central declined to comment.

Earlier this week, the radical group Revolution Muslim said on its website that "South Park" had insulted their prophet during last week's episode by depicting him in a bear costume.

The group said it wasn't threatening Parker and Stone, but it included a gruesome picture of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004, and said the producers could meet the same fate. The website posted the addresses of Comedy Central's New York office and the California production studio where "South Park" is made.

Despite that, Parker and Stone included the Muhammad character in this week's episode. Muhammad appeared with his body obscured by a black box, since Muslims consider a physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous. When the bear costume was removed, it was revealed to be Santa Claus.

Parker and Stone are known for waiting until the last minute to deliver episodes, often pulling all-nighters to get them done, and giving them the opportunity to address things in the news.

They said that in 14 years of making "South Park," which just had its 200th episode, they've never delivered one they couldn't stand behind.

"Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear," they said. "It didn't mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped ... We'll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we'll see what happens to it."

Besides the censored dialogue, only one inside joke in this week's episode could be interpreted as a reference to the Muslim group's warning.

During one scene, a mechanized Barbra Streisand robot is seen stomping through the town on a path of destruction. One voice is heard to say, "they've destroyed La Casa Bonita!"

"La Casa Bonita" is the name of Parker and Stone's production facility.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (36)
        

Students, clergy and other Baltimore-area Catholics flocked to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen this morning, as the Archdiocese of Baltimore began a two-day event to remember the life of Archbishop William D. Borders, Baltimore Sun colleague Joe Burris reports.

With two priests and two Knights of Columbus members standing by, visitors filed quietly past the open casket, some pausing with recollections of the man who was spiritual leader of the region's half-million Catholics from 1974 until 1989.

"He understood the role of Bishop, that the Bishop relates as a shepherd of the people," said Sister Rosalie Murphy, SND, who knew Archbishop Borders for 41 years.

"He was a philosopher, basically, and he was able to deal with questions that never daunted him. That was key to his makeup in a way. He was able to bring people together and hear different points of view."

Before leading a short service, Bishop Denis J. Madden recalled the archbishop's sense of humor. "I remember we would prepare our homilies and give him a copy of them. And one day I gave him a copy of my homily and he said, 'Denis, you're presuming I want to read this.' "

Read more at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Comedy Central's "South Park" included a representation of the Prophet Muhammad as a character this week despite a radical Muslim group's warning that its producers could be killed, the Associated Press reports.

Muhammad appeared on Wednesday night's episode of the cartoon with his face obscured by a black box, since Muslims consider a physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous. Last week, the character was briefly disguised in a bear costume. When that same costume was removed this week, Santa Claus appeared.

The bear costume had angered the New York-based group Revolution Muslim, which posted a message on its website saying that producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone had insulted their prophet.

The message included a gruesome picture of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004 after making a movie about a woman who rejected Muhammad's teachings. The message said the "South Park" producers would "probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh" for airing the show.

The posting included Comedy Central's New York address, as well as the address for Parker and Stone's California production studio.

Parker and Stone are known for waiting until the last minute before turning in fresh episodes. This week's episode contained no direct reference to the warning, although one inside joke could be interpreted as one.

During one scene, a mechanized Barbara Streisand robot is seen stomping through the town on a path of destruction. One voice is heard to say, "they've destroyed La Casa Bonita!"

"La Casa Bonita" is the name of Parker and Stone's production facility.

Comedy Central also censored 35 seconds worth of a conversation towards the end of the show between the characters Stan, Jesus Christ and Santa Claus. The network wouldn't say Thursday whether this contained any reference to the events.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

A Roman Catholic group is seeking another bishop to celebrate a special Mass at the nation's largest Catholic church after advocates for abuse victims objected to a retired Vatican cardinal, the Associated Press reports.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos had been scheduled to celebrate the Latin Mass on Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It is in honor of the fifth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's inauguration.

The Paulus Institute agreed Wednesday to find a replacement after the victims' group objected to Castrillon Hoyos. The now-retired cardinal wrote a letter in 2001 congratulating a French bishop for shielding a priest who was convicted of raping minors. At the time, Castrillon Hoyos headed the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, which is in charge of priests throughout the world.

The Paulus Institute says it stands with sexual abuse victims but it is not taking a position on the cardinal's conduct.

Castrillon Hoyos, 80, told an audience at a Catholic university in Murcia, Spain, last week that Pope John Paul II saw the letter and authorized him to send it to bishops worldwide.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said it faxed letters Tuesday to Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl and to the pope's representative in Washington, asking them to intervene to stop Castrillon Hoyos from celebrating the Mass.

"This cardinal's letter may be the single most hurtful thing we've seen written in the last decade," said David Clohessy, executive director of the survivors' group, known as SNAP.

Before the invitation to Castillon Hoyos was rescinded, Clohessy said that allowing him to celebrate the Mass "rubs salt into the already deep and fresh wounds."

"We believe it's crucial that church officials create a climate that encourages victims and witnesses and whistle-blowers to expose predators. And when wrongdoers are honored, it creates the opposite climate," he said.

The archdiocese said SNAP should take the issue up with the Paulus Institute, a group that promotes the Catholic liturgy and is organizing the Mass. The institute didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

But SNAP said it had not contacted the institute and believed church officials should intervene. Clohessy maintained that an archbishop can stop any priest from functioning in his territory.

Asked whether Wuerl had such authority, archdiocese spokeswoman Susan Gibbs said: "A cardinal in the church normally can celebrate Mass in a diocese."

Castrillon Hoyos' 2001 letter praised Bishop Pierre Pican, who received a three-month suspended prison sentence for concealing knowledge about the clergyman, the Rev. Rene Bissey. The priest himself was sentenced to 18 years for sexually abusing 11 minors.

It's not the only example of the cardinal apparently taking the side of a priest accused of abuse. Documents obtained by The Associated Press show that when Bishop Manuel Moreno of Tucson, Ariz., tried to defrock Monsignor Robert Trupia in the 1990s, Castrillon Hoyos also stood in the way.

When Trupia was confronted with an allegation of sexually abusing a boy, Moreno said Trupia "expressed relief that 'this was the only case that had been brought to my attention,'" according to internal church documents obtained by AP.

Trupia wanted to be allowed to retire in good standing rather than be defrocked. Moreno refused.

But in an Oct. 31, 1997 letter to Moreno, Castrillon Hoyos wrote that the Congregation for the Clergy had ruled in favor of Trupia, saying the punishments of the priest "seem to be without canonical basis."

Trupia was eventually defrocked in August 2004, 12 years after Moreno first suspended him.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

The Army is considering whether to rescind an invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to appear at the Pentagon amid complaints about his description of Islam as evil, the Associated Press reports.

Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, was to appear at the Pentagon on May 6 — the National Day of Prayer.

He said he will be a guest of the Pentagon and would speak only if he's still invited.

Army Col. Tom Collins said withdrawing the invitation "is on the table," but no decision has been made. He said Army brass will have the ultimate decision on whether to pull the invite.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation raised the objection to the appearance, citing Graham's past remarks about Islam.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the foundation, said the invitation offended Muslim employees at the Pentagon. He said it would endanger American troops by stirring up Muslim extremists.

Collins said the invitation wasn't from the Pentagon but from the Colorado-based National Day of Prayer Task Force, which works with the Pentagon chaplain's office on the prayer event.

Collins said neither Army Secretary John McHugh nor Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. was aware of the invitation.

The task force organizes Christian events for the National Day of Prayer.

Task force chairwoman Shirley Dobson said in a written statement that U.S. leaders have called for a day of prayer during times of crisis since 1775 but the tradition is under attack.

"Enough is enough," said Dobson, wife of conservative Christian leader James Dobson. "We at the National Day of Prayer Task Force ask the American people to defend the right to pray in the Pentagon."

She called on President Barack Obama to appeal a ruling by a federal judge in Wisconsin last week that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional because it amounts to a call for religious action. The judge did not bar any observances until all appeals are exhausted.

Weinstein objected to the working relationship between the Pentagon chaplain's office and the task force, saying the chaplains have effectively endorsed the task force by using its materials and routinely inviting its honorary chairman to speak at the Pentagon.

Weinstein said that amounts to preferential treatment in violation of Defense Department rules.

Collins said the working relationship has been reviewed by Pentagon lawyers and passed legal scrutiny.

"We are an all-inclusive military. We hold observances throughout the year. This one happens to be a Christian-themed event," Collins said.

Graham is president and CEO of both Samaritan's Purse, a Christian international relief organization in Boone, N.C., and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Charlotte.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Graham said Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion." In a later op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Graham wrote that he did not believe Muslims were evil because of their faith, but "as a minister ... I believe it is my responsibility to speak out against the terrible deeds that are committed as a result of Islamic teaching."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)
        

Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation Thursday of an Irish bishop who admitted he didn't challenge the Dublin church's policy of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests, the Associated Press reports.

Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare is the third Irish bishop to resign in the past four months as a result of the Irish abuse scandal, and two more have offered to go. He said he was stepping down because he realized that "renewal must begin with accepting responsibility for the past."

Moriarty, 73, offered to resign in December after admitting he didn't challenge the Dublin Archdiocese's past practice of concealing child-abuse complaints from police. He served as an auxiliary Dublin bishop from 1991 to 2002.

"The truth is that the long struggle of survivors to be heard and respected by church authorities has revealed a culture within the Church that many would simply describe as unchristian," Moriarty said in a statement. "This has been profoundly dispiriting for all who care about the church."

Two auxiliary Dublin bishops, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field, have offered to resign as well.

All three bishops were identified in an Irish government-ordered investigation published last year into decades of cover-ups of child-abusing clergy in the Dublin Archdiocese. The report found that all bishops until 1996 colluded to protect scores of pedophile priests from criminal prosecution.

The November report did not directly criticize Moriarty. But the bishop offered his resignation after accepting he should have taken personal responsibility for challenging the bishops' practice of keeping abuse complaints within the church.

In March, the pope accepted the resignation of Irish Bishop John Magee, who was accused of mishandling complaints against priests in his diocese of Cloyne. In December, Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick stepped down after an investigation into child sex abuse by clergymen accused him of ignoring reports of crimes by priests in his diocese.

There have been demands for more Irish bishops to resign, including for the country's top prelate, Cardinal Sean Brady, who has been accused of helping to cover up activities of pedophile priests.

Brady has said he would resign if he was found to have endangered children by his actions.

Moriarty said that in stepping down, he hoped to honor the victims who courageously came forward and said he hoped his gesture would help the church renew itself and reform.

"I believe the spiritual well-being of the people of God demands that this principle of the church as always in need of reform, which was embraced at the Second Vatican Council, should again come to the forefront of church life," Moriarty said in a statement.

The pope accepted his resignation under a code of canon law that allows bishops to step down if they are ill of for some other "grave reason" that makes them "unsuited for the fulfillment of his office." Moriarty is 73, two years shy of the normal retirement age for bishops.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

A radical Muslim group has warned the creators of "South Park" that they could face violent retribution for depicting the prophet Muhammad in a bear suit during last week's episode, the Associated Press reports.

The website RevolutionMuslim.com has since been taken down, but a cached version shows the message to "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The article's author, Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, said the men "outright insulted" the religious leader.

The posting showed a gruesome picture of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was shot and stabbed to death in an Amsterdam street in 2004 by a fanatic angered by his film about Muslim women. The film was written by a Muslim woman who rejected the Prophet Muhammad as a guide for today's morality.

"We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show," Al-Amrikee wrote. "This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them."

The posting listed the addresses of Comedy Central's New York office and Parker and Stone's California production office. It also linked to a Huffington Post article that described a Colorado retreat owned by the two men.

CNN, which first reported the posting, said the New York-based website is known for postings in support of jihad, or holy war, against the West and Osama bin Laden.

Al-Amrikee told The Associated Press that the posting was made to raise awareness of the issue and to see that it does not happen again. Asked if Parker and Stone should feel threatened by it, he said "they should feel threatened by what they did."

He said he was disappointed that publicity about the posting focused more on the potential danger to the producers but admitted, "I could shoulder some blame" for it.

He said he "can't answer that legally" when asked if his group favored jihad. But he praised bin Laden.

"We look up to him and admire him for the sacrifices he has given for the religion," he said.

Last week's episode, the 200th for the cheeky and often vulgar cartoon, was intended to feature many of the personalities and groups that Parker and Stone insulted during the series' run.

In 2006, Comedy Central banned the men from showing an image of Muhammad on their show. They had intended to comment on the controversy created by a Danish newspaper's publishing of caricatures of the Islamic leader. Muslims consider any physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous.

Instead, "South Park" showed an image of Jesus Christ defecating on President Bush and the American flag.

Comedy Central and the show's producers would not comment.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered legislation that would ban women from wearing Islamic veils that fully cover the face and body in public places, the government said Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.

It is Sarkozy's first political action toward an outright ban, though he has repeatedly said such outfits oppress women and are not welcome in France, home to a firmly secular government.

Government spokesman Luc Chatel said after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the president decided the government should submit a bill to parliament in May on an overall ban on such veils "in all public places."

That ups the stakes in Sarkozy's push against veils such as the burqa and niqab and chador. Some in his own party have bristled at a full-out ban, and France's highest administrative body has questioned whether it would be constitutional.

Sarkozy insisted that "everything should be done so that no one feels stigmatized," according to Chatel. Sarkozy said the veils "do not pose a problem in a religious sense, but threaten the dignity of women."

Chatel did not say how the new bill would affect a resolution already slated for discussion in parliament May 11 on ways of limiting the full veils.

France, nominally Roman Catholic, but also home to western Europe's largest Muslim population of at least 5 million. Very few French Muslim women wear face-hiding veils, but the issue has become a flashpoint of debate on national identity, the rights of religious groups in France's secular society and integration of France's immigrant populations.

Legislators and members of the government have been discussing ways to limit veils such as the burqa and niqab and chador for months. France banned Muslim head scarves and other "ostentatious" religious symbols from classrooms in 2004.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (116)
        

The head of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese has condemned a proposed Arizona crackdown on illegal immigrants, saying it encourages people to turn on each other in Nazi- and Soviet-style repression, the Associated Press reports.

The measure wrongly assumes that Arizonans "will now shift their total attention to guessing which Latino-looking or foreign-looking person may or may not have proper documents," Cardinal Roger Mahony said in his blog Sunday — a day before Arizona's Legislature sent the immigration enforcement measure to the Republican governor.

Gov. Jan Brewer has not indicated whether she will sign the bill, which creates a new state misdemeanor of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document. It would also require officers to determine people's immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally.

Arizona has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants. Proponents of the bill say it was prompted by concerns over the cost of providing services to illegal immigrants and by the slaying of an Arizona rancher near the Mexican border this month. Authorities believe he was fatally shot by an illegal immigrant possibly connected to a drug smuggling cartel.

Republican Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce, who sponsored the bill, has said it will take handcuffs off police and put them on violent criminals.

But Mahony, whose archdiocese has a huge Hispanic immigrant population, said the Arizona Legislature was passing "the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law."

Similar laws that were previously passed in other states have been repealed or struck down in the courts, he said.

"The tragedy of the law is its totally flawed reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources," Mahony said.

"I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation," the cardinal said. "Are children supposed to call 911 because one parent does not have proper papers? Are family members and neighbors now supposed to spy on one another, create total distrust across neighborhoods and communities, and report people because of suspicions based upon appearance?"

Provisions of the proposed law make it illegal for people to knowingly transport illegal immigrants or hire them for day labor, but it does not require regular citizens to report immigration violations.

A separate Arizona law already punishes companies caught knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Pope Benedict XVI promised Wednesday that the Catholic Church would take action to confront the clerical sex abuse scandal, making his first public comments on the crisis days after meeting with victims, the Associated Press reports.

During his weekly public audience in St. Peter's Square, Benedict recounted his tearful weekend encounter in Malta with eight men who say they were abused as children by priests in a church-run orphanage.

"I shared with them their suffering, and emotionally prayed with them, assuring them of church action," Benedict said.

At the time of the private meeting Sunday, the Vatican issued a statement saying Benedict had told the men that the church would do everything in its power to bring justice to abusive priests and would implement "effective measures" to protect children.

Wednesday, the public heard the words from the pope himself.

Neither Benedict nor the Vatican has elaborated on what action or measures are being considered. Various national bishops conferences have over the years implemented norms for handling cases of priests who sexually abuse children, none more stringent than the zero-tolerance policy adopted by the United States.

The U.S. norms, which are being held up as a model for others, bar credibly accused priests from any public church work while claims against them are under investigation. Diocesan review boards, comprised mostly of lay people, help bishops oversee cases. Clergy found guilty are permanently barred from public ministry and, in some cases, ousted from the priesthood.

Victims advocates have demanded the Vatican take stronger action and remove the bishops who shielded known abusers, shuffling them around from diocese to diocese rather than reporting them to police.

On Wednesday, two church officials in Dublin told The Associated Press that the pope had accepted the resignation of Bishop James Moriarty, who admitted in December that he hadn't challenged the Dublin archdioceses' past practice of concealing child abuse complaints from police.

A formal announcement is expected from the Vatican on Thursday, the church officials told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Vatican also is expected to accept the December resignation offers of two auxiliary Dublin bishops, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field, in coming weeks.

All three bishops were identified in an Irish government-ordered investigation published last year into decades of cover-ups of child-abusing clergy in the Dublin Archdiocese. The report found that all bishops until 1996 colluded to protect scores of pedophile priests from criminal prosecution.

Last week, the Vatican for the first time issued guidelines telling bishops they should report cases of abusive priests to police where civil laws require it. While the Vatican has insisted that was long its policy, it was never written explicitly and victims, lawyers, government-backed inquiries and grand juries have all accused the church of mounting a cover-up to keep clerical abuse secret and away from civil jurisdiction.

Benedict said in a homily last week that Christians must repent for sins and recognize their mistakes — comments widely interpreted as concerning the scandal. But his comments Wednesday marked his first public and direct remarks on the crisis since March 20, when he wrote a letter to the Irish faithful concerning the abuse crisis in that country.

In that letter, Benedict chastised Irish bishops for leadership failures and "gross errors of judgment" in handling abuse cases. But he laid no blame on the church hierarchy, whom critics blame for mandating a culture of secrecy that encouraged bishops to keep abuse quiet.

Three Irish government-ordered investigations published from 2005 to 2009 have documented how thousands of Irish children suffered rape, molestation and other abuse by priests in their parishes and by nuns and brothers in boarding schools and orphanages. Irish bishops did not report a single case to police until 1996 after victims began to sue the church.

The reports have faulted Rome for sending confusing messages to the Irish church about norms to be followed and, in general, for what it called the absence of a coherent set of canon laws and rules to apply in cases of abuse.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
        

A watchdog group objected Tuesday to an evangelist's invitation to speak at the Pentagon next month, saying his past description of Islam as "evil" offended Muslims who work for the Department of Defense and the appearance should be canceled, the Associated Press reports.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said inviting evangelist Franklin Graham to speak May 6, the National Day of Prayer, "would be like bringing someone in on national prayer day madly denigrating Christianity" or other religious groups.

It would also endanger American troops by stirring up Muslim extremists, Weinstein said.

Graham is the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham and president and CEO of both Samaritan's Purse, a Christian international relief organization in Boone, N.C., and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, in Charlotte, N.C.

He said through a spokesman that he will be a guest of the Pentagon and will speak only if he's still invited. A military spokeswoman said she was locating officials to respond to the criticism.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Graham said Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion." In a later op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Graham wrote that he did not believe Muslims were evil because of their faith, but "as a minister .... I believe it is my responsibility to speak out against the terrible deeds that are committed as a result of Islamic teaching."

Graham hasn't changed his views on Islam, said his spokesman, Mark DeMoss.

DeMoss quoted Graham as saying, "As the father of a son serving in his fourth combat tour, I'd be glad to know someone was leading a prayer service at the National Day of Prayer, or any other day."

Weinstein, the foundation president, also criticized the Pentagon's working relationship with the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a Colorado group that organizes Christian events for the prayer day, designated by Congress.

Weinstein said that while he doesn't object to the day of prayer, the Pentagon chaplain's office has effectively endorsed the task force by using its materials and routinely inviting its honorary chairman to speak at the Pentagon. Weinstein said that amounts to preferential treatment in violation of Defense Department rules.

Graham is honorary chairman this year for the National Day of Prayer Task Force, based in Colorado Springs. A spokesman for the task force didn't immediately return a telephone message.

Weinstein said the task force is entitled to organize Christian-oriented events. But he said the Pentagon chaplain shouldn't be closely affiliated with the task force because it requires that all its events be conducted by Christians, although those with other beliefs are welcome to attend.

A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled last week that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional because it amounts to a call for religious action. The judge did not bar any observances until all appeals are exhausted.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Israel must recognize that the world will not put up with decades more of Israeli rule over the Palestinian people, the country's defense minister said in unusually frank remarks Monday, the Associated Press reports.

Ehud Barak's comments came against the backdrop of severe friction between the U.S. and Israel's hawkish government over an impasse in peacemaking.

Last week, President Barack Obama issued a surprisingly pessimistic assessment of peacemaking prospects, saying the U.S. couldn't force its will on Israelis and Palestinians if they weren't interested in making the compromises necessary to end their decades-old conflict.

Barak spoke to Israel Radio on the occasion of Israel's Memorial Day, dedicated to the nearly 23,000 fallen soldiers and civilian victims of terror attacks. The day is observed with a two-minute nationwide siren when people stand at attention, traffic is halted and everyday activities come briefly to a standstill.

At sundown Monday, the somber Memorial Day switched into Israel's 62nd Independence Day celebrations. At Mount Herzl, Israel's national cemetery, thousands watched an elaborate program of songs and folk dance while fireworks popped overhead.

Both dates are traditionally a time for introspection. This year, Israelis are dwelling on issues such as the country's growing isolation over its policies toward the Palestinians, the growing rift with the U.S. and the failure to relaunch peace talks.

Barak told Israel Radio that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has "done things that didn't come naturally to it," such as adopting the vision of two states for two peoples and curtailing settlement construction.

"But we also shouldn't delude ourselves," he added. "The growing alienation between us and the United States is not good for the state of Israel."

The way to narrow that gap is to embark on an Israeli diplomatic initiative "that doesn't shy from dealing with all the core issues" dividing Israelis and Palestinians, he said. Chief among these are the status of contested Jerusalem, final borders and a solution for Palestinian refugees from the war around Israel's 1948 independence.

In an interview Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Netanyahu said he would not accept Palestinian demands that Israel stop building in the traditionally Arab part of east Jerusalem.

In the interview, Netanyahu sought to minimize differences with President Barack Obama over the Mideast peace process. But he acknowledged that "we have some outstanding issues. We're trying to resolve them through diplomatic channels in the best way that we can."

Barak dismissed talk of an imposed U.S. solution — an idea fielded recently in Washington. But he warned that while Israel is militarily strong, it needs international legitimacy as well.

"The world isn't willing to accept — and we won't change that in 2010 — the expectation that Israel will rule another people for decades more," he said. "It's something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world."

Palestinians aspire to a state of their own, he said, and "there is no other way, whether you like it or not, than to let them rule themselves."

Barak heads the Labor Party, the most moderate member of Netanyahu's government.

But as defense minister in the country's past two governments, Barak has not taken down the two dozen settlement satellites that Israel promised the U.S. it would dismantle in 2003. Dovish critics have accused him of making Labor a fig leaf for the Netanyahu government's hawkish policies.

It wasn't clear whether Barak's statements reflected government policy, his own personal opinion or a desire to reach out to Labor voters. Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev declined to comment.

Later Monday, Netanyahu told the audience at the national cemetery that Israel is eager for peace, but is ready to confront its enemies.

"We extend one hand in peace to all our neighbors who wish for peace," Netanyahu said. "Our other hand grasps the sword of David in order to defend our people against those who seek to kill us."

The Obama administration has been pushing to renew Israeli-Palestinian peace talks but despite shuttle diplomacy and unusual pressure on ally Israel, it hasn't even been able to launch the indirect talks it had hoped would start last month.

Plans for those talks were put on hold indefinitely after Israel announced plans for a new housing project in east Jerusalem. Palestinians claim that sector of the city as the capital of a future state, and have refused to sit down for talks until Israel agrees to freeze all construction there — something it has refused to do.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The body of Archbishop William Donald Borders will lie in state at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on Thursday and Friday before a Mass of Christian Burial Friday at the cathedral.

Complete funeral details for the 13th archbishop of Baltimore, who died Monday at 96, as released by the Archdiocese of Baltimore:

All funeral ceremonies will take place at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, 5200 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210.

Thursday, April 22, 2010
10 a.m. Reception of the Body (Bishop Denis Madden will receive the body)
10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Public Visitation (The body of Archbishop Borders will lie in state)
7:30 p.m. Office for the Dead (Evening prayer for the dead)

Friday, April 23, 2010
9 a.m. to Noon Public Visitation
1 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial
Private Entombment in the Cathedral Crypt immediately following the Mass of Christian Burial

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The Archdiocese of Baltimore's first new elementary school in more than 60 years will be called Holy Angels Catholic School, the archdiocese announced Tuesday.

“We are delighted to have this much anticipated name for our new school," said Father Charles Hall Catholic Elementary School Principal Kathleen Filipelli, who will head Holy Angels in the fall. "Bravo to the Catholic school parents, students, and teachers who allowed the angels to guide them. Holy Angels Catholic School will be a positive and happy learning community."

The school is set to open for 2010-11 on the grounds of Seton Keough High School as part of the school reorganization announced last month by Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien. It is expected to attract students from Ascension School, St. Bernardine Catholic School, Father Charles Hall Catholic Elementary School, St. Rose of Lima School and St. William of York School, all of which the archdiocese plans to close at the end of the current school year.

If funding and enrollment permit, O'Brien said, the archdiocese eventually will build a new facility for the school.

The name Holy Angels finished first among five options in an online survey last week with 42 percent of the vote. Students were also allowed to write in choices.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

The Rev. Jason Poling is pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.

On Monday morning the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a case that has the potential to set tremendously important precedents for the exercise of First Amendment rights. Or for the protection of people from discriminatory treatment. It depends how you see it.

In a nutshell, the situation is this: A Christian student group at Hastings, a law school in the University of California system, was denied recognition because it requires that members sign a statement of faith and abstain from "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle." Without recognition, the group was treated like any other non-campus group: No preferential scheduling of meeting spaces, no access to campus-wide email, no access to student organization bulletin boards, no (modest) allocation for expenses.

So, they sued. (Remember, these are law students. Really, what better way to make use of an expensive education than a test case that would ultimately go to the Supreme Court?) The students claimed the school was infringing on their right to free association (and exercise of religion); the school claimed the students could only constitute as a student group if it followed the school's non-discrimination policy, which the organization's by-laws transgressed.

It's a difficult choice: Should a publicly funded institution provide support to an organization that operates against its principles? Should an organization be required to compromise its principles in order to function as a recognized student group? Do we really want to live in a world where the Folk Music Society can’t kick out its treasurer for being photographed in the front row at a Black-Eyed Peas concert?

Let me put it this way: Would it be a valuable thing to have an academic environment where students and faculty are free to associate around shared beliefs, and where the campus operates according to the principle that diversity of opinions and practices is a good thing? Is there a sense in which what taxpayers “buy” in our institutions of public education is a learning environment which, like a guitar string, is useless without some tension?

Students who want to advocate for, say, open marriage, would be free at Hastings to start an organization celebrating, advocating and engaging in the practice. Why can’t a group of students holding a different set of values affiliate accordingly? In truth, the latter group would face far greater discrimination on virtually any law school campus today. Shouldn’t a free society bend over backwards to ensure that less popular views have an opportunity to be aired?

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Categories: Christianity, Church and State, Guest Posts, Jason Poling, Law and Courts
        

Archbishop William Donald Borders, the 13th archbishop of Baltimore, died at 10:03 a.m. Monday at Stella Maris in Timonium. He was 96.

The Baltimore Sun has produced an obituary.

An official biography is available at the Archdiocese of Baltimore website.

Following is the statement of Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien:

Archbishop Borders was a man of deep faith, great humility and great love for God, the Church and this Archdiocese. As a result, he was universally loved by the people of this local Church, by his brother bishops and priests, and by all who were blessed to call him Archbishop, Father, teacher, brother and friend.

By any measure William Donald Borders served an extraordinary life. From the very date of his birth on October 9, 1913 in the middle of a flood so fierce it lifted his family home off its foundation and the doctor had to be transported to the home by boat, to his chaplaincy service during World War II in North Africa and Italy, which earned him the Bronze Star for Valor, the Archbishop’s quite strength would guide him throughout his life of service.

That strength would be called on throughout his tenure as the first-ever Bishop of Orlando and eventually the 13th Archbishop of the oldest Catholic diocese in the Nation, as he was forced to tackle a number of pressing issues, including the desegregation of public schools, housing for the poor, and the role of the laity in the Church.

Ever the teacher, the Archbishop would guide the faithful on these and other issues with his prolific writings, many of which remain relevant today and serve as guides for Church leaders throughout the United States.

The Church and people of God of this Archdiocese benefitted immeasurably from his visionary leadership, indefatigable spirit and generous love. On a personal note, I counted him among my most worthy advisors since my arrival in Baltimore and will miss his fraternal love and supportive and joyful presence. May he be welcomed into God’s kingdom where he will suffer no more and where he will know God’s peace for all eternity.

And the statement of Cardinal William H. Keeler:

Archbishop William Donald Borders was a good and gentle person whom I got to know very well over Saturday evening dinners following my installation as Archbishop of Baltimore. We would discuss all of the matters that were before us and I would share my viewpoint on activities in the Archdiocese. I was particularly grateful for his insights regarding the priests and people of the Archdiocese. When I told him recently that I had left the Archdiocese after the installation of my successor, he told me that he had done the same thing as a courtesy to me. I recalled that he made a long trip to the Midwest, probably to his relatives in Indiana, at the time that I had become the Archbishop here. These simple gestures indicate the kind of person Archbishop Borders was.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

With tears in his eyes, Pope Benedict XVI made his most personal gesture yet to respond to the clerical sex abuse scandal Sunday, telling victims the church will do everything possible to protect children and bring abusive priests to justice, the Associated Press reports.

The emotional moment carried no new admissions from the Vatican, which has strongly rejected accusations that efforts to cover up for abusive priests were directed by the church hierarchy for decades. But the pontiff told the men that the church would "implement effective measures" to protect children, the Vatican said, without offering details.

Benedict met for more than a half-hour with eight Maltese men who say they were abused by four priests when they were boys living at a Catholic orphanage. During the meeting in the chapel at the Vatican's embassy here, Benedict expressed his "shame and sorrow" at the pain the men and their families suffered, the Vatican said.

"Everybody was crying," one of the men, Joseph Magro, 38, told Associated Press Television News after the meeting. "I told him my name was Joseph, and he had tears in his eyes."

The visit — which came on the second day of Benedict's two-day trip to this largely Roman Catholic island — marked the first time Benedict had met with abuse victims since the worldwide clerical abuse scandal engulfed the Vatican earlier this year.

"He prayed with them and assured them that the Church is doing, and will continue to do, all in its power to investigate allegations, to bring to justice those responsible for abuse and to implement effective measures designed to safeguard young people in the future," the Vatican statement said.

Victims' advocacy groups have demanded that the Vatican take concrete steps to protect children and remove abusive priests and the bishops who protected them, saying the pope's expressions to date of solidarity and shame were meaningless unless actual action is taken.

The main U.S. victims group, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said it was easy for Benedict to make promises about taking action to protect children.

"Not a single adult should feel relieved until strong steps are actually taken, not promised, that will prevent future child sex crimes and cover-ups," said Peter Isely, the group's Midwest director.

Magro said the men, in their 30s and 40s, received a call Sunday morning to come to the embassy and that the pope spent a few minutes with each of them. He said the overall encounter, which lasted about 35 minutes, was "fantastic."

Lawrence Grech, who led efforts to arrange the encounter, said the pope told each of the men: "I am very proud of you for having come forward to tell your story."

Grech said he told the pontiff: "This a one-time opportunity in life ... you have the power to fill the emptiness that I had, someone else took my innocence and my faith."

At the end, they prayed together and the pope gave his blessing, the Vatican said.

"The climate was intense but very serene," said Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

The private meeting was confirmed only after it had occurred — as was the case when Benedict met with abuse victims in the United States and Australia in 2008. He returned to Rome late Sunday.

Benedict's overnight trip to Malta — originally scheduled to commemorate the 1,950th anniversary of St. Paul's shipwreck — had been overshadowed by expectations that he would make a strong gesture to repair the damage of the scandal.

Benedict has been accused by victims groups and their lawyers of being part of systematic practice of cover-up by church hierarchy for pedophile priests, in his earlier roles as an archbishop in Germany and later at the helm of the Vatican morals office.

BishopAccountability.org, a U.S.-based website that tracks abuse, called on Benedict to follow up his words with actions.

"The pope must follow the meeting in Malta by accounting fully for his own role in the crisis and by disciplining complicit officials," the group said in a statement. "Otherwise, it will be evident that he was exploiting the goodwill of the survivors in Malta to improve his image."

Benedict made no direct reference to the scandals during a Mass Sunday morning. He told Maltese to cling to their faith despite the temptations of modern society.

"Many voices try to persuade us to put aside our faith in God and his church," he warned.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

A German court convicted ultraconservative British Bishop Richard Williamson on Friday of denying the Holocaust in a television interview, the Associated Press reports.

A court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg found Williamson guilty of incitement for saying in a 2008 interview with Swedish television that he did not believe Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II.

The court ordered Williamson to pay a fine of euro10,000 ($13,544).

The Roman Catholic bishop was barred by his order from attending Friday's proceedings or making statements to the media.

His lawyer, Matthias Lossmann, told The Associated Press after the court ruling that Williamson has yet to decide whether he would appeal.

Denying the Holocaust is a criminal offense in Germany.

The court ordered a fine of 12,000 euros for Williamson last year, without a trial. But the bishop appealed, forcing his case to be tried publicly.

Lossmann said that Williamson had explicitly asked the Swedish television crew conducting the interview not to broadcast it in Germany.

In issuing her ruling, Judge Karin Frahm said the bishop could not have expected that the clip would show up on YouTube and be seen directly in Germany, and that led her to reduce the fine, court spokesman Bernhard Schneider told the AP.

The journalists who conducted the interview ignored a court order to attend the trial, Lossmann said, leaving the judge to rely on written statements as testimony.

"That does not do a case like this justice," Lossmann said.

The interview was conducted near Regensburg and was granted shortly before Williamson's excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI, along with that of three other bishops from the anti-modernization movement of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors said in a statement it welcomed the ruling as "a symbol of modern German determination to prohibit the dissemination of Holocaust denial on its soil."

The U.S.-based group's vice president, Elan Steinberg, called Williamson's remarks vile and craven and called upon his order and the Vatican to cut all ties with him.

The lifting of Williamson's excommunication sparked outrage among Jewish groups and in Israel. The Vatican's handling of the affair prompted criticism from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Six million Jews were killed during the Nazi Holocaust, many of them murdered in gas chambers.

Williamson lives in Britain.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

The dissident Swiss theologian Hans Küng is urging bishops to disobey the pope and push for reforms in the Roman Catholic Church, the Associated Press reports.

The 82-year-old former colleague and friend of Pope Benedict XVI says the church is in its deepest crisis since the Protestant Reformation after recent revelations of sexual abuse by clergy and the ensuing erosion of trust.

Küng, a veteran of the Second Vatican Council, says in an editorial in daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that bishops should call for a new synod to discuss reforms.

He says it is legitimate for bishops to pressure Roman authorities if the pope blocks their efforts. The bishops should not be "actors without voice or rights."

The editorial also appeared in the New York Times and La Repubblica.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Pope Benedict XVI spoke Thursday about "attacks" on the church and the need for Catholics to repent for sins and recognize their mistakes, in an apparent reference to the clerical abuse scandal, the Associated Press reports.

Benedict made the comments during a homily at a Mass inside the Vatican for members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Victims of clerical abuse have long demanded that Benedict take more personal responsibility for clerical abuse, charging that the Vatican mandated a culture of cover-up and secrecy that allowed priests to rape and molest children for decades unchecked.

Those demands have intensified in recent weeks as the Vatican and Benedict himself have been accused of negligence in handling some cases in Europe and the United States.

"I must say, we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word 'repent', which seemed too tough. But now under attack from the world, which has been telling us about our sins ... we realize that it's necessary to repent, in other words, recognize what is wrong in our lives," Benedict said.

"Open ourselves to forgiveness ... and let ourselves be transformed. The pain of repentance, which is a purification and transformation, is a grace because it is renewal and the work of divine mercy," he said.

It was Benedict's fullest allusion to the scandal since he sent a letter to the Irish faithful March 20 concerning what Irish-government inquiries have concluded was decades of abuse and church-mandated cover-up in the country.

In his letter, Benedict chastised Irish bishops for failures in leadership and judgment. But he took no responsibility himself or for the Vatican, which many victims have blamed for being more concerned about protecting the church than children.

On Monday, the Vatican posted on its Web site what it claimed had been a long-standing church policy telling bishops that they should report abuse crimes to police, where civil laws require it.

But critics have said the guidelines were merely a deceptive attempt to rewrite history, designed to shield the Vatican from blame by shifting responsibility of dealing with abusive priests onto bishops.

The Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, a canon lawyer who has been the main expert witness for victims in hundreds of lawsuits, called the guidelines a "failed attempt at damage control through revision of history."

He noted that senior Vatican officials, including the current Vatican No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, have been quoted as saying the church shouldn't require bishops to report abusive priests to police because it would violate the trust the two shared.

"In practice, the policy has been to avoid contact with civil authorities and to cover up the crimes and the criminals," Doyle wrote in an article this week. "The newly created canonical tradition of referral to civil authorities is the result of one thing: public outrage, the exposure from the media and the pressure for accountability in civil courts."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

The Rev. Scott Slater has been named canon to Episcopal Bishops Eugene Sutton Taylor and John L. Rabb, the Diocese of Maryland announced Thursday.

He is to succeed the Rev. Mary Glasspool, the longtime canon, or adviser, who is to be consecrated a bishop next month in the Diocese of Los Angeles. His assignment begins on July 12.

From the Diocese of Maryland:

Scott has over 20 years of experience in parish ministry in numerous dioceses. He has served nine years as rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Towson, Maryland. He has also twice served as an associate rector for Christian Education, a school chaplain, and (prior to ordination) as a Youth Minister. Scott graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in Landscape Architecture (which he practiced in Florida for three years before entering the ministry full time). He holds a Master of Divinity and a Master of Christian Education from Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria and a Doctorate of Ministry from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta. In the Diocese of Maryland, Scott has served on the Standing Committee, the Christian Formation Council, the boards of Episcopal Community Services and the Maryland Episcopal Clergy Association, and as a Fresh Start facilitator. Ecumenically he has been a local board member and officer for Well For the Journey and the Towson Area Ministerial Association.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Russia suspended all adoptions to U.S. families on Thursday until the two countries can agree on procedures, the Associated Press reports. The move comes a week after an American woman sent her 7-year-old adopted son back to Russia on a plane by himself.

The boy's return — without supervision or explanation aside from a note he carried from his adoptive mother saying he had psychological problems — has incensed Russia and prompted aggressive media coverage of foreign adoptions.

A U.S. delegation will visit Moscow "in the next few days" to discuss international adoptions and a possible bilateral agreement, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.

"Russia believes that only such an agreement which will contain effective tools for Russian and U.S. officials to monitor the living conditions of adopted Russian children will ensure that recent tragedies in the United States will not be repeated," Nesterenko said in a televised briefing.

The Tennessee woman who sent back the 7-year-old boy last Thursday claimed she had been misled by his Russian orphanage about his condition.

Russians have been outraged that no charges have been filed against her.

For several years, Russian lawmakers have suggested suspending U.S. adoptions after other cases of abuse and even killings of Russian children adopted in the United States, but no formal measures had been taken until Thursday.

More than 1,800 Russian children were adopted in the United States last year, according to Russia's Health and Education Ministry.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)
        

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland has filed a complaint with a city agency on behalf of a Muslim woman whose application to be a foster mother was denied, in part, because she does not allow pork in her home, Baltimore Sun colleague Brent Jones reports.

Tashima Crudup, 26, said she contacted Contemporary Family Services in July and went through 50 hours worth of training classes to become a foster parent. The organization is a private company authorized by the state to place foster children with families.

The complaint alleges that Crudup's application was denied after it was discovered during the interview process that she prohibits pork products in her Middle River home. In a letter dated Oct. 12 from Contemporary Family Services, the company tells Crudup that the application is being denied out of "concerns raised by statements made during the home study interview, specifically your explicit request to prohibit pork products within your home environment. Although we respect your personal/religious views and practices, this agency must above all ensure that the religious, cultural and personal rights of each foster child placed in our care are upheld."

Crudup earlier this year reached out to the ACLU, who filed a complaint with the Baltimore City Community Relations Commission over the incident Wednesday.

Read the story at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

The publisher of the Baltimore Jewish Times, to which we have often referred on this blog, is filing for bankruptcy protection Wednesday afternoon after stumbling financially when it lost a major lawsuit to a printing company, Baltimore Sun colleague Gus Setementes reports.

Gus writes that Baltimore-based Alter Communications Inc., which also publishes Style and Chesapeake Life magazines and other publications, plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. District Court of Maryland in Baltimore:

The bankruptcy filing will not affect the company's day-to-day operations for employees, readers and advertisers, the company said. The Jewish Times and the other publications will continue to be published, the company said in a statement.

"Here's the headline: we're not going anywhere," said Andrew Alter Buerger, president, publisher and chief executive of Alter Communications said. "Our family and our company have been deep in the fabric of this community for five generations, and we are committed to continuing that relationship."

For less than a dollar per week, the Jewish Times has been a fixture for news coverage of the Jewish community in the Baltimore area for years. Maryland residents receive the weekly paper, which averages 120 pages, for an annual subscription of $46.59. The paper is distributed to a readership of more than 50,000, according to its Web site.

Read the story at baltimoresun.com

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the Director of Project Genesis, a Jewish cyber-outreach organization based in Baltimore.

The Passover break gave me an opportunity to catch up on some reading, and I came across an article in Commentary Magazine (by Andrew Ferguson, a senior editor at the Weekly Standard) about the NY Times' Caricature of the Tea Party Movement. It is an interesting read, exploring the methodologies employed by a purportedly unbiased media to subtly -- and not-so-subtly -- discredit, and even demonize, a wave sweeping across the American political landscape.

This is a particularly compelling topic, because the media's campaign has apparently been surprisingly effective -- and come to think of it, I haven't been immune. I acquired a dim view of these Tea Partiers through media reports, and still don't know enough about them. So please don't come away thinking I am a supporter of anything other than accuracy and impartiality in the media.

There is a strange disparity between how people perceive the views of the Tea Partiers, and how they perceive the movement itself. In a recent Rasmussen poll, respondents were asked whether the views of the president or the average tea party member were closer to their own. 48 percent went for the Tea Partiers, vs. only 44 percent for the president.

Especially given that 44 percent is within a couple points of the president's approval rating, one might expect that roughly half of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement -- and one would be wrong. In fact, whereas in December a WSJ/NBC poll found the Tea Party movement was held in higher esteem than either the Democratic or Republican Party, a recent Fox News poll shows just the opposite is true today.

It wasn't until the ninth paragraph of the Commentary piece that I recognized how relevant all of this was to the Orthodox Jewish community, which, though relatively conservative politically, is not well represented at the tea parties. That's when I encountered this sentence: "It was difficult to find a story mentioning the Tea Partiers in which the words fear or anger didn’t figure prominently." That sounded all too familiar -- after all, when is the last time you read an article about a conflict involving Orthodox Jews, especially charedim, "in which the words fear or anger didn’t figure prominently?" Typical are these words from a Conservative Rabbi: "Since the death of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the Haredi community has become more radicalized because of their hatred and fear of modernity in general and especially egalitarianism." Revisiting Ferguson's list of the methods used to discredit the Tea Party Movement, I was struck by the parallels.

Accusations of Bigotry: For the Tea Parties, it's ABC reporting that they are “driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black president.” The Charedim are portrayed as racist (against blacks, hispanics and Sephardic Jews), anti-women, and as believing that non-Orthodox Jews are not Jews at all.

The fringe "nutcakes" are deemed representative of the group. For the Tea Partiers, it's the fellow with a sign portraying Obama as Hitler. For the Orthodox, it's Bernie Madoff, Niturei Karta, hooligans in Meah Shearim, and a chassid selling kidneys out of his house in Brooklyn.

Associations with violent extremists: Orthodox Jews would be lucky to "merely" be grouped with Randy Weaver, the John Birch Society, and Lyndon LaRouche supporters. Instead, Rabbis are bunched together with Muslim Jihadists. To cite but one example, "Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East" covers Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, Hizbullah, Radical Shi'ites, Hamas, and "the group of Jewish rabbis who appear to have inspired the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin." Not only is the myth that Yigal Amir operated under rabbinic guidance or "inspiration" taken as fact, but his insane act licenses the inclusion of Orthodox Rabbis in what is otherwise an encyclopedia of Islamic terrorists and their supporters.

Staged Provocations, in which the media is invited to witness attempts to elicit a violent or otherwise inappropriate response, seem to be a common tactic as well. As Andrew Breitbart pointed out, having the Congressional Black Caucus wade through a "majority white" Tea Party protest -- rather than using the tunnels built to convey congressmen to Capitol Hill -- was a media stunt that more than likely was intended to draw a reaction that they didn't get. During the massive protest against the Israeli Supreme Court several years ago, a woman in revealing dress was similarly sent through the crowd with the media watching, and no one reacted. When women boarded the separate-gender bus lines, specifically to deny others the service which they had requested, the media even noted that "contrary to expectations, the protest did not provoke a violent response from the haredi public" [emphasis added]. Apparently, it takes provocations at a holy site (i.e. the "Women of the Wall") to draw a reaction -- perhaps the media will remember that the next time a Tea Party group gathers near a church.

Mythology brings up the rear -- when you can't find a sufficiently incendiary fact, you make it up. Breitbart has offered a $100,000 reward for anyone, whether TV cameraman or citizen with a cellphone, able to prove the claim that the N-word was tossed at the CBC as they walked through. No one seems able to claim the cash. Similarly, we have been informed by an "unbiased" media that excrement was thrown at the Western Wall, that Rabbis refuse to believe an observant Jew might commit a crime, or even that a disabled Jew was assaulted for using an electric wheelchair on Shabbat.

Have I missed anything? Or have we found a common arsenal of media tactics? It is something to keep in mind when reading any "news" article about either group -- or any other that a liberal-leaning pool of journalists might be predisposed to dislike.

The conclusion of Ferguson's article, at least, provides the glimmer of hope. He claims that there has been "a discernible shift in tone and attitude" as the Tea Party groups have become more and more mainstream. He concludes: "sure, those right-wingers are raging lunatics, volatile, out of control, a threat to law and decency -- until they start to win."

Has anyone else read the latest Jewish demographics?

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
        

Nine years of scrutiny have made some American Muslims wary of the federal government, and that has the U.S. Census bureau working to make sure its crucial survey doesn't become a casualty of fear, the Associated Press reports.

Muslims are not the only group the agency has identified as needing special attention, but they may be among the likeliest to shun the mail-in questionnaires. America's Muslim population includes large numbers of recent immigrants, and community leaders say nearly a decade of bearing the brunt of the country's post Sept. 11 terrorism fears have taken their toll.

"You still have people in a kind of paranoid state of mind," said Khalilah Sabra, director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation in North Carolina.

That might be particularly true in the Raleigh-Durham area, she said, where seven local Muslim men were arrested in July and charged with plotting to travel overseas to carry out acts of terrorism.

Sabra, who is working to convince Muslims in the area to participate, says she's heard many times this year from people who plan to ignore the census forms out of fear.

Jihad Shawwa, of Raleigh, has heard the same concerns, but says those fears risk putting American Muslims in a position where they don't take full advantage of their citizenship.

"I'm not going to stretch my mind to the point where I'm living in fear because I'm a Muslim," he said.

Even absent the fresh trauma of the 2009 arrests, some of the area's 30,000 to 40,000 Muslims would likely be wary of the census, said Mohamed El-Gamal, who leads the local Muslim American Public Affairs Council.

"If what happened in July had not happened, skeptical people would still be skeptical," he said.

The census is prohibited from sharing information that could identify individuals, including with other federal agencies or law enforcement. Census workers also take an oath, swearing for life to protect the confidentiality of data, with a possible five years in prison for breaching that trust.

Technically, no Muslims will be counted at all. Also absent from the count will be Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and religious believers and unbelievers of all kinds because religion is not a category tracked by the census.

Still, for Americans who have been the subject of suspicion since the September 11 attacks — many from countries where governments put little stock in oaths or restraint — the survey is a tough sell.

"It's very hard to convince people that this is going to be a vital tool to help them," said Sabra. "They're afraid that information will be used not for them, but against them some time in the future."

Wariness about the census is common among recent immigrants, regardless of religious affiliation, and it isn't the only factor that makes a population difficult to count.

Homeless people are by definition hard to locate, since they lack permanent addresses. People who have lost jobs or seen their homes foreclosed on are likelier to make frequent moves, making it harder to count them. Even ideology can play a role: this year, some conservatives, irked at what they see as federal overreach, are urging people to either skip the form or answer only the question asking how many people live at their address.

The bureau has been working to ease these concerns for more than a year, said Tony Jones, a spokesman with the agency's Charlotte office. "Partnership specialists" have fanned out across North Carolina and other states, going to houses of worship, schools and other gathering points to distribute information and answer questions.

Rahman Khan, one such specialist in Charlotte, has been traveling the state, visiting mosques and setting up meetings with community leaders. Part of the fear, he said, comes from a lack of understanding about how census data is used.

"A woman in Greensboro told me just the other day that she was told Muslims shouldn't fill out the census," he said. "Once I talk about the importance of the census and how they don't ask questions about religious affiliation, people are less reluctant."

Nationally, the census bureau has teamed with organizations like the American Muslim Interactive Network and the Muslim American Society to convince Islamic believers they have nothing to fear from the survey.

At stake is roughly $400 billion in annual federal dollars that flows to local communities based on the count, which is why advocacy groups are working so hard to boost participation. They recognize, though, that convincing Muslims takes more than simple assurance.

"I don't want people to feel like we can brush it under the rug," said Hazami Barmada, president of the interactive network, which recently held an open forum with census officials in Washington. "It's important for the U.S. government to say yes, your community has legitimate fears."

Even for those willing to fill out the forms, though, the lack of check-off boxes indicating Arab or Persian ethnicity is a sore point.

"There's so many categories," Shawwa said. "Japanese, Korean, Cuban. Why not Arab?"

Some of the groups urging American Muslims to participate are asking people to press elected officials for such categories on the 2020 census.

"That's kind of hard to accept," Sabra said. "If people feel they're taking a risk by filling this form out, it doesn't help when they don't see themselves reflected in it."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. He left his native Pakistan in 1972 and has been living in the United States since 1980.

People of all faiths have fought each other in the past but that does not mean that animosity must survive in perpetuity. This is madness. Christians of the inquisition era victimized Jews and Muslims in Europe, but that has not stopped Jews and Christians from building bridges of understanding and sharing common values that promote the well being of everyone.

The whole world knows about the Palestinian problem, yet that has not stopped some Muslim countries from dealing and having diplomatic relations with Israel. This engagement and recognition has yielded peace dividends and allowed these states to focus on economic development and the well-being of their peoples.

Why has Turkey recognized Israel? The answer is not that complicated. Proud Turkey boasts the second largest army in NATO. It analyzed its own self-interest in joining the European Common Market and determined that recognizing Israel would help Turkish interests. Turkish people as Muslims are equally concerned about the plight of Palestinians, but this concern has not stopped Turkey from doing what is best for Turkey.

In its efforts to meet constitutional and legal requirements for membership in the European Union, the Islamic party in Turkey long viewed with suspicion by Turkey’s guardians of secularism – namely, the Turkish army – has emerged as a champion of democracy and reform. They have succeeded in presenting a brand of secular Islam that allows for separation of church and state with complete freedom of religion. This action does not mean that Turkey has lost its cultural identity or abolished Islam; on the contrary, it has given more freedoms to Turkish citizens to practice their cherished faiths.

This transformation has weakened the hands of autocratic forces led by adventurous generals who have toppled elected governments in the past. Turkey’s success can be used as a benchmark for all Muslim countries in different phases of democratization.

Like Turkey, Pakistan has a history of military intervention by adventurous generals who have in the past exploited a weak judiciary and an undereducated elected assembly to seize power. Through this process, Pakistan has been denied the economic and political success enjoyed by its neighbor and birth twin, India.

Why have many Muslim countries not recognized Israel?

Most of the Muslim world outside the Middle East has no border dispute with Israel. Israel’s rejection is based on the principle of showing solidarity with the homeless Palestinian people. But does such rejection really serve the interests of the homeless people of Palestine? The answer is a clear No.

Self-serving autocratic rulers, both military and civil, running pseudo-democracies have used the plight of the Palestinian people to harvest support among a largely illiterate and emotional Muslim population. Instead of taking concrete steps to assist the dispossessed Palestinian people with real economic support through capital investment, their support is mostly in the form of votes at the United Nations.

By engaging Israel and its people, a better solution could have been found many years ago. Religion is one of the greatest unifying tools on earth. Today, instead of identifying common bonds shared by Muslims with their Jewish and Christian brothers as fellow children of Abraham, the religious clerics are busy infusing young Muslims with hatred especially for the state of Israel and Jews in general. Middle Eastern donors wishing to export their brand of theocratic Islam have empowered religious groups throughout the world to foment and nurture hatred against the state of Israel.

The Islamic parties in Pakistan have always failed to draw enough votes because their ideology of establishing a theocracy with a caliphate or king does not appeal to the average Pakistani. Separated by the sea, a Pakistani has little in common with a Middle Eastern Arab. Yet the Islamic parties are busy transforming madrassa children and ordinary illiterate Pakistanis into Arabs.

The United States is a prime example of Jewish-Christian friendship and understanding.
The Jewish community in America is a model community that has excelled in business, education, politics and philanthropy. Jewish leaders walked arm in arm with Martin Luther King during his march on Washington. Jewish leadership has secured many of the rights enjoyed today by all immigrants. Congress has many Jewish members who are elected on the strength of their political credentials. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is a very successful lobbying organization that protects Israel’s interests by influencing American foreign policy.

The American political system allows lobbying and this process is open to anyone. Many other communities who wish to influence American foreign policy with respect to their country of origin have emulated American Jews. Tha Indian community is a case in point. Self-serving commentators will identify India’s friendship with Israel as a direct threat to Pakistan’s nuclear capability and will lobby against any friendship with Israel. I think Pakistan’s recognition of Israel would be extremely useful to Pakistan for Pakistan’s own development.

It is human nature to support friends. Pakistan’s non-recognition of Israel has brought the Indian and Israeli lobbies closer. By identifying the Israeli and Indian lobbies as one, the mullahs in Pakistan are feeding anti-Israel sentiment using the well-established anti-India sentiment. They forget that actions taken by the United States in matters of the state are based on America’s own national interests and are influenced by many sources including America’s think tanks and of course the voter.

Muslim rulers, both military and civilian, will never touch the issues of recognizing Israel or repealing Islamic laws that mirror Saudi Arabia’s theocratic laws for fear of losing support among a population infected by the anti-Israel venom. The reason for this stance is poor political leadership and lack of vision on the part of those responsible for steering their country’s foreign policy. Military dictators and journeymen have focused on occupying the seat of power as opposed to formulating a policy that serves their country’s future interests.

At the heart of the Muslim/Jewish divide is the plight of the homeless Palestinian. This issue is the rallying cry of al Qaida for recruiting young men. A solution to this issue, no matter how unpalatable for the people, of Israel must be sought. Both Israelis and Palestinians must acknowledge each other and learn to live with each other by overcoming past grievances and hurt. Arab countries that border Israel feel a sense of loss and shame at losing the 1967 war and territory to a much smaller neighbor. More pragmatic countries like Egypt and Jordan have made peace keeping their respective national interests in mind.

No dispute can be solved without engagement. The time has come for Israel to acknowledge and celebrate its shared history with Muslims. As the most developed country in the Middle East, Israel can play a very important development role and in the process become a great economic power by exporting to its many Muslim neighbors and the rest of the Muslim world.

Israel, as the only democracy in the Middle East, must make every effort through communications channels already open through the United States to at least reach out to countries such as Pakistan, an important American ally.

Designers of Pakistan’s foreign policy have never analyzed the fact that Pakistan has no territorial dispute with Israel. Pakistan’s foreign policy has been shaped and molded by military dictatorships overly concerned with self-preservation at the expense of Pakistan’s future. Unfortunately, there are no think tanks in Pakistan that can provide unbiased advice.

Pakistan’s overall concern should be peace in its immediate neighborhood. It should focus on ties and good relations with countries that can have a direct effect on Pakistan’s future. Pakistan can empathize with the plight of the Palestinians, but that does not mean it should not recognize Israel. Pragmatism must override emotionalism.

Israel is a close friend and ally of the United States. Pakistan’s non-recognition of Israel has a direct negative effect on U.S. policy towards Pakistan. This is exploited to the fullest by forces that oppose Pakistan.

Destiny and history have brought America and Pakistan together to fight the Soviets in 1979 and the Taliban – a byproduct of the Afghan war – beginning in 2001.Today America is Pakistan’s most important partner in the war against the Taliban and al Qaida. Pakistan’s own national interest and existing geopolitical environment demand that it establish good relations with America’s close ally.

America’s relationship with Pakistan over the years has been event-led and one of convenience as opposed to the deep and permanent bond it has with Israel. This is in spite of the fact that Pakistan and America have a more than 60-year history of cooperation. Unfortunately, relationships between countries are by their very nature controlled by respective national interests and not emotions.

A Pakistan-first policy must be embraced by placing Pakistan’s national interest above all others. Politicians and generals will come and go, but Pakistan must survive to nurture future generations and provide them a place they can proudly call home. This is exactly how successful nations have survived the ravages of war, natural disasters and misfortune.

Saudi Arabia, like Pakistan, is a very important and strategic ally of the United States. Its importance is rooted in America’s dependence on Saudi oil. Saudi Arabia’s non-recognition of Israel is based on its own narrow national Interests. However, this has not stopped Egypt, Jordan and Qatar – who, unlike Pakistan, are neighbors and fellow Arabs – from recognizing and establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.

Pakistani politicians can offer Turkey’s recognition along with Israel’s Arab neighbors as an example to counter a generally anti-Israel population in Pakistan. This is not difficult if the politicians and the Pakistani Army are on board. All it takes is a sensible leadership to talk sense. We must ask a simple question. What is in Pakistan’s national interest? The United States can play a very important role in promoting confidence-building measures between Israel and Pakistan.

Establishing friendly relations between the two nuclear-armed democracies of Israel and Pakistan will be a win for all parties concerned. Recognition by Pakistan, the only nuclear-armed majority Muslim country in the world, will have a significant psychological and symbolic effect on the Muslim world at large. Here are some of the positive developments among many others that will result from such a relationship:

• Israel will be keen to solve the Palestinian dispute to improve relations with other large Muslim countries, such as Indonesian and Malaysia.

• Permanence in stable relations between the United States and Pakistan based on mutual respect will automatically evolve.

• Confirmation of non-existence of any territorial or sovereignty dispute between Israel and Pakistan will allow the establishment of normal peaceful and friendly relations between Israel and Pakistan. Also celebration of a shared relgious history with the Jewish people as fellow children of Abraham.

• Acceptance by Israel of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons as a deterrent for Pakistan’s own security needs against a much larger neighbor, as opposed to an Islamic bomb to be handed over to terrorists for use against the state of Israel. Reassurance of safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons as confirmed by the United States will go a long way towards defusing fears fueled by media propaganda and political rhetoric.

• Assurance from Israel that it has no designs in collusion with India to attack Pakistan nuclear facilities and wishes friendly relations with Pakistan. This will help allay fears in Pakistan about an imminent attack by Israel on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities near Islamabad.

• Cooperation between Israel and Pakistan in development and defense areas. Like the Israel Defense Forces, Pakistan’s military army is equipped mostly with U.S. made equipment. Spare parts for the Pakistani Army can be acquired from Israel at reasonable prices with low transportation costs.

• Americans will view a Pakistan that recognizes America’s friendship with Israel in a more favorable light. Pakistan’s support among America’s population will increase tenfold through favorable media coverage.
• Better reception from Congress for helping solve the Kashmir and water issues with Pakistan’s giant neighbor India. The United States can assist in improving ties and mutually beneficial trade between Pakistan and India.

• India’s influence in Washington to lobby against Pakistan-centric U.S. policy issues will be neutralized.

• Trade with Israel will help Pakistan acquire advanced technology in areas of telecommunications, defense and medicine. Pakistan has a very large young population that is in desperate need of jobs. Israel could help establish manufacturing plants in Pakistan.

• A very large, economically powerful Jewish community in the United States and Europe will welcome such a move and increase foreign direct investment in Pakistan.

• Israel’s drip-dry irrigation system is the envy of the world. Water shortages predicted for Pakistan must be attacked by using technology and knowhow developed by the Israelis to grow crops in desert areas.

• Israel has developed expertise in the manufacture of low-cost generic drugs. A poor country such as Pakistan could benefit from Israeli knowhow.

• Trade between Israel and Pakistan will help neutralize the anti-Israeli stance of religious parties in Pakistan.

• Other Muslim countries under a similar influence of anti-Israel sentiment, but with no territorial or sovereignty disputes with Israel, could also recognize Israel and establish relations. Such recognition would also prompt Israel to settle the Palestinian dispute and earn bonus points with its new trading partners.

It is up to the Pakistani leadership to recognize Pakistan’s present position as a close ally of the United States and capitalize on this special relationship and make Pakistan economically strong. In summary, recognizing Israel is in Pakistan’s national interest.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (31)
        

Telephone hot lines in Europe offering help to people claiming abuse by Roman Catholic priests are being deluged with calls as the crisis spreads — with one center reporting complaints jumping from about 10 cases a year to more than a thousand in the past few weeks, the Associated Press reports.

Experts say the record influx of calls reflects an increasing realization among victims that they are not alone and that they will not be scorned for breaking their silence about horrors that in many cases go back decades.

"Until now, many people were afraid they wouldn't be respected," said Max Friedrich, a prominent Austrian psychiatrist. "There's also a certain comfort knowing you're not the only one to have experienced such abuse."

In the Netherlands, the Help and Law line was set up in 1995 and generally dealt with roughly 10 reports of abuse per year. Since March it has received some 1,300 new reports, said Pieter Kohnen, spokesman for the Dutch Bishops' Conference, which runs the line.

As with similar help lines, not every complaint turns into an actual case — meaning the caller is assigned a legal adviser to guide him or her through the process.

Still, Help and Law is now dealing with nearly 50 cases, compared with 10 to 14 for most years, and the number is likely to rise further as the center plows through a backlog of complaints, according to spokesman Ben Spekman.

"We have started more cases in the last month than in the previous three years combined," Spekman said. "It is a significant increase."

Spekman said the hot line is also attracting people who feel compelled to give their reaction to reports of abuse. Some other callers report abuse that happened to a deceased loved one. In neither case would such calls lead to a formal complaint procedure.

Germany's bishops conference, which launched its hot line on March 30, reported this week that 2,700 people have called it in its first three days, while an older number in Germany run by a pro-reform group, We Are Church, said calls have jumped dramatically.

"In the past eight years we received about 300 calls total; in the past four to five weeks alone, we have gotten 100 calls," said Annegret Laakmann, a spokeswoman for We are Church.

In general, the hot lines offer an initial open ear to victims. Laakmann said that in Germany every complaint is believed without question. In some cases, the hot lines offer a chance to speak to a psychologist, or help finding one. In cases where legal avenues can be pursued, they counsel victims in how to approach authorities.

In Austria, if the perpetrators are still alive, they are tracked down and confronted with the allegations, according to an Austrian Web site that provides an overview of the country's church abuse complaint centers. In concrete cases, a perpetrator's supervisor in the church is informed and the person is suspended until the matter is cleared up, it said.

Austria has nine church-run offices that allow victims to report abuse — one for each diocese. The first was set up in Vienna in 1996 as a result of the sex scandal surrounding then Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer. In the first three months of this year, the offices recorded 566 calls or e-mails.

According to the Vienna hot line, 174 contacts were made between January and the end of March — compared to 17 in all of 2009. Of those, eight turned out to be concrete cases after experts held intensive conversations with alleged victims, said Erich Leitenberger, spokesman of the Vienna Archdiocese.

Hans Tauscher, who runs the complaint center for the Innsbruck diocese, said he has recently been working eight hours a day taking calls, answering e-mails and meeting with victims. He says it's tough to generalize on how much time he spends with each person, saying some take up to 45 minutes to describe what they went through. Others just take minutes.

"I go with whatever they want — the conversations are very unstructured," Tauscher said.

Christiane Sauer, a psychotherapist who heads the hot line in the Linz diocese, said people often tell her how relieved they feel after opening up to her, sometimes after decades of silence.

"They become calmer by talking about what happened," said Sauer, who encourages victims to also notify police or prosecutors — even if the abuse took place many years ago.

Some claim it is ludicrous to expect victims to contact church-sponsored hot lines since they are sometimes run by clergy and represent an institution that covered up or ignored cases in the past.

Critics include a newly created Austrian victims' group that calls itself the Platform Of Those Affected By Church Violence. It set up its own hot line on March 23 and has logged some 203 contacts since then.

Hans Peter Hurka of the Austrian branch of We are Church said most of the church-run centers were "fig leafs" until now, hiding the problem rather than exposing it.

In a sign the church may be taking this criticism to heart, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn recently appointed a former regional governor, Waltraud Klasnic, to ensure that all abuse allegations are investigated. She has also set up her own abuse hot line.

In the Netherlands, Spekman disputed the argument that the system cannot be trusted because it is not independent.

"In our view its independence is guaranteed," Spekman said. "If somebody does not agree they can always go to civil courts."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

This further response from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to news the Vatican is directing bishops to report sex abuse to civil authorities just hit our inbox:

"It's sad when the Vatican has to make it clear to bishops that they must follow secular laws.

"It's fairly obvious that if you are saying you will now cooperate with the police then you are admitting that you have not been.

"What the Pope needs to do is to clearly order all bishops to turn over all records on clergy sex crimes right now to authorities across the world. And he should immediately disclose records on the thousands of cases that he personally handled as head of CDF from 2001-2005."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)
        

The Vatican has finally made peace with the Beatles, saying their drug use, "dissolute" lives and even the claim that the band was bigger than Jesus are all in the past — while their music lives on, the Associated Press reports.

Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano paid tribute to the Fab Four in its weekend editions, with two articles and a front-page cartoon reproducing the crosswalk immortalized on the cover of the band's album "Abbey Road."

The tribute marked the 40th anniversary of the band's breakup.

"It's true, they took drugs; swept up by their success, they lived dissolute and uninhibited lives," said the paper. "They even said they were more famous than Jesus," it said, recalling John Lennon's 1966 comment that outraged many Catholics and others.

"But, listening to their songs, all of this seems distant and meaningless," L'Osservatore said. "Their beautiful melodies, which changed forever pop music and still give us emotions, live on like precious jewels."

It is not the first time the Vatican has praised the legendary band from Liverpool.

Two years ago, Vatican media hailed the Beatles' musical legacy on the 40th anniversary of the "White Album." And last month the Vatican paper included "Revolver" in its semiserious list of top-10 albums.

Now, L'Osservatore says that the Beatles' songs have stood the test of time, and that the band remains "the longest-lasting, most consistent and representative phenomenon in the history of pop music."

Giovanni Maria Vian, the editor in chief of L'Osservatore Romano, said Monday that he loves the Beatles.

He said that at the time of Lennon's sensational statement, Osservatore "commented that in reality it wasn't that scandalous, because the fascination with Jesus was so great that it attracted these new heroes of the time."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

The Vatican responded Monday to allegations that it had concealed years of clerical sex abuse by making it clear for the first time that bishops and other high-ranking clerics should report such crimes to police if required by law, the Associated Press reports.

Victims have charged that the Catholic Church created what amounted to a conspiracy to cover up abuse by keeping allegations that priests raped and molested children secret and not reporting them to civil authorities.

The Vatican has insisted that it has long been the Catholic Church's policy for bishops, like all Christians, to obey civil laws. In a new guide for lay readers posted on its Web site, the Vatican explicitly spells out such a policy.

"Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed," the Vatican guidelines said.

That phrase was not included in a draft of the guidelines obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The rest of the guidelines follow previously known and public procedures for handling canonical investigations and trials of suspected abuse.

The Vatican offered no explanation for the addition.

Victims were not impressed.

"Let's keep this in perspective: it's one sentence and it's virtually nothing unless and until we see tangible signs that bishops are responding," said Joelle Casteix, western regional director for SNAP, the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests, the main victims' group in the U.S. "One sentence can't immediately reverse centuries of self-serving secrecy."

She said if the Vatican truly wanted to change course "it would be far more effective to fire or demote bishops who have clearly endangered kids and enabled abuse and hid crimes, than to add one sentence to a policy that is rarely followed with consistency."

None of the core public Vatican documents to be applied in cases of abuse direct bishops to report cases to police. Nor does canon law make such an explicit requirement.

Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's U.S. lawyer, said a 1965 document from the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, contained an implicit understanding of the need to follow civil laws that are just.

The vague citation, however, is not nearly as explicit as what is contained in the lay guide.

"It's beyond dispute that the canon law does not mandate non-reporting," Lena said. "These guidelines may help clarify that point for people who are less familiar with canon law."

"The statement confirms what has been long known, that where the civil state creates an obligation to report, bishops like anyone else are required to examine the law and determine what they have to do to obey it," Lena told the AP.

In an agreement worked out with the Vatican, U.S. bishops made this reporting requirement their policy after the explosion of sex abuse cases in 2002.

The Rev. Davide Cito, a canon lawyer at Rome's Santa Croce University, called the publication of the policy in the lay guidelines "an important development."

"I'm very pleased," he said. "A Christian also has to follow civil laws. It's a Christian duty."

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said the reporting requirement had been the internal policy of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 2003. The Vatican in 2001 shifted its policy on dealing with abuse cases, ordering bishops around the world to refer all cases to the Congregation, which then decides how to proceed. Previously, diocese themselves dealt with most of the cases on their own.

Asked how bishops were supposed to know of this internal policy on reporting to police, Benedettini declined to comment.

Pope Benedict XVI had told Irish bishops last month that they should cooperate with civil authorities in investigating abuse. But the guidelines mark the first time that such procedures for the universal church, in which bishops are explicitly told they should follow civil reporting laws, have been laid out publicly.

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The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature, the Associated Press reports.

The correspondence, obtained by the AP, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office.

The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle.

The Vatican refused to comment on the contents of the letter Friday, but a spokesman confirmed it bore Ratzinger's signature.

"The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said. "It is not strange that there are single documents which have Cardinal Ratzinger's signature."

The diocese recommended removing Kiesle from the priesthood in 1981, the year Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office which shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests.

The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed.

In the November 1985 letter, Ratzinger says the arguments for removing Kiesle are of "grave significance" but added that such actions required very careful review and more time. He also urged the bishop to provide Kiesle with "as much paternal care as possible" while awaiting the decision, according to a translation for AP by Professor Thomas Habinek, chairman of the University of Southern California Classics Department.

But the future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the "good of the universal church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age." Kiesle was 38 at the time.

Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory.

As his probation ended in 1981, Kiesle asked to leave the priesthood and the diocese submitted papers to Rome to defrock him.

In his earliest letter to Ratzinger, Cummins warned that returning Kiesle to ministry would cause more of a scandal than stripping him of his priestly powers.

"It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this petition were granted and that as a matter of fact, given the nature of the case, there might be greater scandal to the community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active ministry," Cummins wrote in 1982.

While papers obtained by the AP include only one letter with Ratzinger's signature, correspondence and internal memos from the diocese refer to a letter dated Nov. 17, 1981, from the then-cardinal to the bishop. Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith a week later.

California church officials wrote to Ratzinger at least three times to check on the status of Kiesle's case. At one point, a Vatican official wrote to say the file may have been lost and suggested resubmitting materials.

Diocese officials considered writing Ratzinger again after they received his 1985 response to impress upon him that leaving Kiesle in the ministry would harm the church, Rev. George Mockel wrote in a memo to the Oakland bishop.

"My own reading of this letter is that basically they are going to sit on it until Steve gets quite a bit older," the memo said. "Despite his young age, the particular and unique circumstances of this case would seem to make it a greater scandal if he were not laicized."

Irwin Zalkin, an attorney representing some of the victims, said he was familiar with the correspondence but wouldn't provide documents to AP.

"Cardinal Ratzinger was more concerned about the avoidance of scandal than he was about protecting children," Zalkin said in a phone interview. "That was a central theme."

As Kiesle's fate was being weighed in Rome, the priest returned to suburban Pinole to volunteer as a youth minister at St. Joseph Church, where he had served as associate pastor from 1972 to 1975.

Kiesle was ultimately stripped of his priestly powers in 1987, though the documents do not indicate when, how or why. They also don't indicate what role — if any — Ratzinger had in the decision.

Kiesle continued to volunteer with children, according to Maurine Behrend, who worked in the Oakland diocese's youth ministry office in the 1980s. After learning of his history, Behrend complained to church officials. When nothing was done she wrote a letter, which she showed to the AP.

"Obviously nothing has been done after EIGHT months of repeated notifications," she wrote. "How are we supposed to have confidence in the system when nothing is done? A simple phone call to the pastor from the bishop is all it would take."

She eventually confronted Cummins at a confirmation and Kiesle was gone a short time later, Behrend said.

Kiesle was arrested and charged in 2002 with 13 counts of child molestation from the 1970s. All but two were thrown out after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a California law extending the statute of limitations.

He pleaded no contest in 2004 to a felony for molesting a young girl in his Truckee home in 1995 and was sentenced to six years in state prison.

Kiesle, now 63 and a registered sex offender, lives in a Walnut Creek gated community, according to his address listed on the Megan's Law sex registry. An AP reporter was turned away when attempting to reach him for comment.

William Gagen, an attorney who represented Kiesle in 2002, did not return a call for comment.

More than a half-dozen victims reached a settlement in 2005 with the Oakland diocese alleging Kiesle had molested them as young children.

"He admitted molesting many children and bragged that he was the Pied Piper and said he tried to molest every child that sat on his lap," said Lewis VanBlois, an attorney for six Kiesle victims who interviewed the former priest in prison. "When asked how many children he had molested over the years, he said 'tons.'"

Cummins, the now-retired bishop, told the AP during an interview at his Oakland home that he "didn't really care for" Kiesle, but he didn't recall writing to Ratzinger concerning the case.

"I wish I did write to Cardinal Ratzinger. I don't think I was that smart," Cummins, now 82, told AP.

Documents obtained by the AP last week revealed similar instances of Vatican stalling in cases involving two Arizona clergy.

In one case, the future pope took over the abuse case of the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood.

In the second, the bishop called Msgr. Robert Trupia a "major risk factor" in a letter to Ratzinger. There is no indication in those files that Ratzinger responded.

The Vatican has called the accusations "absolutely groundless" and said the facts were being misrepresented.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (45)
        

The Vatican changed its tone and sought to reach out to victims of the sex abuse scandal rocking the Catholic Church, saying Friday that Pope Benedict XVI is willing to meet with them and take part in the church's healing process, the Associated Press reports.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, softened its recent attacks on the media, which the church has accused of mounting a hate campaign against the pope.

Lombardi defended Benedict as a pastor worthy of respect and support in the face of the "unfounded" allegations. But he also focused on the victim's needs.

In comments to Vatican Radio, Lombardi said many victims are looking not for financial compensation but for moral help, countering insinuations by some in the church that the accusations were part of attempts to win large settlements.

"For many people the road to profound healing is only just beginning, and for others it has yet to start," said Lombardi. "In the context of this concern for victims, the pope has written of his readiness to hold new meetings with them, thus sharing in the journey of the entire ecclesial community."

Benedict has already met with abuse victims during trips to the United States and Australia in 2008 and with Canadians at the Vatican the following year.

In a letter to the Irish in which he apologized for decades of unchecked child abuse by priests, nuns and other clerics, the pontiff said he was sorry for the suffering of the victims. He told the victims, "I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured."

But the pope himself has come under fire for the handling of cases that date to his tenure as archbishop of Munich and as a Vatican cardinal in charge of the office dealing with abuse cases. And the Vatican's offer of new meetings was dismissed by one group of abuse victims as a meaningless symbol.

"Any meeting the pope may have with victims helps him look good while doing nothing noteworthy," said Barbara Dorris, the outreach director of US-based victim lobby SNAP.

"Kids need and deserve immediate protection and dramatic reform, not public relations ploys and photo ops. They need substance, not symbols," she said.

Sex abuse allegations have swept across Europe in recent weeks, including in Benedict's native Germany.

The Vatican has rejected accusations that the church, including the pope, engaged in a cover-up, and has blamed the media for what it calls a smear campaign against the pontiff and his advisers.

Lombardi renewed some of that rhetoric on Friday, saying the media have failed to portray the pervasiveness of child sex abuse in modern society and the way the church's experience can be useful to society at large.

He praised the pope's patience in facing up to "the steady trickle of partial and alleged 'revelations' that seek to damage his own credibility and that of other people or institutions in the church."

But Lombardi also said that transparency and rigor are urgently needed to show that the church is run in a wise and just manner. He maintained that proper selection and training of prospective priests will be crucial in preventing further abuse, and he insisted that the church keep carrying out canon trials "decisively and truthfully" and cooperate with civil authorities.

"Only in this way can we hope effectively to rebuild a climate of justice and complete trust in the ecclesiastical institution," Lombardi said.

He did not address a long-standing church practice of transferring priests involved in sexual abuse cases to other parishes, which has come under fierce criticism and is seen as perpetuating the risk of abuse.

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Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien has apologized for the comments of the Vatican priest who likened criticism of Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church in the sexual abuse scandal with anti-Semitism and "collective violence" against Jews.

O'Brien, spiritual leader of the area's half million Catholics, called the remarks of the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa during the Good Friday Mass at St. Peter's Basilica "reprehensible and unfortunate," and apologized to "our friends in the Jewish community, to victims of clergy sexual abuse, and to anyone offended by Father Cantalamessa's personal views."

O'Brien's statement, in full:

Father Cantalamessa’s words on Good Friday, somehow linking the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal with anti-Semitism, were unfortunate and reprehensible. They pose harm to Catholic-Jewish relations in Baltimore and around the world and I personally denounce them. Rightly upset and embarrassed as we are by the scandal we are enduring as Catholics, as frustrated as we are by the sometimes unfair coverage in certain elements of the press, nothing justifies this insensitive, harmful and regrettable comparison. On behalf of the Catholic Church in Baltimore, I offer apologies to our friends in the Jewish community, to victims of clergy sexual abuse, and to anyone offended by Father Cantalamessa’s personal views.

Cantalamessa, personal preacher to Benedict, said he was inspired by a letter from an unidentified Jewish friend who was upset by the "attacks" against Benedict.

Cantalamessa said Jews "know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms."

Quoting from the letter, Cantalamessa said his Jewish friend was following "with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful of the whole world."

"The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism," he said, quoting from the letter.

Note: O'Brien issued the statement on Saturday; we were alerted to it by a story in The Baltimore Jewish Times.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

A Northern Virginia pharmacy that received the blessing of the Catholic Church because of its pledge not to sell contraceptives has closed, the Associated Press reports.

When it opened in October 2008, Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy was one of at least seven pharmacies nationwide refusing to sell contraceptives.

Robert Laird, executive director of DMC, says the store closed March 4 because it wasn't working financially. Laird says the pharmacy was losing tens of thousands of dollars a month.

The business was located next to a Catholic bookstore with two Catholic parishes nearby. But Laird says it had trouble attracting regular customers.

He says closing the pharmacy "was like a funeral."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)
        

The sex abuse crisis engulfing the Catholic Church will mean more vigorous background checks when it comes to appointing cardinals, and future popes, the Associated Press predicts in an analytical story by Vatican correspondent Victor L. Sampson.

Among the requirements, Sampson writes: no taint of scandal and the ability to speak comfortably to the world and the media.

While leading Catholic conservatives have vigorously defended Benedict XVI from accusations that he was complicit in covering up sex abusers, they have also pointed to management failures.

As a model for the future pope, the church will need to consider someone "able to talk to the world and the media, not be destroyed by it," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

Even as the clerical sex abuse crisis has swept across Europe in recent months — touching even Benedict — the Vatican has responded with the disarray and media ineptitude that's been symptomatic of the German-born pope's five-year papacy.

The church was rocked by scandal again Wednesday, when Norwegian officials revealed that a 58-year-old Catholic bishop who resigned last year did so after admitting he molested a child two decades earlier.

As churchmen have closed ranks to defend Benedict, even some of his biggest supporters have pointed to the need for change.

Leading Catholic conservatives such as George Weigel in the United States and Vittorio Messori in Italy have vigorously defended Benedict from accusations he was involved in covering up sex abusers while serving as archbishop of Munich and later as a Vatican official. But they have both underlined management shortcomings in the papacy, with the Italian noting a "certain naivete."

One test will come when the pope names new cardinals, with Vatican insiders suggesting this will happen in November.

The Holy See will need to carry out a vigorous vetting process to try to ensure that none of the new cardinals are tainted by the sex abuse scandal — a potentially monumental task considering the scope of the crisis.

The number of cardinals under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave for a new pope — a cardinal's principal responsibility — now stands at 108 and will dip to 101 by November from a possible total of 120.

Such traditional cardinal seats as New York, Washington, Florence and Prague will be in line for new red hats. It is up to the pope to decide exactly how many new cardinals are named.

One archdiocese to watch is Dublin, where Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has won praise for seeking to root out those responsible for decades of child abuse in Ireland.

In 2007, he was passed over for cardinal in favor of Sean Brady in the northern seat of Armagh. Brady, though, has recently faced calls for his resignation following revelations that he participated in interviews with two victims of a pedophile priest but did not notify police.

After Pope John Paul II's 27-year papacy, Benedict was elected for what was widely considered a "transition" papacy. He was considered a known quantity who on sex abuse had just condemned "filth" in the church, had cracked down on abusive priests — and was therefore considered to have an exemplary record.

Now questions have been raised about his handling of abusive priests while he was archbishop of Munich and head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His supporters say he did nothing wrong.

Authoritative accounts from the secret conclave indicated there was opposition to Benedict, although in the current crisis no cardinal has stepped forth and expressed regrets over the choice.

When the search begins for a successor to Benedict, Vatican experts say the need for someone with no skeletons in the closet on abuse might give advantage to cardinals who didn't head a diocese.

In choosing top officials, the church may give preference to a younger generation of conservative clergy, looking beyond the current church leadership that has been so sullied by the scandal. Just this week, Benedict tapped a 58-year-old Mexican-born prelate, Jose Gomez, as the next archbishop of Los Angeles, a post that traditionally gets a red hat.

As a priest, Gomez was a member of the conservative Opus Dei movement favored by the Vatican. He takes over in February from current archbishop Cardinal Roger Mahony, who was dogged by the abuse scandal, agreeing in 2007 to a record-setting $660 million settlement with more than 500 alleged victims.

Gomez himself was criticized Tuesday by victim support groups who accuse him of being unresponsive to their concerns about several clergy abuse cases. Church officials have said appropriate actions were taken against the priests.

Lost in the drumbeat of accusations and the Vatican's counterattack have been indications that change is indeed being placed on the agenda for a future pope.

Last month, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily newspaper, gave space to an Italian woman, historian Lucetta Scaraffia, who argued that a greater feminine presence in the church "would have been able to rip the veil off the code of silence" on clerical sex abuse.

An influential European cardinal, Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna, recently said there is need for "dialogue" about priestly celibacy, but stopped short of saying it should be lifted and did not make a direct link to sex abuse, which the Vatican rejects.

The idea that Benedict might step down over the crisis has been roundly dismissed as speculation raised only by those bent on destroying his papacy.

Still, Benedict himself seemed to consider the possibility that popes might not serve unlimited terms. With people living longer "one also would consider new norms," he said in a 2004 interview with an Italian religious affairs magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, a year before his election.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

Nearly 2,700 people have called the church's sexual abuse hot line in Germany in its first three days of operating, the Associated Press reports.

A team of psychologists and other experts had conversations with 394 people so far, ranging from several minutes up to an hour, Trier Diocese spokesman Stephan Kronenburg told the AP.

"Most callers report cases of sexual abuse," he said.

The hot line — which began operating March 30 — received around 13,300 calls total in its first three days. Kronenburg said this worked out to about 2,670 people, as many called several times.

In addition, around 100 people used an online form to contact the service.

Most of the callers are people who say they were victims of sexual abuse or their relatives, with some callers also reporting cases of physical abuse, he said.

"The boundaries between both are often loose," Kronenburg added.

The Catholic Church in Pope Benedict XVI's homeland has been rocked by a widening scandal of physical and sexual abuse in recent weeks, with hundreds of people who say they were victims coming forward.

The church decided to set up a national hot line as pressure mounted and many victims seemed reluctant to report abuse cases to the diocese where they had been abused.

Most cases date back years, if not decades, and the statute of limitations may have passed, Kronenburg said.

"The hot line shall give the victims an opportunity to talk about what has happened to them. From there, we decide what to counsel them," Kronenburg told the AP.

Should the hot line experts learn of an alleged child abuse case involving a priest currently on duty, they would alert the diocese and also prosecutors, Kronenburg said.

In the past, the Catholic Church was accused of covering up abuse cases. Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger for instance spoke of a "wall of silence" surrounding the church.

During the Easter holidays, however, several prominent bishops — among them the dean of the bishops' conference, Robert Zollitsch — called for a "renewal" of the church and condemned the abuses cases as "heinous crimes."

In Munich, meanwhile, an independent lawyer hired by the church wrapped up his investigation of abuse allegations at the southern Ettal monastery.

"The investigation clearly shows a system of abuse that lasted for decades," Thomas Pfister told the AP.

There are some cases of sexual abuse, but most of the victims who came forward were physically abused, Pfister said in a telephone interview. Most cases happened before 1990, he added.

The lawyer declined to cite exact figures or release more details on the reported cases as his final report is due to be published next week.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Catholic priest accused in a lawsuit of abusing two girls in Minnesota five years ago said Tuesday he was innocent and prepared to return to the United States to face any charges, according to media reports.

"It is a lie -- it is totally a lie," the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul told CNN. He told The New York Times on that was unaware of a criminal case against him until he was contacted Monday by reporters.

Jeyapal, who served in the Catholic Diocese of Crookston, Minn., in 2004 and 2005, was back in his native India in 2007 when he was charged in absentia with sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Minnoseta, the Associated Press reports.

On Monday, the AP reported that Jeyapaul had no intention of returning to the United States to answer the charges. His bishop said Jeyapaul handles paperwork for schools in the diocese office and does not work with children.

"We cannot simply throw out the priest, so he is just staying in the bishop's house, and he is helping me with the appointment of teachers," said the Rev. A. Almaraj, bishop of the Diocese of Ootacamund in southern India. "He says he is innocent, and these are only allegations. ... I don't know what else to do."

The Vatican said that officials there thought Jeyapaul should be removed from the priesthood and that they cooperated with efforts to extradite him to the U.S. — even providing authorities with his exact location in India.

But they said the bishop in India refused to remove him and instead sentenced the priest to a year in a monastery after holding his own church trial.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reports.

Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining "the motive for these attacks" on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.

"The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different" agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.

Herranz didn't identify the lobbies but "defense of life" is Vatican shorthand for anti-abortion efforts.

Also arguing that Benedict's promotion of conservative family models had provoked the so-called attacks was the Vatican's dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano.

"By now, it's a cultural contrast," Sodano told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. "The pope embodies moral truths that aren't accepted, and so, the shortcomings and errors of priests are used as weapons against the church."

Also rallying to Benedict's side was Italian Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who heads the Vatican City State's governing apparatus.

The pope "has done all that he could have" against sex abuse by clergy of minors, Lajolo said on Vatican radio, decrying what he described as a campaign of "hatred against the Catholic church."

Sex abuse allegations, as well as accusations of cover-ups by diocesan bishops and Vatican officials, have swept across Europe in recent weeks. Benedict has been criticized for not halting the actions of abusive priests when he was a Vatican cardinal and earlier while he was the archbishop of Munich in his native Germany.

The mainland European scandals — in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland — are erupting after decades of abuse cases in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and other areas.

In Germany, nearly 2,700 people called the church's sexual abuse hotline in the first three days it was operating, a Catholic church spokesman said Tuesday.A team of psychologists and other experts have spoken with 394 people so far, ranging from several minutes up to an hour, Trier Diocese spokesman Stephan Kronenburg said.

"Most callers reported cases of sexual abuse," he told The Associated Press.

Benedict has ignored victims' demands that he accept responsibility for what they say is his own personal and institutional responsibility for failing to swiftly kick abusive priests out of the priesthood, or at least keep them away from children.

But he has been protected by a vanguard of senior Vatican prelates who are fending off what they contend is an orchestrated attempt to attack the leader of the world's more than 1 billion Catholics.

The Vatican No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, rebuffed questions about the pontiff's silence on the topic, indicating that Benedict was standing firm.

"He's a strong pope," he told reporters after arriving Tuesday in Chile. The Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as calling Benedict a "great prophet of the Third Millennium."

Bertone, now the Holy See's secretary of state but formerly Benedict's deputy when the future pope, then-called Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican's morals office, has himself been swept up in the scandals.

During a May 1998 meeting at the Vatican, Bertone told Wisconsin bishops to halt a church trial against an ailing priest who was accused of sexually abusing 200 deaf children, according to a Vatican transcript. The priest died soon afterward.

"It's not true, it's not true! We have documented the opposite," ANSA quoted Bertone as saying in Chile. "Let's not talk about this topic now, because otherwise we'll be here all day verifying precisely the action taken by me and by his eminence."

On Easter, the most important day in the Catholic faith, the Vatican broke with tradition and began its service in St. Peter's Square with a ringing defense of Benedict delivered by Cardinal Sodano.

The Vatican newspaper quoted Sodano on Tuesday as saying the church is "certainly" suffering because of pedophile priests but he asserted that "Benedict XVI has apologized several times."

"But it's not Christ's fault if Judas betrayed" him, Sodano said. "It's not a bishop's fault if one of his priests is stained by grave wrongdoing. And certainly the pontiff is not responsible."

"Behind the unjust attacks on the pope are visions of the family and of life that run contrary to the Gospel," Sodano said. "Now the accusation of pedophile is being brandished against the church."

He noted that past popes have also been criticized, including the "offensive against Pius XII for his conduct during the last World War as well as that against Paul VI" for his encyclical against birth control, the cardinal said.

Pius has been accused by Jewish groups and some scholars as not having done enough to save Jews from the Holocaust, although the Vatican contends he used behind-the-scene diplomacy to help them. Benedict has hailed Pius as a "great" pontiff, who is being considered for possible beatification.

Vatican Radio, presenting listeners with some of the most vehement counterattacks yet, depicted the church as a victim.

"There are those who fear the media campaign of anti-Catholic hatred can degenerate," Vatican Radio said.

It noted anti-Catholic graffiti on walls of a church outside Viterbo, a town near Rome, and reminded listeners that a bishop was attacked by a man during Easter Mass in Muenster, Germany. The bishop fought back with an incense bowl.

The radio likened the recent campaign to the persecution suffered by early Christian martyrs. "The crowds, incited by the slanders of the powerful, would lynch the Christians," the radio said.

In Munich, meanwhile, an independent lawyer hired by the Catholic church wrapped up his investigation of abuse allegations at the southern Ettal monastery.

"The investigation clearly shows a system of abuse that lasted for decades," Thomas Pfister told The Associated Press.

There were some cases of sexual abuse at Ettal but most victims who came forward were physically abused and most cases took place before 1990, Pfister said in a telephone interview.

The lawyer declined to elaborate as his final report will be published next week.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (43)
        

A federal judge has dismissed part of a lawsuit brought against the Church of Scientology by a woman who alleged she worked 100-hour weeks for almost no pay for years while a member of Scientology's elite inner corps, the Associated Press reports.

U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer issued a written order late Friday that dismissed the wage claims portion of Claire Headley's lawsuit. The judge did not address two other causes of action: allegations that the church coerces members of the inner corps to get abortions and engages in forced labor.

The church denies all the allegations and has called the plaintiffs liars motivated by greed.

Headley sued the church in federal court in Los Angeles last year seeking restitution for nearly 14 years of work done while a member of Scientology's inner corps, called the Sea Organization. The church argued in court papers that as a Sea Organization member, Headley was exempt from wage requirements because she was part of a religious order.

So-called Sea Org members work long hours, live and eat communally and sign a pledge that symbolizes a 1 billion-year commitment to Scientology.

Fischer sided with Scientology in her five-page ruling, saying the evidence showed that Headley was chosen for her work based on religious criteria and performed religious duties.

The ruling "reaffirms the fact that we're a religion and the people who dedicate their lives to us are religious workers," said Tommy Davis, church spokesman. "It's an absolute win for the church."

Marc Marmaro, an attorney representing the church's Religious Technology Center, declined to comment.

A separate lawsuit filed by Headley's husband alleging labor code violations and forced labor remains intact, said Barry Van Sickle, attorney for both Headleys.

Claire Headley joined the Sea Org in 1991 at age 16 and worked at several locations, including on a gated 500-acre campus near San Jacinto, Calif.; Hollywood; and Clearwater, Fla. She left the Sea Org in 2005.

Scientology was founded more than 50 years ago by L. Ron Hubbard. Membership numbers are unclear. Spokesman Tommy Davis has said Scientology has millions of members worldwide. But the American Religion Identification Survey found the number of Americans who identify as Scientologists dropped from 55,000 in 2001 to 25,000 in 2008.

Practitioners believe they can eliminate negative energy from past lives through study and "auditing" sessions that use electronic devices called "e-meters" to detect mental trauma. Adherents hope to become "Operating Thetans," or pure spirits.

The Sea Org traces its roots to 1967, when Hubbard took his most dedicated followers on sea voyages to explore early civilizations and spread his teachings. The group is now land-based and has a membership of about 5,000.

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Pope Benedict XVI has named Mexican-born Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio to succeed Cardinal Roger Mahony as archbishop of Los Angeles in what the Associated Press calls "the Holy See's most significant acknowledgment to date of the growing importance of Latinos in the American church."

AP correspondent Nicole Winfield writes that the appointment is also evidence that Benedict wants a strong defender of orthodoxy leading the largest diocese in the United States: Gomez, 58, is an archbishop of Opus Dei, the conservative movement favored by the Vatican.

Gomez was named coadjutor for Los Angeles, which means he will take over the archdiocese when Mahony retires next Feb. 27, his 75th birthday. More from the AP:

The appointment of Gomez, who now leads the Archdiocese of San Antonio, puts him in line to become the highest-ranking Latino in the American Catholic hierarchy and the first Latino cardinal in the U.S.

Hispanics comprise 70 percent of the 5 million Catholics in the Los Angeles archdiocese, and more than one-third of the 65 million Catholics in the United States. In a separate nod to Latino Catholics, Benedict in 2007 named the first cardinal for heavily Latino Texas, Archbishop Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston.

"This just recognizes the reality on the ground that the center of gravity of U.S. Catholicism is moving to the South and West and is becoming increasingly Hispanic," said David Gibson, a Catholic author who writes about religion for PoliticsDaily.com.

Mahony, who was dogged by the clergy sex abuse scandal, developed a reputation during his quarter-century tenure in Los Angeles as a liberal-leaning leader and was often the target of Catholic conservatives. Under church rules, bishops submit their resignations at age 75, but the pope often asks prelates to stay in their posts for several years more.

Read the Associated Press story.

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The holiest day on the Christian calendar is not the appropriate time to discuss allegations that the Vatican covered up child sexual abuse by priests, Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien said Sunday.

O'Brien did not address the abuse scandal during Easter Mass at the Basilica of the Assumption, the oldest cathedral in the United States, and he touched on it only briefly during comments to reporters before the service, the Associated Press reports.

"Christ himself said, 'In the world, you'll have trials. But do not fear; I have overcome the world.' And that's where our focus is," O'Brien said. "Damage has been done. We're trying to repair that damage. We're trying to help those who've been hurt. But we go on; we're still a church. We still bring a positive message to our people and the world."

Pope Benedict XVI also did not acknowledge accusations that he perpetuated a climate of cover-up for pedophile priests, a scandal that threatens to overshadow his papacy and has led to calls for his resignation. At St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, a senior cardinal defended the pontiff from what he called "petty gossip" and hailed his leadership and courage.

In Baltimore, several congregants said their faith in the church's leadership had not been shaken by the allegations. But Rosemarie McManus said she was dismayed by what she called a worldwide crisis.

"It's disgusting. It's embarrassing. It makes me totally sad," said the 83-year-old music teacher, who said she had to hide her Catholic faith from the Nazis as a girl in her native Germany.

McManus, who said her late husband was a reform-minded Catholic publisher, added that she took issue only with "the institution of the church. It has nothing to do with the Scriptures, which we love."

Her daughter, Maureen McManus, said the church would benefit from being more transparent about its failures.

"I can understand why the Catholic Church has all its problems, because it's so insulated from the way the world operates," said McManus, 49, who no longer regularly attends Catholic services. "The church is mired in its own corruption."

But Anna Callahan, 70, of Philadelphia, defended the pope's silence about the scandal.

"Sometimes I think silence is golden," Callahan said. "I think he's a beautiful man."

Callahan said when she heard new allegations of child sexual abuse by priests in Europe and new details about allegations in the United States, "I was upset. I'm not going to lie. But the more I thought about it, I remembered that to forgive is divine."

Rodrigo Bisbal, 39, of Baltimore, said he was certain the church would weather the crisis.

"As long as the leadership stays positive to us in the future, as long as we give people something to believe, it will persevere," Bisbal said.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)
        

President Barack Obama received an enthusiastic welcome Sunday at the Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church in Southeast Washington, where he attended an Easter service with his wife and their daughters, The Washington Post reports.

"This is a monumental moment for us as a community," Pastor Michael E. Bell Sr. said during the service, the Post reports. He called Obama “the most intelligent, most anointed, most charismatic president this country has ever seen," and then looked at him and said: "God has his hands all over you."

Post reporters Eli Saslow and Hamil Harris described the scene:

The president clapped and stomped his foot to the beat. Michelle Obama, wearing a scooped-back beige dress, danced next to him. When the song finished, a woman from the choir grabbed the microphone and pointed to the Obama family, telling them that Allen's congregation liked to get up and move during the service.

"If you came in here to sit and be still, I'm sorry. Move down the street," said one associate minister, drawing a loud cheer. "Excuse me, first family, but we like to get crazy up in here. You might see shoes flying, hair flying. But we are praising the Lord."

It was the kind of spirited service Obama attended for years as a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and he did his best to blend into the crowd. He read along during the hymns, nodded his head repeatedly during the sermon and spent a few minutes bouncing the pastor's grandchild on his lap.

During one song, Obama nudged his older daughter, Malia, and tried to persuade her to dance. "Come on," he said. Then he swayed his shoulders and clapped his hands with exaggerated enthusiasm until Malia started to laugh.

Read the story at washingtonpost.com.

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Vatican officials warned church officials in India to monitor a Catholic priest charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Minnesota, but four years later he continues to work in his home diocese, the Associated Press reports.

In a 2006 letter to the bishop of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, Archbishop Angelo Amato wrote that the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul would be watched in his home diocese "so that he does not constitute a risk to minors and does not create scandal."

Amato was secretary to Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles all abuse cases.

The letter is among evidence gathered by Jeff Anderson, the attorney for Jeyapaul's accuser.

Jeyapaul denies the charges and has no plans to return to the U.S. to face the courts. His current bishop says Jeyapaul has a paperwork job in his office and does not work with children.

"We cannot simply throw out the priest, so he is just staying in the bishop's house, and he is helping me with the appointment of teachers," said the Rev. A. Almaraj, the bishop of Ootacamund. "He says he is innocent, and these are only allegations. ... I don't know what else to do."

Read the Associated Press story.

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Categories: Abuse, Ethics, International
        

It was the Catholic calendar's holiest moment -- the Mass celebrating the resurrection of Christ. But with Pope Benedict XVI accused of failing to protect children from abusive priests, the Associated Press reports, Easter Sunday also was a high-profile opportunity to play defense.

"Holy Father, on your side are the people of God," Cardinal Angelo Sodano told the pontiff, whom victims of clergy sexual abuse accuse of helping to shape and perpetuate a climate of cover-up. Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, dismissed those claims as "petty gossip."

The ringing tribute at the start of a Mass attended by tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square marked an unusual departure from the Vatican's Easter rituals, infusing the tradition-steeped religious ceremony with an air of a papal pep rally.

Dressed in gold robes and shielded from a cool drizzle by a canopy, Benedict looked weary during much of the Mass, the highlight of a heavy Holy Week schedule. But as he listened intently to Sodano's paean, a smile broke across the pope's face, and when the cardinal finished speaking, Benedict rose from his chair in front of the altar to embrace him.

The pontiff hasn't responded to accusations that he did too little to protect children from pedophile priests, even as sex abuse scandals threaten to overshadow his papacy.

Sodano's praise for Benedict as well as the church's 400,000 priests worldwide cranked up a vigorous campaign by the Holy See to counter what it calls a "vile" smear operation orchestrated by anti-Vatican media aimed at weakening the papacy and its moral authority.

Sodano said the faithful came to "rally close around you, successor to (St.) Peter, bishop of Rome, the unfailing rock of the holy church" amid the joy of Easter.

"We are deeply grateful to you for the strength of spirit and apostolic courage with which you announce the Gospel," said Sodano, who sought to assure Benedict that the scandals were not costing him credibility among his flock.

"Holy Father, on your side are the people of God, who do not allow themselves to be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials which sometimes buffet the community of believers," Sodano said.

The cardinal also rushed to the defense of all the Catholic priests who "generously serve the people of God, in parishes, recreation centers, schools, hospitals and many other places, as well as in the missions in the most remote parts of the world."

Benedict, who turns 83 on April 16, was holding up well against the campaign of "deceitful accusations" against him, Venice Cardinal Angelo Scola said in an interview on Italian state TV Sunday. Scola said he recently had dined with the pope, who was drawing on his "usual spiritual energy."

Easter Sunday Mass was the last major Holy Week appearance by the pope in Rome for the thousands of faithful who have poured into the city. On Monday, he will greet pilgrims in the courtyard of the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the Alban Hills south of Rome.

Worshippers cheered Benedict at the end of Sunday's two-hour-long Mass in the cobblestone square bedecked with daffodils, tulips and azaleas.

After the Mass, Benedict moved to the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to deliver his "Urbi et Orbi" message — Latin for "to the city and to the world" — which analyzes humanity's failings and hopes.

He singled out the "trials and sufferings," including persecution and even death, of Christians in Iraq and Pakistan, and of people in Haiti and Chile, devastated by earthquakes. He hoped for peaceful coexistence to win out over criminal violence in Latin American countries plagued by drug trafficking, and promised to pray for peace in the Middle East.

His speech ignored demands by victims that he shoulder some responsibility for a common practice by bishops in the past of shuffling pedophile priests from parish to parish rather than sullying the church's reputation by defrocking clergy who raped, sodomized or otherwise sexually abused minors.

The accusations against the pope stem from his leadership as archbishop of Munich, in his native Germany, before he came to the Vatican three decades ago, as well as his long tenure in Rome leading the Holy See's office dealing with a growing pile of dossiers about pedophile priests.

Sodano's words irked a prominent advocacy group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

"When we speak up and tell how our childhood innocence was shattered by sexual assaults by priests, it is not 'petty gossip,'" SNAP president Barbara Blaine said in a statement.

In the pope's homeland of Germany, which has been rocked by a widening abuse scandal, police said they arrested a man who attacked the Roman Catholic bishop of Muenster with a broom handle during an Easter service in the city's cathedral.

Bishop Felix Genn, 60, defended himself with an incense bowl and was unharmed. After the incident, he continued celebrating the Easter service. The man's motive was unclear, police said.

Germany's top Roman Catholic cleric, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, urged Catholics in his Easter homily not to break with the church even as they face "the heinous crimes, the dark sides of the church."

So far, the Vatican's counterattack to beat back the scandal accusations already backfired in one high-profile attempt.

Jewish leaders, and even some top Catholic churchmen, were angered after Benedict's personal preacher, in a Good Friday sermon, likened the growing accusations against the pope to the campaign of anti-Semitic violence that culminated in the Holocaust.

The preacher, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, told Corriere della Sera daily in an interview Sunday that he had no intention "of hurting the sensibilities of the Jews and of the victims of pedophilia," expressed regret and asked for forgiveness.

He was quoted as saying that the pope wasn't aware of what the sermon would say beforehand, and that no Vatican officials read the text before the Good Friday service.

The apology satisfied one Jewish leader, Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.

"Now that he has apologized and the Vatican has distanced itself from those remarks, the matter is closed," Steinberg said in a statement.

Paris Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois told Le Parisien newspaper that he understood the "violent and indignant" reaction that Friday's sermon provoked in Jews and pedophilia victims. Still, the French churchman denounced what he called a campaign of "denigration and slander" against the pope and said he shouldn't resign.

Washington, D.C., Archbishop Donald Wuerl joined those defending Benedict, writing in an opinion piece in Sunday's Washington Post that the pope has supported U.S. bishops' commitment to child protection policies.

In Milwaukee, where one priest was accused of assaulting some 200 deaf boys, at least a dozen churchgoers told The Associated Press they were not closely following a scandal that has engulfed the church. A canonical trial was initiated against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy years after the alleged abuse, but a Vatican office led at the time by Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, halted the proceedings. Murphy died soon after.

Tony Pisani said he was frustrated by what he was hearing in the news but he is waiting to hear the reaction of the pope himself.

"I haven't seen too many statements from him," the Milwaukee man said. "I'd like to see what safeguards he's implemented to make sure something like this doesn't happen again."

One angry parishioner was 68-year-old Jackson Spears, who said the church should have taken strong action from the beginning.

"I think the pope should have been more aggressive and he should have done something sooner," Spears said. "The church shouldn't condone these things and should have years ago done something about it."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

President Barack Obama used his weekly radio address on Saturday to extend holiday greetings to Christians, Jews and others.

This is a week of faithful celebration. On Monday and Tuesday nights, Jewish families and friends in the United States and around the world gathered for a Seder to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt and the triumph of hope and perseverance over injustice and oppression. On Sunday, my family will join other Christians all over the world in marking the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And while we worship in different ways, we also remember the shared spirit of humanity that inhabits us all – Jews and Christians, Muslims and Hindus, believers and nonbelievers alike.

Amid the storm of public debate, with our 24/7 media cycle, in a town like Washington that’s consumed with the day-to-day, it can sometimes be easy to lose sight of the eternal. So, on this Easter weekend, let us hold fast to those aspirations we hold in common as brothers and sisters, as members of the same family – the family of man.

All of us know how important work is – not just for the paycheck, but for the peace of mind that comes with knowing you can provide for your family. As Americans, and as human beings, we seek not only the security, but the sense of dignity, the sense of community, that work confers. That is why it was heartening news that last month, for the first time in more than two years, our economy created a substantial number of jobs, instead of losing them. We have begun to reverse the devastating slide, but we have a long way to go to repair the damage from this recession, and that will continue to be my focus every single day.

All of us value our health and the health of our loved ones. All of us have experienced an illness, a loss, a personal tragedy. All of us know that no matter what we’re doing or what else is going on in our lives, if the health of someone we love is endangered, nothing else matters. Our health is the rock upon which our lives are built, for better and for worse.

All of us value education. We know that in an economy as competitive as ours, an education is a prerequisite for success. But we also know that ultimately, education is about something more, something greater. It is about the ability that lies within each of us to rise above any barrier, no matter how high; to pursue any dream, no matter how big; to fulfill our God-given potential.

All of us are striving to make a way in this world; to build a purposeful and fulfilling life in the fleeting time we have here. A dignified life. A healthy life. A life, true to its potential. And a life that serves others. These are aspirations that stretch back through the ages – aspirations at the heart of Judaism, at the heart of Christianity, at the heart of all of the world’s great religions.

The rites of Passover, and the traditions of Easter, have been marked by people in every corner of the planet for thousands of years. They have been marked in times of peace, in times of upheaval, in times of war.

One such war-time service was held on the black sands of Iwo Jima more than sixty years ago. There, in the wake of some of the fiercest fighting of World War II, a chaplain rose to deliver an Easter sermon, consecrating the memory, he said “of American dead – Catholic, Protestant, Jew. Together,” he said, “they huddled in foxholes or crouched in the bloody sands…Together they practiced virtue, patriotism, love of country, love of you and of me.” The chaplain continued, “The heritage they have left us, the vision of a new world, [was] made possible by the common bond that united them…their only hope that this unity will endure.”

Their only hope that this unity will endure.

On this weekend, as Easter begins and Passover comes to a close, let us remain ever mindful of the unity of purpose, the common bond, the love of you and of me, for which they sacrificed all they had; and for which so many others have sacrificed so much. And let us make its pursuit – and fulfillment – our highest aspiration, as individuals and as a nation. Happy Easter and Happy Passover to all those celebrating, here in America, and around the world.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Associated Press correspondent Yaniv Zohar has filed a report from Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Orthodox Christians celebrated the millenium-old holy fire ritual:

The sound of drumbeats and hymns and light from thousands of candles and torches filled Christianity's most revered shrine Saturday as Orthodox faithful celebrated Easter Week's holy fire ritual.

Orthodox Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried at the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands, and that a flame appears spontaneously from his tomb on the day before Easter to show he has not forgotten his followers.

Worshippers carrying torches or bundles of 33 tapers signifying the years of Jesus' life waited in excited anticipation as the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in the Holy Land, Theofilos III, removed his embossed gold-and-white mitre and descended with Greek Orthodox, Armenian and other Eastern rite clergy into the tomb.

After the flame appeared there, he passed it from inside the tomb to believers inside the church's main hall, who rushed to light their own candles and torches, illuminating the darkened church within seconds and filling it with smoke. Church bells pealed, and some of the faithful passed their hands through the flames they held, reflecting their belief in the fire's divine and beneficial nature.

Worshippers hoisted one of the clerics who had gone into the tomb on their shoulders after he emerged, waving a bundle of lit tapers.

"It's (a) very huge experience and it's a holy place," said a Serbian woman who identified herself only as Irena.

Light from the holy fire was taken afterward to the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, where tradition holds Jesus was born, and aboard special flights to Athens and other cities, linking many of the 200 million Orthodox worldwide to their spiritual core.

The thousands who filled Jerusalem's cavernous Church of the Holy Sepulcher began lining up for the ceremony hours earlier. Video screens set up in various places in the Old City broadcast the ceremony live for the thousands more who could not fit inside.

Some of the celebrants held church flags, while others beat hand drums and sang hymns.

The various Orthodox denominations grouped into different areas of the church, which was heavily secured by Israeli forces.

Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said about 2,500 police were stationed in the area, including as many as 1,500 within the church itself. He estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 worshippers packed the church and about 7,000 more spilled over into its cobbled courtyard.

The holy fire ritual dates back at least 1,200 years. The precise details of the flame's source are a closely guarded secret.

This year, Orthodox Easter coincides with observances by other Christian denominations, bringing a large number of Easter pilgrims to the narrow alleys of Jerusalem's Old City.

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The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has lost all credibility because of its mishandling of abuse by priests, the leader of the Anglican church said in remarks released Saturday, the Associated Press reports. A leading Catholic archbishop said he was "stunned" by the comments.

The remarks released Saturday marked the first time Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has spoken publicly on the crisis engulfing the Catholic Church. The comments come ahead of a planned visit to England and Scotland by Pope Benedict XVI later this year.

"I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who was saying that it's quite difficult in some parts of Ireland to go down the street wearing a clerical collar now," Williams told the BBC. "And an institution so deeply bound into the life of a society, suddenly becoming, suddenly losing all credibility — that's not just a problem for the church, it is a problem for everybody in Ireland, I think."

At the Vatican, the pope celebrated Easter Vigil on Saturday evening but didn't directly refer to the scandal in his homily.

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano on Saturday denounced what it called the "vile defamation campaign" against the pope and cited messages of solidarity that had arrived from bishops from around the world.

Benedict, who on Sunday celebrates Easter and delivers his "Urbi et Orbi" speech, hasn't made any explicit reference to the scandal since he released a letter to the Irish faithful concerning the abuse crisis in that country on March 20.

The interview with Williams, recorded March 26, is to be aired Monday on the BBC's "Start the Week" program as part of a general discussion of religion to mark Easter. But its publication ahead of the interview caught Catholic leaders off guard.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said he had "rarely felt personally so discouraged" as when he heard Williams' opinions.

"I have been more than forthright in addressing the failures of the Catholic Church in Ireland. I still shudder when I think of the harm that was caused to abused children. I recognize that their church failed them," a statement, posted on the archdiocese's Web site, said. "Those working for renewal in the Catholic Church in Ireland did not need this comment on this Easter weekend and do not deserve it."

Martin also noted that that Anglican leaders in Ireland — including the Church of Ireland's Archbishop of Dublin John Neill and Bishop Richard Clarke — had distanced themselves from Williams' statements, with Clarke describing them as careless.

Martin later said that Williams had called him to express regret for the "difficulties which may have been created" by the interview, but it wasn't clear if that constituted an apology or whether Williams still stood by his remarks.

Calls to Williams' office seeking comment on his interview and the call to Martin were not immediately returned.

The Catholic church has been on the defensive over accusations that leaders protected child abusers for decades in many countries, and Williams' criticisms are likely to strain already testy relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion — which estimate 1.1 billion and 80 million adherents respectively.

Although both the pope and the archbishop of Canterbury have stressed the importance of healing the Reformation-era rift that split the churches in the 16th century, relations hit a low point last year when the Vatican invited conservative Anglicans to join the Catholic Church.

How many will take up the offer is still unknown, although in the interview Williams said he didn't think the issue "is going to be a big deal."

"I think there'll be a few people who will take advantage of it — and they'll take advantage of it because they believe they ought to be in communion with the bishop of Rome. And I can only say fine, God bless them."

The strained relations come at an awkward time for both churches, which are under considerable internal pressure.

The Catholic Church has been rocked by sex abuse scandals in countries such as the United States, Germany and Ireland, where Cardinal Sean Brady faces calls for his resignation following allegations that he played a role in helping to cover up activities of pedophile priests.

The pope himself has come under fire, with critics accusing Benedict — who as a Vatican cardinal directed the Holy See's policy on handling abuse cases — was part of a culture of secrecy intended to protect church hierarchy.

The Anglican Church, meanwhile, still faces bruising internal debates — or even a potential split — over what rights to extend to homosexuals and women within the church.

The pope's planned first official visit to Britain in November already has generated controversy and promises of protests after Benedict's criticism of British rules designed to protect gays and women in the workplace, which have raised fears at the Vatican that the Catholic Church could eventually be prosecuted for refusing to hire gays or transsexuals.

Both Williams and Benedict are due to meet during the visit to Britain, but the archbishop seemed curt when describing how he would greet the pope at Lambeth Palace, his official residence just south of the River Thames.

Williams said the pontiff would be welcomed as "as a valued partner, and that's about it."

In the interview, Williams said Christian institutions, faced with the choice of self-protection or revealing potentially damaging secrets, have decided to keep quiet to preserve their credibility.

"We've learned that that is damaging, it's wrong, it's dishonest and it requires that very hard recognition ... which ought to be natural for the Christian church based as it is on repentance and honesty," he said.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The Associated Press has moved an evocative Good Friday dispatch from Jerusalem:

The cobblestone alleyways of Jerusalem's Old City became moving forests of wooden crosses as Christian pilgrims and clergymen commemorated the day of Jesus' crucifixion, Good Friday.

Black-robed nuns filed past metal barriers erected by police as dozens of tourists in matching red baseball hats held up digital cameras. Some pilgrims carried elaborately carved crucifixes, while others had crude crosses made of two planks held together with tape.

Good Friday rituals center on the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christian tradition says Jesus was crucified and buried before his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

While Catholics and Orthodox Christians follow different calendars, this year their Easters coincide and the churches are commemorating Good Friday together.

Watching as hundreds pressed through the narrow Jerusalem street called the Via Dolorosa — the "Way of Suffering," tracing Jesus' final steps — was Katy Fitzpatrick, 24, of Spokane, Washington. She said the event was both "exciting" and "a little overwhelming."

"It's a little intimidating, and the riot gear is a little intimidating too," she said of the heavy presence of green-clad Israeli police deployed to keep the peace.

Around midday, an American church group performed a reenactment of Jesus' walk to his crucifixion — including an actor who played Jesus, wearing a crown of thorns and carrying a heavy cross, who was led by other actors dressed as Roman legionnaires.

Amalia Daskalaki, 71, from the Greek island of Crete, said this was her third visit to Jerusalem for Good Friday and that she was moved each time. "It's so nice. I like to cry all the time," she said.

Amid the crush of Christians from all over the world, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man in black tried to make his way along the crowded street by pressing against one of the walls. Jews are currently celebrating the weeklong spring holiday of Passover, and thousands of Jewish pilgrims and tourists were also in the Old City.

In addition, Muslims were holding weekly Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque, located in a compound they call the Noble Sanctuary and Jews call the Temple Mount. The disputed compound has been the scene of recent clashes between Muslims and Israeli police.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said around 2,500 policemen had spread out in and around the Old City to enable all three faiths to observe their rituals. No disturbances were reported Friday.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Police in Guyana are investigating the death of a 15-year-old girl after neighbors and a local pastor tried to treat her convulsions with an exorcism at a church, the Associated Press reports.

Sangeeta Persaud began to convulse Sunday as she drank tea for breakfast at her grandmother's home in Canal Number Two, a farming village west of the capital, Georgetown, the grandmother told the AP.

Chaitranie Ramotar said she became worried and called the girl's mother, who brought the pastor to the house.

"I experienced the same thing at age 12," Nankumarie Jaikissoon, the teen's mother, told the AP. "That is why I did not rush her to the hospital. My heart did not tell me to rush her to the hospital."

The pastor, Ewart Cummings, said he decided to take the girl to his small, concrete church, where he and several elders spent five hours praying for her as they pressed on her stomach and head. They also made her drink an anointing oil, he told the AP.

At times, the teen would bark and make other strange noises, Cummings said.

"I did nothing wrong," he said. "I just responded as pastor of the church. ... Ungodly people would not understand certain things like driving out spirits."

Cummings said he drove the girl to the hospital around 5 p.m. because she had calmed down but was weak. She died at 10 p.m.

Police Commander Colin West said results from a preliminary autopsy were inconclusive but an investigation continues. No one has been charged.

On Thursday, Cummings presided at the girl's funeral as the child's mother, father and other relatives shouted accusations at one another and at the pastor. Police were summoned to the funeral and ordered the pastor to issue a quick prayer to end the service.

Cummings said he had previously prayed for the girl's mother and grandmother because they complained that evil spirits disrupted their sleep and tried to injure them.

Persaud, who turned 15 in mid-March, was the only girl among four siblings. She was temporarily sharing a bed with her grandmother in a wood shack as her mother waited for plumbing and electricity to be installed at their house.

Jaikissoon said her daughter had suffered from a bad cold for several years and was recently tested for tuberculosis. The teen was supposed to go back to the hospital April 19 for results from blood tests and X-rays taken of her chest.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 8:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

At a solemn Good Friday service, Pope Benedict XVI's personal preacher likened the tide of allegations that the pontiff has covered up sex abuse cases to the "more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism," the Associated Press reports.

But within hours, facing a storm of criticism at the comparison, the Vatican felt it necessary to distance the pope from the preacher's remarks, the AP reports.

Both Jewish and victims' groups responded that it was inappropriate to compare the discomfort being experienced by the church leadership in the sex abuse scandal to the violence that culminated in the Holocaust. The Vatican has been on the defensive in recent days, saying the church has been singled out and collectively stereotyped for the problem of pedophilia, which it says is a society-wide issue.

Invoking any comparison with anti-Semitism was particularly sensitive on Good Friday, itself a delicate day in a decades-long effort by Jews and Catholics to overcome a legacy of mistrust. There was a long-held Catholic belief that Jews were collectively responsible for executing Christ, and a landmark achievement of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s was a declaration stating the Jews should not be blamed for the crucifixion.

As the pope listened in a hushed St. Peter's Basilica, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa likened accusations against the pontiff and the Catholic church in sex abuse scandals in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere to "collective violence" suffered by the Jews.

Benedict, 82, looked weary as he sat near the central altar at the early evening prayer service.

Cantalamessa, in his reflections for the pope on the Catholic church's most solemn day, said he was inspired by a letter from an unidentified Jewish friend who was upset by the "attacks" against Benedict.

Jews "know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms," said Cantalamessa, a Franciscan priest.

Quoting from the letter, Cantalamessa said his Jewish friend was following "with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful of the whole world."

"The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism," he said, quoting from the letter.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, later contacted The Associated Press and said Cantalamessa wasn't speaking as a Vatican official when he compared "attacks'" on the pope to "collective" violence against Jews.

Such parallelism can "lead to misunderstandings and is not an official position of the Catholic church," Lombardi said, adding that Cantalamessa was speaking about a letter from a friend who lived through a "painful experience."

Benedict didn't speak after the homily but chanted prayers in a tired voice. He leaned up to remove a red cloth covering a tall crucifix, which was passed to him by an aide. He took off his shoes, knelt and prayed before the cross.

Two hours later, Benedict, wearing a red cloak in the breezy night, knelt in prayer at the Colosseum as he watched the faithful carry a tall, slim wooden cross in Rome's traditional torchlit Via Crucis procession that commemorates Christ's suffering and death. Thousands of people clutching prayerbooks and candles crowded around the ancient arena.

During the procession, "we meditated on his (Jesus') suffering and discovered how deep his love was and is for us," Benedict said in a brief remarks at the end of the 90-minute ceremony. Then he blessed the crowd, prompting cheers and some shouts of "Long live the pope."

Victims say Benedict — both as a former archbishop of Munich and later as a Vatican cardinal directing the Holy See's policy on handling abuse cases — was part of a culture of cover-up and confidentiality basically devised to protect church hierarchy.

Cantalamessa's likening the accusations to the Holocaust rankled U.S. Jewish leaders.

"Shame on Father Cantalamessa," said Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, in a statement. "The Vatican is entitled to defend itself, but the comparison with anti-Semitic persecution is offensive and unsustainable. We are sorely disappointed."

Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, who said he recently had "cordial" talks at the Vatican with church and other Jewish leaders as part of efforts on both sides to improve Catholic-Jewish relations, sounded dismayed.

"It's an unfortunate use of language to make this comparison, since the collective violence against the Jews resulted in the death of 6 million, while the collective violence spoken of here has not led to murder and destruction, but perhaps character assault," said Greenebaum, U.S. director of interreligious relations for the American Jewish Committee.

German Jewish leader Stephan Kramer described Cantalamessa's remarks as unheard-of "insolence."

"It is repulsive, obscene and most of all offensive toward all abuse victims as well as to all the victims of the Holocaust," said Kramer, general secretary of Germany's Central Council of Jews, in an interview with the AP in Berlin.

Painful memories of the strained relations between the two religions were raised earlier in Benedict's papacy, when he favored a revival of the pre-Vatican Council version of the Tridentine Mass, which includes a prayer for the conversion of Jews.

Cantalamessa in his sermon said there was no need to dwell on the scandals. He referred to the sexual abuse of children by clergy, saying "unfortunately, not a few elements of the clergy are stained" by the violence. Still, he said, "there is sufficient talk outside of here."

A vocal U.S.-based victims lobby, SNAP, reacted scathingly to the sermon.

"It's heartbreaking to see yet another smart, high-ranking Vatican official making such callous remarks that insult both abuse victims and Jewish people," said David Clohessy of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "It's morally wrong to equate actual physical violence and hatred against a large group of innocent people with mere public scrutiny of a small group of complicit officials."

"The Catholic hierarchy has engaged in and still engages in widely documented, self-serving and ongoing cover-ups of devastating clergy sex crimes. That's why church records are being disclosed, predator priests are being exposed and Catholic officials feel besieged."

The Rev. Thomas Reese, an expert on the Vatican based at Georgetown University in Washington, also criticized Cantalamessa's homily as "not helpful."

"You know, you wish that people in the Vatican had at least some idea of how what they say will be perceived by an audience outside of the Vatican clergy," he said.

Reese added that it's important to note that the Vatican spokesman distanced the pope from Cantalamessa's comments and that the homily did acknowledge children have been abused by priests.

Cantalamessa, in a sharply worded pre-Christmas 2006 lecture before Benedict, denounced the "abominations" committed by the church's own pastors and ministers, suggesting it hold days of fasting and penance in countries with a high number of cases of sex abuse by clergy.

While Cantalamessa delivered his ringing defense of the pontiff, the church in Benedict's native Germany made the unusually frank admission that it failed to help victims of clerical abuse because it wanted to protect its reputation.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German bishops' conference, said clerics neglected helping victims because of a "wrongly intended desire to protect the church's reputation."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Cardinals across Europe used their Holy Thursday sermons to defend Pope Benedict XVI from accusations he played a role in covering up sex abuse scandals, and an increasingly angry Vatican sought to deflect any criticism in the Western media, the Associated Press reports.

The relationship between the church and the media has become increasingly bitter as the scandal buffeting the 1 billion-member church has touched the pontiff himself. On Wednesday, the church singled out The New York Times for criticism in an unusually harsh attack.

Western news organizations, including The Associated Press, have reported extensively on the burgeoning scandal, and new details have emerged on an almost daily basis.

On Holy Thursday, Benedict first celebrated a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica dedicated to the union between the pope and the world's priests. In the late afternoon, he washed the feet of 12 priests in a ceremony symbolizing humility and commemorating Christ's Last Supper with his 12 apostles on the evening before his Good Friday crucifixion.

Although there were expectations by some that the pope would address the crisis, Benedict made no reference to the scandal at either ceremony.

Venice's Cardinal Angelo Scola expressed solidarity with Benedict in his Holy Thursday homily in the lagoon city, describing him as a victim of "deceitful accusations." He praised the pope as seeking to remove all "dirt" from the priesthood.

Warsaw Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz said the church should take notice of individual tragedies and treat sex abuse cases very seriously, but at the same time, he criticized the media for "targeting the whole church, targeting the pope, and to that we must say `no' in the name of truth and in the name of justice."

And Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, speaking of Benedict's long years as head of a Vatican office that investigates abuse, said the future pope "had a very clear line of not covering up but clearing up."

He had also reflected on the issue at a Wednesday evening service:

"I admit that I often feel a sense of injustice these days. Why is the church being excoriated? Isn't there also abuse elsewhere? ... And then I'm tempted to say: 'Yes, the media just don't like the church! Maybe there's even a conspiracy against the church?' But then I feel in my heart that no, that's not it."

The church on Wednesday presented its highest-level official response yet to one of the most explosive recent revelations regarding sex abuse — a story in the Times on the church's decision in the 1990s not to defrock a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting deaf boys.

It was the latest in a series of attacks on the press. Last week, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily newspaperdenounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" by the media to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

On Thursday, the newspaper carried a story on its front page on German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcoming efforts to stem sex abuse, headlining "German chancellor praises the Catholic church."

In the article posted Wednesday on the Vatican's Web site, Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote: "I am not proud of America's newspaper of record, The New York Times, as a paragon of fairness."

Levada, an American, said the newspaper wrongly used the case of the Rev. Lawrence Murphy to find fault in Benedict's handling of abuse cases.

A Times spokeswoman defended the articles and said no one has cast doubt on the reported facts.

"The allegations of abuse within the Catholic church are a serious subject, as the Vatican has acknowledged on many occasions," said Diane McNulty. "Any role the current pope may have played in responding to those allegations over the years is a significant aspect of this story."

The Vatican newspaper also carried a front-page commentary to mark the fifth anniversary of the death of Benedict's predecessor, the much beloved Pope John Paul II.

The article said John Paul wanted Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to work by his side from the early years of his papacy. John Paul brought the archbishop of Munich to Rome to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the powerful office that among other things investigates clerical sex abuse.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

An anti-abortion zealot who murdered one of the few U.S. doctors who performed late-term abortions was sentenced Thursday to life in prison and won't be eligible for parole for 50 years — the maximum allowed by law — the Associated Press reports.

Scott Roeder, 52, faced a mandatory life prison term for gunning down Dr. George Tiller in the back of Tiller's Wichita church last May.

Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert could have made the Roeder eligible for parole after 25 or 50 years, but gave him the harsher sentence because he said the evidence showed Roeder stalked Tiller before killing him.

Wilbert also sentenced Roeder to serve an additional year in prison on each of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening two church ushers in the melee. Allowing for possible time off those sentences for good behavior, Roeder won't be eligible for parole for 51 years and eight months.

Roeder testified during his trial that he killed Tiller to save unborn children.

In a rambling statement in court Thursday, Roeder blamed Tiller's death primarily on the state for not outlawing abortion.

"I stopped him so he could not dismember another innocent baby," Roeder said. "Wichita is a far safer place for unborn babies without George Tiller."

Roeder also took the opportunity to describe abortion procedures in detail, which he was previously forbidden from doing during the trial. Abortion is legal in Kansas, and prosecutors were careful not turn the trial into a referendum on abortion.

Roeder interrupted Wilbert several times as the judge discussed the sentence from the bench.

When Wilbert read from a previous court decision saying that allowing vigilantism would promote chaos, Roeder said, "Baby murder is anarchy and chaos."

As he was being led away in handcuffs after the sentencing, Roeder shouted, "Blood of innocent babies on your hands."

Forty minutes into his remarks, Wilbert stopped Roeder as he was about to publicly attack District Attorney Nola Foulston.

"It is not a forum for you to get on a soap box for you to give your entire political beliefs," Wilbert told Roeder.

Roeder accused Wilbert of "duplicity" and said his trial was a miscarriage of justice because he wasn't allowed to present testimony about the evils of abortion. He also said God's judgment against the U.S. will "sweep over this land like a prairie wind."

"He will avenge every drop of innocent blood," Roeder said.

Earlier Thursday, Lee Thompson, who was Tiller's friend and attorney and represents the Tiller family, asked Wilbert to give Roeder the harshest sentence possible, saying anything less would encourage other anti-abortion fanatics to follow in Roeder's footsteps.

"It will happen again and again," Thompson said. "This is domestic terrorism. This act will be repeated by this person if he ever sees the light of day again."

Thompson described Tiller as a devoted husband, father and grandfather and a strong believer in women's rights. He said his office still receives calls from women seeking medical services. As he spoke, Tiller's widow Jeanne cried. Roeder at times looked away, yawned and took a drink of water.

"The impact of his death on women throughout the world is like an earthquake," Thompson said. "They ask, where can I go? What will I do?' I have to say, 'I'm sorry, I can't tell you.' That's the impact of this crime."

Foulston argued that the longer sentence was warranted because Roeder stalked Tiller for years, and he put others at the church in danger when he shot the doctor and when others chased him afterward.

In delivering his sentence, Wilbert said that the choice of venue for the killing, a church, made it even more heinous.

Roeder testified in January that he had previously taken a gun into the doctor's church and had checked out the gated subdivision where Tiller lived and the clinic where he practiced.

Foulston said the murder hurt Tiller's church and "wounded the country." Thompson said Roeder targeted Tiller in a "hate crime" because Tiller provided abortion services.

Security was tight for the hearing. Law enforcement officers had explosive-detecting dogs sniffing reporters' equipment before the hearing. Four Sedgwick County sheriff's deputies were on duty outside the courtroom Thursday, along with several agents from both the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Lawyers in a Florida clergy sex abuse case say the Vatican office then headed by Pope Benedict XVI failed to remove an alleged pedophile from the priesthood for years, even when the priest himself asked to be defrocked, the Associated Press reports.

Attorney Jessica Arbour, who represents an alleged victim of the Rev. Ernesto Garcia-Rubio in a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Miami, also said Wednesday that the Vatican instructed church officials in Florida to shelter the priest after he was forced to leave Cuba, the AP reports.

The lawsuit was filed last year, but the lawyers released more details of the Garcia-Rubio case amid questions about the Roman Catholic church's response to European sexual abuse allegations, and about the role of Benedict as an archbishop in his native Germany and then as head of a Vatican office

The Archdiocese of Miami criticized the lawyers for attacking the archdiocese and Vatican during Holy Week.

"As always, the Catholic Church's concerns are for the victims and a prevailing sense of justice," archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta said in a statement. "In addition, over these past eight years, it has been forthcoming and taken steps to keep our children safe through training and background screenings."

After arriving in Miami in 1968, Garcia-Rubio served as a church advocate for recent immigrants from Latin America, Arbour said, giving him access to child refugees from Cuba, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

The priest would take the children in, and then require them to have sexual contact with him, she said. If the child refused, Arbour said, Garcia-Rubio would threaten to deport them. Arbour says her client was 15 when he came to the U.S. by himself from Nicaragua.

"He was given access to a very vulnerable population that had a constant stream of potential victims," she said.

Garcia-Rubio left Florida to work in Honduras in the 1980s. He first petitioned the Vatican in 1994 to remove him from the priesthood, or laicize him, Arbour said, after having gotten married the year before.

The request would have fallen under the jurisdiction of Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Arbour said.

"Six years later, he still hadn't been laicized," Arbour said. "It was because they had lost the paperwork in Rome."

Arbour's assertion that the petition was lost could not immediately be verified through the Vatican, but she provided a copy of a letter purported to be from Garcia-Rubio in which he states that an archbishop had told him the papers for his laicization had been lost in Rome.

Garcia-Rubio later re-filed the petition and it was granted, said Arbour, who does not have any evidence the priest abused children after he first entered his petition.

His current whereabouts are unknown. Arbour said his last known address was in Miami a year ago.

Benedict is not specifically named in any of the documents, but as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 to 2005, Ratzinger should have taken action to remove Garcia-Rubio from the priesthood, Arbour said.

"There's 20 years of opportunities for Ratzinger to stop him and he didn't," she said.

Arbour also released a 1968 letter from the Vatican to the Archdiocese of Miami, stating Garcia-Rubio had been forced to leave Cuba because of "serious difficulties of a moral nature (homosexuality)."

Arbour contends that homosexuality was used at the time by church officials as a code word for pedophilia, though archdiocese officials dispute that.

"I think it means exactly what it says," said Agosta, the archdiocese spokeswoman. "And certainly homosexuality does not equate to child predators."

The letter from an apostolic delegate in Washington goes on to say that the archbishop of Miami "will wish to have this information so that whatever steps are necessary may be taken to protect this priest with your accustomed paternal charity."

Agosta said it came from the Vatican envoy to the United States because there was no communication between churches in the U.S. and Cuba at the time, not because the Vatican was intervening on behalf of a pedophile priest.

Three days after the communique, the archbishop of Miami replied with a letter saying the information about Garcia-Rubio was "a surprise indeed to me."

"At no time did anyone indicate that the problem was of such a nature as that described in your letter," the archbishop said.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

A Muslim woman sentenced to be caned for drinking beer has had her punishment commuted, in a surprising turnaround for a high-profile case that raised questions about Islamic laws intruding into personal matters in Malaysia, the Associated Press reports.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a mother of two, received a letter Wednesday from the Pahang state Islamic department informing her that the state's sultan has decided to spare her the caning, her lawyer, Adham Jamalullail, said Thursday.

The order is likely to cool down a fiery debate over whether Islamic laws should intrude into people's private lives in this Muslim-majority country. Many people had condemned the punishment, saying it shows conservative Islamists are gaining influence over the justice system.

Kartika, a former model and nurse, was sentenced last July. Had the punishment been carried out at the time, she would have been the first woman to be caned in Malaysia, where about 60 percent of the 28 million people are Muslims.

She pleaded guilty and did not appeal her sentence, but the punishment was halted at the last minute following an uproar in the media and among rights activists.

Three other Muslim women were caned this year for having sex out of wedlock, becoming the first Muslim women to be caned. Their cases did not draw as much attention because the caning was kept a secret until after it was done. Subsequently, the women themselves appeared before local media and said they deserved the punishment.

Adham told the AP that "as a substitution for the caning, the sultan has ordered Kartika to perform community service for three weeks."

Read the Associated Press story.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The head of a Roman Catholic order that specialized in the treatment of pedophile priests visited with then-Pope Paul VI nearly 50 years ago and followed up with a letter recommending the removal of pedophile priests from ministry, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

In the Aug. 27, 1963, letter, the head of the New Mexico-based Servants of the Holy Paraclete tells the pope he recommends removing pedophile priests from active ministry and strongly urges defrocking repeat offenders, the AP reports.

The letter shows that the Vatican knew, or should have known, about clergy abuse in the U.S. decades ago, said Anthony DeMarco, a plaintiff attorney in Los Angeles who provided the letter. The accusation comes as plaintiffs in Kentucky are attempting to sue the Vatican for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police or the public about priests who molested children.

Yet the problem was very well-known to Rome well before the 1960s. The 1917 code of canon law criminalized sexual abuse of minors. Five years later, the Vatican penned a document outlining detailed procedures for handling such cases. In 1962, that document was updated and has been used in many of the lawsuits by victims against U.S. diocese and the Vatican itself.

The letter, written by the Rev. Gerald M.C. Fitzgerald, appears to have been drafted at the request of the pope and summarizes Fitzgerald's thoughts on problem priests after his Vatican visit.

The letter echoes other Fitzgerald writings about wayward priests.

Several news organizations, including the AP, reported last year that Fitzgerald was intent on buying an island where priests attracted to men and boys could be segregated, and even made a $5,000 down payment on a Caribbean island for that purpose.

"It is for this class of rattlesnake I have always wished an island retreat, but even an island is too good for these vipers," he wrote an acquaintance in 1957.

In 1960, he sent two priests from the Paracletes to the island of Tortola to investigate the location — but his dream of an island monastery dedicated to trouble priests ended when the new archbishop of Santa Fe overruled him, his successor, Rev. Joseph McNamara, has said in an affidavit.

A message left with the Paraclete order at one of their two existing facilities in Missouri was not returned. A number for the second facility was disconnected. The offices of the Vatican spokesman were closed late Wednesday.

Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, defended the church and said it was unlikely Paul VI ever saw the 1963 letter.

"The fact of the matter is, the prevailing ideas at the time about how to deal with abusive behavior were not adequate," Tamberg said. "Clearly, society and the church have evolved new understandings of what causes sexually abusive behavior and how to deal with it."

Fitzgerald opens the five-page letter by thanking the pope for an audience the day before and says he is summarizing his thoughts at the pope's request on the "problem of the problem priest" after 20 years working to treat them.

He tells Paul VI that treatment for priests who have succumbed to "abnormal, homosexual tendencies" should include psychiatric, as well as spiritual, counseling — but goes on to warn about the dangers of leaving those individuals in ministry.

The letter also touches on priests who have consensual affairs with women.

"Personally, I am not sanguine of the return of priests to active duty who have been addicted to abnormal practices, especially sins with the young," Fitzgerald wrote.

"Where there is indication of incorrigibility, because of the tremendous scandal given, I would most earnestly recommend total laicization," he wrote. "I say 'total' ... because when these men are taken before civil authority, the non-Catholic world definitely blames the discipline of celibacy for the perversion of these men."

The letter proves that Vatican officials knew about clergy abuse decades ago and should have done more to protect children, plaintiff attorney DeMarco said.

The church has come under fire for transferring priests accused of sexual abuse to other parishes, rather than reporting the abuse to civil authorities and removing them from ministry.

The problem of clergy abuse has been known to Rome well before then. The 1917 code of canon law criminalized sexual abuse of minors. Five years later, the Vatican penned a document outlining detailed procedures for handling such cases. In 1962, that document was updated and has been used in many of the lawsuits by victims against U.S. diocese and the Vatican itself.

Fitzgerald's letter shows the pope knew how pervasive and destructive the problem was, DeMarco said.

"He says the solution is to take them out of the priesthood period, not shuffle them around, not pass them from diocese to diocese."

The letter was released in Los Angeles by attorneys who represented more than 500 victims of clergy abuse in their record-breaking $660 million settlement with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2007.

Attorneys working on the Los Angeles cases found it among court papers related to clergy abuse cases filed in New Mexico in the late 1980s and early 1990s and fought to get it unsealed.

Thousands more pages of confidential priest personnel files from the Los Angeles cases were to be released as part of the 2007 settlement after a review by a retired judge overseeing the process. The review, however, has dragged on for nearly three years.

The letter released Wednesday is different from a 1957 letter made public last year in which Fitzgerald seeks help from the Bishop of Manchester, N.H. in finding a placement for a priest leaving the treatment program.

Attorneys also released a 250-page, redacted transcript of the 2007 deposition of the Rev. Joseph McNamara, who took over the Paraclete order after Fitzgerald.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)