VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When it comes to the abuse of children by members of the clergy, using secrecy to hide problems rather than protect victims "must go out the window," said Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, Northern Ireland.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Transparent, reliable and respectful administration is critical for counteracting sinful behavior within the Catholic Church, said German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The hypocrisy of Catholic leaders who claimed to be guardians of morality yet remained silent about clerical sexual abuse has left the church's credibility in shambles, an African woman religious told bishops at the Vatican summit on abuse.
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Burlington, Vt., Feb 22, 2019 CNA.- With a bill to legalize abortion for any reason until birth advancing in Vermont, the local Catholic bishop has stressed that defending unborn babies is a matter of human rights.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church needs "new legal structures of accountability" for bishops accused of sexual abuse or of negligence in handling abuse allegations, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago told the Vatican summit on safeguarding.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Only together, by humbly sharing their experiences, encouragement and corrective advice, can the bishops and leaders in the Catholic Church work to prevent the abuse of minors and help bring healing to survivors, said the head of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India.
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MARLBOROUGH -- Father Steven Clemence celebrated his last Mass in the upper church of Immaculate Conception Parish at 5 p.m. on Jan. 20. That evening, around 10:30 p.m., he received a call from the church's alarm company notifying him that there was a fire at the church.
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CAMBRIDGE -- Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory, is no stranger to the Boston area. A native of Michigan, he earned his B.S. and M.S. in planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which, he said, he chose to attend because it housed the world's largest collection of science fiction. He visits Boston annually for the Boskone 56 Science Fiction Convention, according to Joshua Shutter, a Harvard Ph.D. candidate in chemical physics.
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After an extensive review process, six parish elementary schools in the Archdiocese of Boston have been selected as Healey Education Foundation Partners. As Healey Education Foundation Partners, these schools will undergo a governance transformation and they will also receive guidance in all areas of operation, including finances, academics, and value proposition. In addition, the six schools will each hire an advancement director and share one school improvement director. The schools will also have the opportunity to collaborate with all schools in the Healey Education Foundation network.
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CHELSEA -- The St. Rose School faculty seeks to meet students' social and emotional needs by employing age-appropriate social-emotional learning strategies at each grade level. Principal Michele Butler believes this focus is rooted in their mission statement, which is based on the charism of the school's founders, the Sisters of Providence: "We aspire to meet the needs of our students and their families through works of love, mercy and justice among God's people."
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On Friday morning, I went to PwC's Boston office in the Seaport to attend the annual Celebration of Excellence Breakfast, sponsored by the Catholic Schools Foundation (CSF). We are grateful to Mr. John Farina for hosting us in that spectacular venue.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- For the Catholic Church, there is a "line in the sand," which can never be crossed, and that is to not allow anyone who harms or would harm a child to exercise public ministry, said Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- If you attended college, you probably remember the Newman Center as a place of barbecues, Bible studies and fun-loving priests trying zealously to minister to what is typically a religiously disengaged demographic.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is a call for bishops to unmask the deep-seated clericalism that placed protection of the institution of the church above the sufferings of victims, said the head of the council of Latin American bishops.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Immediately after asking bishops and religious superiors to be concrete in confronting the clerical sexual abuse crisis and the need to protect children in the church, Pope Francis handed them a list of 21 action items to consider.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Catholics need to know that their leaders "mean business" when it comes to protecting minors from abuse, the Vatican's top abuse investigator told representatives of the world's bishops and religious orders.
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Vatican City, Feb 21, 2019 CNA.- “In the closet of the Vatican,” a newly released book by the French author and LGBT activist Frederic Martel is generating global media attention, and discussion among Vatican figures in Rome.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- "Every time I refused to have sex with him, he would beat me," an abuse survivor from Africa told Pope Francis and bishops attending the Vatican summit on child protection and the abuse crisis.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Opening the Vatican summit on child protection and the clerical sexual abuse crisis, Pope Francis said, "The holy people of God are watching and are awaiting from us not simple, predictable condemnations, but concrete and effective measures" to stop abuse.
Read moreWASHINGTON (CNS) -- Georgetown University in Washington is the latest institution to announce it is rescinding an honorary degree it gave to former U.S. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick in 2004. The Feb. 19 announcement comes days after the Vatican said Feb. 16 it had found the former prelate guilty of abuses against minors and adults, stripping him of his clerical status.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Catholic high school student at the center of an encounter with a Native American tribal leader in Washington filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit Feb. 19 against The Washington Post claiming the newspaper's coverage of the incident was biased.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- On the eve of a major summit on the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, survivors said concrete action, not words, must be made to restore the trust of those who have suffered at the hands of members of the clergy.
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CHICAGO (CNS) -- The canonization cause for Father Augustus Tolton is just one step away from going to Pope Francis for the priest to be declared "venerable." On Feb. 5, the feast of St. Agatha, a nine-member Vatican theological commission unanimously voted that Father Tolton's cause be moved forward to the cardinals and archbishops in the Congregation for Saints' Causes for a final vote to send a decree of the priest's "heroic virtues" to Pope Francis for his approval.
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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (CNS) -- Rosemary Mariner was full of firsts. To the world, Capt. Mariner was an aviation pioneer who broke through the ranks of the all-male military aviator corps to become the U.S. Navy's first female attack-jet pilot. To those close to her, Rosemary was a down-to-earth wife, mother and Bible study leader who was as humble as she was faithful.
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Vatican City, Feb 16, 2019 CNA.- Pope Francis’ recent letter to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro confirmed the Holy See’s position on the Venezuelan crisis, while demonstrating that Maduro has become an increasingly isolated global figure.
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NEW YORK (CNS) -- In a robust demonstration that actions speak louder than words, New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan Feb. 18 introduced representatives of six church-related organizations that help pregnant women in need.
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CHICAGO (CNS) -- When the Vatican announced Feb. 15 that Pope Francis had signed a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed John Henry Newman, clearing the way for his canonization, there was rejoicing in Chicago.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments in April about the Trump administration's push to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census and its decision will come just in the nick of time, since the Census Bureau needs to begin printing forms for the every-10 years-questionnaire this summer.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When presented with an accusation that a priest has sexually abused a child, "whether it's criminal or malicious complicity and a code of silence or whether it is denial" on a very human level, such reactions are no longer tolerable, said the Vatican's top investigator of abuse cases.
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