Vatican Radio celebrates
80th anniversary
Pope Pius XII, who led the Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958, visits
Vatican Radio in this undated photo. A special exhibit opened Feb.
10 at the Vatican Museums celebrating the 80th anniversary of Vatican
Radio. Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, collaborated with
the Vatican to build its first radio broadcasting station.
CNS photo/Vatican Radio
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Church official expresses hope for Egypt’s
future
A Christian supporter of pro-democracy actions in Egypt carries a
crucifix amid the crowd in Tahrir Square in Cairo Feb. 9. The Vatican’s
ambassador to Egypt, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, said he hoped
the country’s future would include greater social justice and
greater freedom for all of the country’s people. In an interview
with Vatican Radio Feb. 11, he said he hoped the Supreme Council of
the Armed Forces, which is running Egypt, would follow the direction
of constitutional reform and “will also respond to the other
demands of the population with regard to social justice and with regard
to political liberties as well.”
CNS photo/Yannis Behrakis,
Reuters |
Bieber’s
mom: faith can keep son grounded
Few child stars’ ascents have been quite as meteoric as that
of the YouTube curiosity turned global pop sensation Justin Bieber,
16, who, in a little more than a year, went from playing guitar on
street corners in his small Canadian hometown of Stratford, Ontario,
to filling arenas and performing for President Barack Obama. In that
short time, he has sold more than 9 million albums and triggered a
pandemic of “Bieber Fever.” Bieber’s mother, Pattie
Mallette, a woman of faith, has turned to God and fellow believers,
surrounding her son with people who will be a positive moral influence,
and trusting in prayer — lots of it. “I’m very careful
about who I allow into his life,” said Mallette, who attends
a nondenominational Christian church, as does her son.
CNS photo/Paramount
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IPhone confession app ‘not a substitute’
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said a new
iPhone application can help Catholics prepare for confession but cannot
substitute for the sacramental encounter between a penitent and a
priest. “Confession: A Roman Catholic App” for Apple’s
iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is a way for Catholics to prepare for
and participate in the sacrament of penance. Some press reports suggested
the application could replace in-person confession. “It’s
essential to understand that the sacrament of penance requires a personal
dialogue between the penitent and the confessor, and absolution by
the confessor who is present,” Father Lombardi said. (See the
related commentary.)
CNS photo/Tony Gentile |
Prelate to report Irish Church
is near collapse
DUBLIN — Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley reportedly will tell Pope
Benedict XVI that the Catholic Church in Ireland is “on the edge”
of collapse due to the fallout from clerical abuse scandals. Cardinal
O’Malley is one of several senior prelates charged by Pope Benedict
with carrying out an apostolic visitation of the Irish Catholic Church
after a series of highly critical judicial reports that revealed abuse
by priests and a widespread culture of cover-up for decades among church
leaders. Father Tony Flannery, a leading member of the Association of
Catholic Priests, revealed at a conference of laypeople Feb. 12 that “Cardinal
O’Malley told the association the Irish Church had a decade, at
most, to avoid falling over the edge and becoming like other European
countries where religion is marginal to society.”
Grand jury indicts five after abuse investigation
PHILADELPHIA — In a reprise of 2005’s sensational grand jury
report of sexual assaults by clergy in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia,
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams released a new report Feb.
10 by a grand jury investigating similar abuse. While the 2005 report
detailed dozens of cases of sexual abuse of children by clergy over many
decades, the new report brings criminal indictments for the first time.
Three priests and a former lay teacher were charged with rape, assault
and other felonies related to minors, as recommended by the grand jury.
Another priest was charged on two counts of endangering the welfare of
a child for his role in recommending the assignment of priests in the
archdiocese.
And a 28-year-old man who filed suit anonymously in Philadelphia’s
Court of Common Pleas Feb. 14 says he was abused by clergy on two separate
occasions. He filed a civil lawsuit against the two alleged abusers, the
Catholic schools he attended, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the city’s
past and present cardinal archbishops and others he said failed to prevent
the abuse. A spokesman for the archdiocese said Feb. 15 that there would
be no comment on the lawsuit.
Catholics protest artist’s provocative Toronto show
TORONTO — A private Toronto art gallery has received thousands of
e-mails protesting its controversial exhibit featuring a “bullet-ridden”
Pope Benedict XVI. Darrell Brown, Bezpala Brown Gallery president, said
the gallery received about 8,000 e-mails in one hour from the American
Catholic group America Needs Fatima, which launched a web campaign against
Peter Alexander Por’s exhibit “Persona Non Grata: The Veil
of History,” running at the gallery until Feb. 25. Brown first promoted
the exhibit with a provocative press release under the headline “Pope
shot, Obama crucified at the Bezpala Brown Gallery.” The release,
referring to the clergy sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Church,
read: “Pope Benedict XVI’s portrait is riddled with bullet
holes, a less than subtle expression of the hurt and anger directed at
a pontiff and an institution that has abandoned its flock, choosing to
focus on dogma while its subjects suffer and, in many instances, die from
its archaic policies.”
Boston, Toledo study changes for parishes
BOSTON — In the Boston Archdiocese, a team of priests, deacons,
religious and laypeople will help lay the groundwork for the archdiocese’s
future, which will likely result in fewer parishes but a similar number
of churches that currently serve Catholics.
Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley announced the formation of the
Arch-diocesan Pastoral Planning Com-mission Feb. 2. The 18-member board
will make a final recommendation to him on a pastoral plan for resources
available in the near future. Weekly Mass attendance has plummeted from
about 70 percent of the archdiocese’s Catholics in the 1970s to
17 percent today.
In the Diocese of Toledo, the aim of reorganization involves twinning
parishes or clustering them so that one priest is assigned to a few parishes,
said Jason Shanks, leader of the diocesan Evangelization and Pastoral
Life Secretariat and director of the Office of Pastoral Planning.
The three-year plan is based on a study completed in 2005 that projected
how many priests would be available to minister in the future. The report
said the diocese in 2011 would have six fewer priests than in 2005 and
13 fewer in 2013, based on expected retirements, health and other factors.
— Catholic News Service
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