The Catholic church and sexual abuse

At the Second Lateran Council 1139 Rome imposed mandatory celibacy for priests. The issue was money because, under primogeniture (now disappeared) the sons of bishops and priests had a legal claim on the land and holdings of the priestly “living.” Celibacy was instituted, but at the same time the Church, not then or since, has …

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The scandal in the Catholic church goes from bad to overwhelming

In an interview published on Wednesday evening by Religion Digital, the religious portal of the Spanish-language news site Periodista Digital, Cardinal Maradiaga once again strongly criticized Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for having gone public about McCarrick’s sexual predations and the protection the Cardinal received from the highest spheres in the Vatican, especially since Pope Francis …

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Top to bottom reform needed

A highly placed Vatican source claims that Cardinal Gerhard Müller, together with three experienced CDF priests, was dismissed by Pope Francis because they all had tried to follow loyally the Church’s standing rules concerning abusive clergymen. In one specific case, Müller opposed the Pope’s re-instatement of Don Mauro Inzoli, an unmistakably cruel abuser of many …

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The reactionary ayatollahs should be ashamed of themselves

Liberals in Iran have recently been outraged by the arrest of a teenage gymnast who posted videos of herself dancing in her bedroom. Maedeh Hojabri, who has tens of thousands of social media followers, was seen crying on state TV last week during what some suspected was a forced confession: under Iran’s sharia law, it …

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