News Story of the Day

WHEN I think about the sins of Joe Paterno, and the ignominious ending of his long and famous career, I think about Darío Castrillón Hoyos.

Castrillón is a Colombian, born in Medellín, who became a Catholic priest and then a bishop during the agony of his country’s drug-fueled civil wars. In Colombia, he was a remarkable figure: a “rustic man with the profile of an eagle,” as Gabriel García Márquez described him, who left his episcopal residence at night to feed slum children, mediated between guerrillas and death squads and reputedly made his way to Pablo Escobar’s house disguised as a milkman to demand that the drug kingpin confess his sins.

How does one explain the stark difference between how Penn State has handled its child sex abuse cover-up scandal, and how the Catholic bishops handled theirs?  I am going to take a page out of the book of the Framers of our Constitution, and suggest that the difference is all about organizational structure.

A runaway teen in search of guidance, Andres Susaña spent his days hanging around Little Haiti's Keystone Trailer Park, growing to trust the Catholic priest who cruised the area offering advice and free meals.

Doctors, nuns and priests were complicit in the baby selling scandal that has rocked Spain. A deliberate campaign to remove infants from families that Franco disapproved of, and place them with more suitable families, developed into babies for sale.

Maybe your first reaction when you heard the vile news out of Penn State was outrage. Maybe you wanted school officials, including longtime head coach Joe Paterno, to pay with their jobs for what happened.

(Reuters) - Catholic Ireland's stunning decision to close its embassy to the Vatican is a huge blow to the Holy See's prestige and may be followed by other countries which feel the missions are too expensive, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

JOLIET — A group representing people sexually abused by priests staged a small protest Wednesday outside the Catholic Diocese of Joliet offices.

Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and SNAP member Barbara Meyer held up childhood photos of abuse victims as they criticized the recent appointment of the Rev. Jeffery Salwach to the LaVerna Friary in St. Louis.

DUBLIN, IRELAND -- In yet another sign that the beleaguered Catholic Church in Ireland has a long and arduous road to a brighter future, almost half of Irish people polled say they now have an unfavorable view of the church.

Sexual abuse of a child by clergymen is a horrific crime, a crime that takes place all over the world, including here in Fargo. And it can take survivors years to come forward, but one national group is doing everything they can to change that.

These are all reactions to my post last week about Rod Dreher's article on Bishop Finn's Indictment.