News Story of the Day

July 2, 2017, The Washington Post

POPE FRANCIS, who pledged a policy of “zero tolerance” for sexually abusive clergy in the Catholic Church, has turned out to be all too tolerant. On Thursday, Australian police brought criminal charges against Cardinal George Pell, a top Vatican official and kitchen- cabinet adviser to the pope, for multiple alleged incidents of sexual assault.

By JASON HOROWITZ, JULY 1, 2017, NY Times

ROME — Pope Francis earlier this year ordered Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the top doctrinal watchdog in the Roman Catholic Church, to fire three priests from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the keeper of the church’s orthodoxy and presides over investigations into sexual abuse.

Cardinal Müller, an ideological conservative often at odds with the pontiff, was vexed by the order, and, in a recent interview, said he had made a case, in vain, for the priests to stay in Rome.

“I’m not able to understand all,” Cardinal Müller said when asked why Francis sent them away. He added, “He’s the pope.”

 By DAMIEN CAVE, JUNE 30, 2017, NY Times

SYDNEY — When more than a dozen sexual abuse victims from Cardinal George Pell’s hometown in Australia, Ballarat, flew to Rome to meet with him last year, they carried crushing stories of pain caused by local priests, and varied demands for Vatican action.

As they spoke, the victims said, Cardinal Pell remained stiff, eyes downcast. Then Andrew Collins, whose family had been close to Cardinal Pell for years, gave him a hug. The cardinal seemed to soften and later delivered an emotional statement promising to help.

By Heidi Schlumpf, Thu June 29, 2017, CNN

By Kristen Gelineau, June 29, 2017, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal George Pell, one of Pope Francis' top advisers, took a leave of absence as the Vatican's financial czar on Thursday to fight multiple criminal charges in his native Australia that allege he committed sexual assault years ago.

June 27, 2017, Asher Lovy, Hareiani.com 

This past Sunday, ZA’AKAH took the issue of child sexual abuse and Agudah’s horrendous record on it to the heart of the Jewish community in Midwood, Brooklyn. We started outside the home of Chaim David Zweibel, and after an hour moved to Landau’s Shul, a block down. A lot happened during that protest, and I want to try and break it down, answer some of the more common questions we got, and talk about my experiences as the organizer.

 By Olivia Rudgard, The Telegraph, June 26, 2017

George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has resigned from his post in the Church of England over a report that said he was among senior figures who "colluded" with paedophile bishop Peter Ball. 

Lord Carey stepped down from his role as honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Oxford after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, urged him to "consider his position". 

BY JAMES FANELLI, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, Monday, June 26, 2017

A Catholic priest preyed on a vulnerable Brooklyn parishioner by twisting church theology in order to pressure her into performing sex acts on him, a lawsuit charges.

Father Andre Bain is accused of sexually abusing the young woman, who came to him for counseling shortly after he became the head of St. Vincent Ferrer Church in East Flatbush in July 2014.

By KATHRYN JOYCE, June 20, 2017, The New Republic

It was a hot day in July, a Saturday afternoon, and Kim James was bored. Her older sisters had taken her to a church event in their small hometown in Indiana, where the girls were spending their summer. Her parents were back in Bangladesh, working at the remote Baptist missionary compound where the family had lived, on and off, for five years.

For an adventurous and high-spirited 13-year-old like Kim, Indiana seemed dull compared to Bangladesh. She missed her friends, the dozen or so missionary kids everybody called “MKs.” She missed the menagerie her parents let her keep: goats, cows, a parrot, a monkey. She missed the jackals that called in the distance at night, and the elephants that sometimes crashed through the compound fence.

By CHRIS MARSHALL, 24 June 2017, The Scotsman

The head of a religious order has expressed “sorrow” that monks abused boys at Fort Augustus Abbey School but said his congregation cannot be held responsible for what happened.

Dom Richard Yeo, abbot president of the English Benedictine Congregation, said he believed the allegations of former residents who say they were abused at the fee-paying Highland boarding school, which closed in 1993.