the vatican

A Kansas City Bishop and his Diocese were indicted for failure to report an egregious case of child abuse. Still?

Vatican pulls its ambassador.

This week’s U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops summer meeting in Seattle will be dominated by the ongoing sexual abuse scandal. At this point apologies aren’t sufficient—it’s time for action.

Final thoughts on the killing of bin Laden.

At a moment when the pope is cracking down on apparitions and limiting Marian devotion why this apparition, and not other literally countless reports that pop up in the news every year?

About twenty miles outside of Green Bay and over a mile from even the smallest town, a tiny sign at a remote intersection points visitors toward Chapel Drive, site of the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, site of the only approved site of a Marian apparition in the U.S.

Papal consultant Edward N. Peters, who is also a professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, has stated in no uncertain terms that Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, should be shown no mercy. His offense? Seems that the governor has been shacking up—not with underage boys, mind you, but with his longtime partner, Sandra Lee. And as if that weren’t bad enough, Cuomo also supports same-sex marriage and believes that abortion is a private matter that shouldn’t be regulated by the state.

Catholic women priests are an oxymoron for the Vatican. It considers them automatically excommunicated before the holy oil is dry on their hands. Other Catholics accept them as sacramental ministers and are delighted with the innovation. Still, others, myself included, want far deeper structural changes in the Catholic Church such that priesthood loses its baked-on charm and ministry becomes the expected task of adult members. This is an important theological conversation that the Vatican wishes would go away. Memo to them: it is just starting.

RD would like to see a tallit on the basketball court.

The week in religion.