Murder prompts call for rethink by pro-lifers
The murder of a late-term abortion provider has prompted calls from progressive Catholics for the pro-life movement to overhaul the way it carries out its protests.
Dr George Tiller, who ran an abortion clinic, was shot at his Lutheran church in Wichita Kansas, on Sunday 30 May. An anti-abortion activist, Scott Roeder, has been charged with his murder. Dr Tiller’s family has said that the clinic, where many protests have taken place, will not reopen.
Trustees apologise over expenses
Trustees of the Toronto District Catholic School Board have apologised to parents for running up an average C$18,000 of expenses each, while running the affairs of the board.
They were responding to an audit made public last year that was ordered by the Ontario Ministry of Education after allegation the board members had used public money to pay for holidays, iPods and other personal items. The board is struggling with declining enrolments, unpopular school closures, and a persistent budget deficit.
Allegations against Legionaries mount
The Vatican’s investigation into the Legionaries of Christ could uncover sexual abuse committed by members of the order other than its founder, Fr Marcial Maciel, a former member has warned.
José Barber, a former Legionary and the legal representative of eight other former members who started legal proceedings against Maciel in 1998 said: “We have testimonies that there have been other Legionaries who followed Maciel’s example. What they have to investigate is to what extent the evil, the gangrene, was spread through the Legionaries of Christ and didn’t end just because Fr Macial died.”
The order announced that the Pope has given instructions for an apostolic investigation into the Legionaries to take place.
China arrests bishops: Vatican setback
The Holy See has accused the Communist government in China of creating obstacles to Sino-Vatican relations through the continued arrest of bishops loyal to Rome. Beijing’s arrest of a bishop on the opening day of a meeting with the Vatican’s new China Commission dashed much of the optimism surrounding the meeting.
Half of all Americans switch faith
Americans are changing their religious affilitions more fluidly than previously thought – and Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss as a result, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion Public Life.
The report, called “Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the US”, concludes that about half of Americans have changed religion at least once in their lives, and that many have done so more than once.
About 10% of American adults have left the Church after being raised Catholic, while about 3% have joined it after growing up in a different religion or denomination. Of those raised in the Church, 68% remain Catholic, 15% are now Protestant and 14% are unaffiliated to any Christian Church or faith group.
Some 71% of those who left Catholicism and subsequently became unaffiliated, said they did so because they “just gradually drifted away from the religion”, while many cited the Church’s views on birth control, divorce, and homosexuality. One-third of them said they “just had not found the right religion yet”. Former Catholics now unaffiliated were much less likely than life-long Catholics to have had a strong faith in their youth.
US parishes ask Vatican to mediate
Thirty-one parishes that have resisted being forcibly closed in eight different US dioceses, have formally asked the Vatican’s Secretariat of State to mediate between them and local bishops in order to keep their parishes open and “develop a new model of parish structure”.
SSPX chapel consecration a ‘provocation’
German bishops have reacted angrily to the dedication of a chapel by the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) in one of the country’s oldest dioceses, despite the express wishes of the local bishop and Pope Benedict XVI’s affirmation in March that the group has no canonical status in the Church and its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.
The row over the excommunication of four SSPX bishops in January had subsided till last week when the society announced plans to ordain 21 men as priests later this month and said it had a “provisional legal status” with Rome to do so.
Pope: new priests urged “abide in Christ, pray”
The Pope warned newly ordained priests of the dangers that lay in wait for them in the modern world, and spelled out the best defences against its snares.
“Our ministry is totally linked to this ‘abiding’ (in Christ), which is the same as prayer, and derives its effectiveness from it” the Pope told new priests. “The priest who prays a lot, and who prays well, gradually becomes dispossessed from himself, and evermore united to Jesus The Good Shepherd” he said.
Thirteen of the new priests were from the Neocatechumenate Way seminary, the other six from Rome’s major seminary.
UK pastoral review wins Vatican
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue of Lancaster has received yet more Vatican praise for his Fit For Mission? Church review. Cardinal Llovera, of the Congregation for Divine Worship, is the fourth Vatican prelate to commend the work.
Double Dutch
Only 15% of Dutch people know that Good Friday marks the Crucifixion, according to a Dutch survey and published on Maundy Thursday. Some 45% of people surveyed did now know Easter is a Christian holiday.
