News

The U.S. District Court in Portland clears the Vatican of any responsibility for a priest who was pronounced guilty of acts of paedophilia during the 1960s
ANDREA TORNIELLI
vatican city

On Monday, 20 August in Portland (Oregon), U.S. District Court judge, Michael Mosman, ruled that the Holy See “cannot be considered an employer” of members of the clergy and consequently cannot be held responsible in civil proceedings for sexual abuse committed by priests. Therefore each case should be judged individually and being a priest does not automatically mean the person in question should be treated in the same way as a company employee. In this specific case, the judge ruled that there was a total absence of any “employment relationship” between the Holy See and the priest who committed the abuse.

The AP stated it another way:

The Vatican won a major victory Monday in an Oregon federal courtroom, where a judge ruled that the Holy See is not the employer of molester priests.

It is hard to consider anything good news in regards to priestly abusers, but going after the Vatican in regard to this was totally wrong and it is good to see that has been nipped in the bud for now.

Via Father Z

I want to tell you about a new project I launched called Support a Catholic Speaker Month 2012. The idea came from Matt Warner, who did something similar in 2009, and it’s designed to do three things:

1. Promote great Catholic speakers, who are so important to the life of the Church.
2. Introduce many new and unfamiliar names who deserved a bigger platform.
3. Give bloggers a chance to connect with their favorite speakers while building traffic to their own websites.

Over the last couple days we compiled a list of 250 Catholic speakers, with the eventual goal of narrowing it to 100 by next Thursday (8/23). This morning we opened up the vote, inviting people to choose their favorite 15 speakers. The voting will end next Thursday (8/23), and then Catholic bloggers will choose one speaker to write about. Whether they compose a biography, an interview, or something else is totally up to them, but the goal is to connect 100 bloggers with 100 speakers and promote everyone involved.

So here’s where I need your help: I’d like you to SHARE “Support a Catholic Speaker Month” with your followers, encourage them to vote, and vote yourself! Then check back next Thursday and choose a speaker you’d like to connect with.

I cast my vote for Fr. Benedict Groeschel though it is hard not to support pretty much every name on the list. I love Fr. Benedict Groeschel for his wry wit, humility, and his preaching of the truth.

Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, Calif., the U.S. bishops’ leader on defense of marriage issues, has been named by Pope Benedict XVI as the ninth archbishop of San Francisco.

“I am pleased to welcome Archbishop-elect Cordileone and to assure him of our prayers, loyalty, support and cooperation, as well as our friendship and affection,” said Archbishop George Niederauer, who offered his resignation as archbishop of San Francisco upon reaching the age limit of 75.

The appointment and resignation were both announced on July 27 in Washington, D.C., by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Known for his staunch defense of marriage as well as his intercultural ministry and work with immigrants in California, Archbishop Cordileone will shepherd a diocese that contains about 1.8 million people, about 25% of whom are Catholic.

He has served on the Task Force on Cultural Diversity for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and is the current chairman of the conference’s Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage.

In addition, he serves on the Religious Liberty Committee of the California Catholic Conference.
In a June interview, the archbishop-elect told EWTN News that a redefinition of marriage to include homosexual couples would be bad for children, detrimental to society and dangerous for religious freedom.

He explained that “out of justice for children, we need to do the best that we can to help them grow up with their mother and their father, married to each other in a stable relationship.” (Source)

Of course it is just totally random that the Pope has selected a bishop knows for his support of marriage and support California Proposition 8 to San Francisco. Yeah totally random.

Looking over at the headlines related to this story I am rather surprised how tame they are. I expected the ubiquitous “crackdown” to be used at least once. Having been rather disappointed at the leadership of bishops in this diocese in the past this is certainly welcome news. Pastoral practice in San Francisco (as in many places) had come to mean – ignore it and hopes it goes away. I know one thing, many at Most Holy Redeemer in San Francisco will not exactly be breaking out the bubbly in celebration of this appointment.

Being that Archbishop Cordileone is 56 he will probably be there for the long haul. He certainly has his work cut out for him. Though really this is true of any bishop in charge of the care of souls and especially those bishop who don’t want to be fitted for a millstone for headgear at judgement. Also like all our bishops we need to be supporting him in prayer as he will be meeting a lot of opposition both from within the diocese and without. No doubt he will get along swimmingly with the San Francisco City Board of Supervisors who issued a statement that would have made No-Nothings proud in its anti-Catholic rhetoric.

Now us oh-so-faithful Catholic bloggers who always know what is best are certainly lining up things for Archbishop Cordileone to do once he is installed on the Feast of St. Francis. For one we imagine that phone call to Rep. Nancy “My faith is very important to me” Pelosi. No doubt Ms. Pelosi being such a fine Patristic scholar they will have much to talk about. Though thinking of all the things the Archbishop needs to do reminds me of the wisdom of God in not making me a Bishop.

Regardless I can already hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth at the National Catholic Reporter and similar dissident rags.

Apparently the controversy is that Archbishop Samuel Aquila is a believing Catholic – fancy that. Also apparently the Pope actually handpicked a bishop who believes and proclaims the faith – quite shocking.

The Denver news station that printed that story wants to make sure you get the message with the poll they put at the bottom of the story.

So far the “I’m Catholic, and yes I am” and “I’m not Catholic, and yes I am” have the majority of the votes. Though internet polls are pretty useless.

July 18, 2012. (Romereports.com) The Vatican is looking to organize some of the Church’s activities on the internet by buying the web domain “.catholic”.

It will serve as a place for different parishes, dioceses and religious orders to be easily recognized as Catholic institutions on the web.

Just like the Catholic Church has to maintain their properties in the physical world, they will now make updates on the websites that carry the name “.Catholic”. These online activities will help to keep the Church’s online message up to date.

The purchase of the domain doesn’t come cheap. The Vatican paid $740,000 to apply for .catholic in four languages.

Hey Pope Benedict XVI, curtjester.catholic would be real cool don’t you think?

Catholic answers could have catholic.catholic instead of just catholic.com.

If there was a .protestant it would have over 30,000 sub domains.

Now shouldn’t .heaven be a top level domain, really that is the ultimate top level domain.

Rumor has it that Nancy Pelosi will be buying the top level domain .antiCatholic.

History was made in the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine when Nick Marziani became the first married man to be ordained as a Catholic priest under authority of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, set up by the Pope to provide pastoral care to former Episcopalians and Anglicans. Marziani was ordained June 17 by the Most Rev. Felipe J. Estevez, Bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine.

Marziani, 61, is a former engineer, teacher and Episcopal priest and holds the doctor of ministry from Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry in Ambridge, Pa. He and his wife of 40 years, Joanne, are residents of St. Augustine Beach. The couple has three adult children and four grandchildren.

According to Father Mike Morgan, chancellor for the diocese, “Father Marziani was not ordained for service to the Diocese of St. Augustine, so he will not be receiving an assignment from Bishop Estevez. His ministry and assignments will be under the authority of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Peter, set up by the Pope to provide pastoral care to former Episcopalians and Anglicans, and headquartered in Houston, Texas.

The story is not quite accurate, last week 6 former Episcopal clergy were ordained in Fort Worth, Tx and five of them were married and two of them were in fact father and son. This though is my diocese and the ordination was held in my parish Immaculate Conception in downtown Jacksonville, Fl.

Interesting though in that the majority of the stories that cover these clergy conversions put much more stress on that fact that they were married than that there were converts from Episcopalianism. Really the historic part is the number of converts from Anglican and Episcopal churches. The other really historic part is the length that Pope Benedict XVI has gone to to welcome these converts by setting up the Ordinariate.

[Source]

Could the Ten Commandments be reduced to six, a federal judge asked Monday.

Would that neutralize the religious overtones of a commandments display that has the Giles County School Board in legal hot water?

That unorthodox suggestion was made by Judge Michael Urbanski during oral arguments over whether the display amounts to a governmental endorsement of religion, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by a student at Narrows High School.

After raising many pointed questions about whether the commandments pass legal muster, the judge referred the case to mediation – with a suggestion:

Remove the first four commandments, which are clearly religious in nature, and leave the remaining six, which make more secular commands, such as do not kill or steal.

Ever since the lawsuit was filed in September amid heated community reaction, school officials have said the display is not religious because it also includes historical documents such as the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.

“If indeed this issue is not about God, why wouldn’t it make sense for Giles County to say, ‘Let’s go back and just post the bottom six?’” Urbanski asked during a motions hearing in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

“But if it’s really about God, then they wouldn’t be willing to do that.”

Reminds me of the joke in Mel Brooks’ “History of the World part 1” where Moses comes down the mountain with three tablets and starts to announce the fifteen and then ten commandments as he drops one tablet.

Via The Deacon’s Bench

Thomas Kinkade died on Good Friday and while I was not a fan of his art I did find this article by Thomas L. McDonald on him quite worthwhile.

Marcel LeJeune posts his list of the top 20 Catholic bloggers of 2011. His list is pretty close to what my own such list would be, though I would have included  Happy Catholic in place of my own blog. Though I would have a hard time myself coming up with a top 20 list as there are just too many Catholic blogs that I do love.