2019 abuse summit|Letters from the Vatican 2019 Archives

2019 abuse summit|Letters from the Vatican 2019

February 25, 2019

How can the success or failure of the Vatican “abuse summit,” which concluded yesterday, be measured? A week ago, your editor suggested one analytic tool: ten points which, if agreed upon by the participants, would constitute a “considerable success.” Reviewing them one by one may help get into preliminary focus a complex affair that was

Letters from the Vatican #5

February 23, 2019

At the beginning of February, a month in which an intense, global media spotlight has been focused on the Catholicism’s struggles with clerical sexual abuse, the Church celebrated the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. As February now comes to a close with a global meeting of Catholic leaders to address that abuse, it’s

Letters from the Vatican #4

February 22, 2019

“Grant, we pray, almighty God, that no tempests may disturb us, for you have set us fast on the rock of the Apostle Peter’s confession of faith. Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” February

Letters from the Vatican #3

February 21, 2019

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we may so follow the teaching and example of the Bishop Saint Peter Damian, that, putting nothing before Christ, and always ardent in the service of your Church, we may be led to the joys of eternal light. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns

Letters from the Vatican #2

February 20, 2019

THE VIEW FROM (AND IN) THE U.S. Thanks in part to the hyperventilating language of last year’s Pennsylvania grand jury report (which followed hard on the heels of Theodore McCarrick’s resignation from the College of Cardinals because of credible allegations that he was a serial sexual abuser), the false impression was created that the Catholic

Letters from the Vatican #1

February 19, 2019

GREAT EXPECTATIONS? The whole course of Christianity from the first … is but one series of troubles and disorders. Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it. The Church is ever ailing … Religion seems ever expiring, schisms dominant, the light of truth