Cleared of murder – then hugged by a Pope
Amaury Coutansais-Pervinquière told the incredible story of Tomasz Komenda, a Polish man who spent 18 years in jail after being wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a teenage girl.
His mother had given him a photo of St John Paul II which he placed above his bed in his prison cell. Although an unbeliever, he started praying to the Polish pope.
“If you are a saint,” prayed Komenda, “You are in heaven with this girl. If you must take me up there, take me now. If I must be free, let me be free.” Six months later, a police officer knocked on his door – he wanted to help Komenda prove his innocence. A year later he was cleared.
Once released, he went to Rome with his parents and prayed in front of the altar where St John Paul is buried. His story reached Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, who took him to meet Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square. The family “were asked to say a few words”, Coutansais-Pervinquière wrote. “Touched by what he heard, Francis spontaneously held Komenda in his arms for a long time.”
Priests who blew the whistle on a cardinal
Last month, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was removed from ministry after the Archdicoese of New York said they had received “credible” accusations that he had molested a 16-year-old in the 1960s. (McCarrick said he had no recollection of the alleged incident.) But there are also adults – former seminarians in particular – with allegations against the cardinal. In the New York Times, Laurie Goodstein and Sharon Otterman spoke to some of them.
Robert Ciolek, who has since left the priesthood, “was flattered when his brilliant, charismatic bishop in Metuchen” – McCarrick – told him that he would “rise high in the Church”. But on away weekends with other seminarians, “Bishop McCarrick would make a request – ‘come over here and rub my shoulders a little’ – that extended into unwanted touching in bed.”
A New York priest, Fr Boniface Ramsey, told the newspaper that he had heard stories of then-Archbishop McCarrick’s sexual abuse. Fr Ramsey “sent a letter to the Vatican about Archbishop McCarrick’s history.” There was no response.
A non-Catholic finds an unexpected truth
At Catholic News Service, Amber Lapp told the story of how she and her husband – who, at the time, were not Catholic – discovered Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, “in a public policy class (of all places)”. Lapp was intrigued: “What struck me as particularly beautiful was the idea that the love between a man and a woman could be an act of co-creation with God and an image of divine love.” She also looked up the effectiveness of methods of birth control. Natural Family Planning (NFP) scored about as high as “the pill I was about to take”. So Lapp and her husband found an NFP instructor.
Today, as a mother of three – soon to be four – Lapp says: “We indeed share in the creative power of God. And that gives us the courage to enter parenthood not from a place of fear, but of love.”
✣ Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool has admitted that he is “notoriously slow” at replying to letters and emails. Writing in the Catholic Pic, the diocesan magazine, the archbishop said he was “constantly worried” about not answering correspondence promptly. “This can be because I am overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it, or sometimes because I want to give a letter more thought before I reply and then I forget about it,” he wrote. “But I have to admit that quite often it is simply because I don’t like doing it.”
The archbishop said he tried to catch up on his correspondence during a lull in the summer – when “those seemingly urgent issues … have disappeared as our thoughts turn to holidays”.
✣ An American bishop has described two of his most embarrassing moments from his time as a parish priest. Bishop Thomas J Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, shared the stories on Twitter. The first, he said, was “asking a longtime parishioner, whose name I should have known, how to spell her last name. Response: S-M-I-T-H.”
Another “really bad moment”, he recalled, was “asking a woman filling out a parish registration form: ‘And what is your son’s name?’ Her response: ‘That’s my husband.’ ”
They are shooting at a Church. Is this respecting human rights?
Nicaraguan priestFr Erick Alvarado Cole
Washington Post
Naturally I am prudent. I don’t just eat anything
Congolese Cardinal Monsengwo says he is careful about who makes his food
CNS
Old demons began to wake up
Archbishop Muszynski argues that Poland’s Holocaust law has revived prejudice
Przewodnik Katolicki
The energy he brings to the room is amazing
Roseanna Cunningham, Scottish minister, on the Pope
Scottish Catholic Observer
2,500
The number of bottles of Tynt Meadow ale that Leicestershire’s Trappists sold in a day
Source: CNS
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