Ahead of Thursday’s kickoff for Pope Francis’s closely-watched summit on sex abuse, major superiors of Religious Orders and Congregations around the world have called the abuse of children “wrong anywhere and anytime” and urged greater involvement of women in reform efforts going forward.
A timeline of key events in the life of Theodore E. McCarrick, beginning with his ordination as a priest for the Archdiocese of New York more than 60 years ago and ending with the Vatican’s announcement Feb. 16 that Pope Francis has confirmed his removal from the priesthood.
A leading U.S. organization dedicated to documenting the clergy sex abuse crisis believes there are “many more McCarricks” and has publicly named five bishops they believe should face the same fate as the disgraced former cardinal archbishop of Washington, D.C.
Pope Francis’s historic decision to defrock former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick Saturday prompted an immediate wave of responses from U.S. prelates, who lauded the decision.
A new book, whose release is timed to coincide with the start of Pope Francis’s major summit on sex abuse on February 21, contains sweeping, although unverified, claims that 80 percent of the Vatican clergy are gay.
Pope Francis approved the removal of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from the clerical state, colloquially known as “laicization” or “defrocking,” the Vatican announced Feb. 16.
Since the Church’s sex abuse scandals first erupted, victims have tried different methods to be heard by Church authorities. Some have protested, others have marched, others still have appealed to friends and connections in order to bring their case to the Vatican.
Ahead of a summit of presidents of bishops’ conferences and other Church officials in Rome Feb. 21-24 on clerical sexual abuse and child protection, voices from around the world are emphasizing that it’s a global problem requiring a global solution.
According to a report in an Italian newspaper, Pope Francis has written to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to say that while he’s in favor of a negotiated settlement to the country’s political crisis, previous conversations were halted because agreements were not respected.
Four years ago this week, 21 men were videotaped on a beach in Libya as their ISIS captors beheaded them one by one. Of the 21 victims, 20 were Coptic Christians from Egypt who had migrated to Libya for work. In his new book, German novelist Martin Mosebach chronicles his travels through Upper Egypt, where he met with the martyrs’ families and priests.
