Hobby Lobby moves forward in seeking mandate reprieve

A federal appeals court has paved the way for arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby to pursue an injunction that would block devastating fines while it continues its lawsuit against the federal contraception mandate.
 
“Today marks a milestone in Hobby Lobby’s fight for religious liberty,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is defending Hobby Lobby, in a June 27 press release.

“This is a tremendous victory not only for the Green family and for their business, but also for many other religious business owners who should not have to forfeit their faith to make a living.”

Since founding Hobby Lobby in an Oklahoma City garage in 1972, the Green family has seen its company grow to include more than 500 stores in over 40 states.

The family is among more than 200 plaintiffs – including for-profit businesses, non-profit charities, individuals and states – that have filed lawsuits challenging the federal contraception mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The mandate requires employers to cover health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and some drugs that could cause early abortions, even if the provision of these products violates the employer’s deeply-held religious beliefs.

Hobby Lobby’s owners do not object to the provision of contraceptives, which they already cover in their plan. However, they have deep religious objections to the “morning-after” and “week-after” pills which are also included in the required coverage and may cause early abortions by destroying the life of an already-created human embryo.

“It is by God’s grace and provision that Hobby Lobby has endured,” said David Green, founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby on his case. “Therefore we seek to honor God by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.”

The federal government has contended that the owners of “secular, for-profit” companies cannot exercise freedom of religion in their business decisions.

However, the Greens argue that their religion teaches that faith must affect all areas of life, influencing the charitable donations they make, the higher-than-average minimum wages they provide and their decision to close all stores on Sundays so that employees can rest and worship with their families.

Courts on several different levels initially denied Hobby Lobby’s request for a temporary injunction to block the mandate from taking effect while the company’s lawsuit works its way through the court system. 

Without an injunction, the company would soon face up to $1.3 million per day in fines for violating the mandate.

However, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals then granted en banc consideration of Hobby Lobby’s appeal and reversed a lower district court’s ruling from last December.

The appeals court is sending the case back to the district court to hear more argument and reconsider whether to grant the injunction being sought by Hobby Lobby. 

In doing so, it made the case that the company and its owners had “established a likelihood of success” in arguing that the mandate “substantially burdened” their religious freedom and would cause “irreparable harm.”

Duncan described the decision as a victory and said, “The Greens will continue to make their case on appeal that this unconstitutional mandate infringes their right to earn a living while remaining true to their faith.”

New Vatican Secretary of State may be appointed soon

Rumors have emerged that Archbishop Pietro Parolin, apostolic nuncio to Venezuela, will shortly be appointed as the Vatican's Secretary of State.

The move could take place as soon as June 29, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.
As the Secretary of State must technically be a cardinal, he would first be appointed pro-secretary of State, retaining his status as archbishop. 

He would, however, be the acting Secretary of State until a new appointment is made or until receiving the red “biretta” of the cardinal, thus taking officially the post.
A skilled diplomat, Archbishop Parolin, 58, served as Vatican undersecretary for relations with States from 2002 to 2009.
Suggestions of a possible “important appointment” for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul emerged from a couple of different Vatican sources who spoke to CNA at the beginning of this week on the condition of anonymity.
“The Pope knows that he cannot have an outgoing secretary of state for so long,” one of them said June 26.
After the first 100 days of his pontificate, the source maintained, “Pope Francis is now in a hurry to have his own staff carry out the reform of the Curia.”
The appointment of a new secretary of State is not to be considered a rejection of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who has been in the post until now.
A second source explained to CNA on June 27 that “Pope Francis is asking a lot of recommendations of Cardinal Bertone” and that the relationship between the cardinal and Pope Francis is said to be “good.”  
“Bertone seemingly also recommended Cardinal Raffaele Farina as the head of the Pontifical Commission,” appointed on June 26 to report to Pope Francis about the so-called Vatican Bank, the Institute of Religious Works.
The choice of Archbishop Parolin for the post of Secretary could come to some as a bit of a surprise.
“Until now, everybody has been thinking that Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello would be the new secretary of State. Now, all the signals are going toward the appointment of Pietro Parolin,” an official of a Vatican body told CNA on June 28.
Cardinal Bertello is the number one of the Vatican City State administration.
Following the appointment of the new Secretary of State, sources say that Pope Francis would also change several of the top-ranking officials of the Curia.
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras could be appointed prefect for the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (the so-called “Propaganda Fide”).
Cardinal Maradiaga is also the coordinator of the Pope-appointed Commission of Cardinals now studying a reform of the Roman Curia.
At the same time, the current prefect, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, would be appointed Archbishop of Palermo, in Southern Italy.
A new prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Sacraments should soon be appointed, as well.
The current prefect, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, would be appointed as the successor to Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela as the Archbishop of Madrid, Spain.
To cover his post, Pope Francis would call Archbishop Piero Marini, who was Pontifical Master of Ceremonies during Bl. John Paul II’s Pontificate and now heads the Vatican’s commission for Eucharistic Congresses.
A source from Spain who works in the archdiocesan curia in Madrid confirmed to CNA on June 28 that Cardinal Rouco Varela has left for Rome. He also said that “the usual reception” held in the nunciature in Madrid for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul has been canceled.
It would be very significant if Pope Francis made the appointments public on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. He could, however, sign the appointments without officially announcing them by way of Holy See Press Office bulletin.
On June 29, the Pope delivers the “pallium” to the new appointed metropolitan archbishops, in St. Peter’s Basilica.
This year, 34 archbishops will receive the woolen vestment from the hands of Pope Francis.
A source explained to CNA on June 27 that “the feast of Saints Peter and Paul is an important moment of magisterium. The Pope will show that he has taken the situation into his own hands.”
Other minor appointments are expected in the coming days.
The final goal is the reform of the Curia, but, the source asserted, “alternatively to the approach of Pope Benedict who tried to reform the Curia without the Curia, Pope Francis has understood that without the Curia, his reforms will die.
“This is also one key to understanding the appointment of the Pontifical Commission, full of members of the Roman Curia, to report to the Pope about the Institute of Religious Works,” he concluded.

Philly archbishop: Catholic church still facing financial trouble but situation is improving

Troubling financial data being released next week about the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia does not reflect recent improvements in the church's monetary health, according to the archbishop.
 
The results of the 2012 audit "are serious — and that's an understatement," Archbishop Charles Chaput said Friday. 

But, he noted, "we've taken big steps toward raising new resources and eventually eliminating our annual budget deficit."

Chaput's comments came in his weekly column and apparently aim to soften the blow of figures that will be published online Wednesday. The data will reflect the fiscal year that ran from July 2011 — two months before Chaput came to Philadelphia — through June 2012.

Most of the church's financial problems stem from bad spending habits, not fraud or the priest sex-abuse scandal, the archbishop said. The church had a $6 million deficit as of August 2012; an updated figure was not immediately available.

Previous officials had "a crippling habit of trying to hang on to the past and keep unsustainable ministries, schools and parishes afloat," Chaput said, "despite great changes in our demographic and financial realities."

"(I)t flows out of well-intentioned but poor management decisions made over a period of nearly two decades at every level of archdiocesan and parish leadership," he said.

However, the priest scandal and fraud did take their tolls. By August 2012, the archdiocese had spent $10 million on legal fees related to clergy-abuse cases over the previous two fiscal years. 

That figure did not include many bills from the landmark criminal trial of Monsignor William Lynn, who was convicted that summer of felony child endangerment.

In July 2011, the archdiocese fired its chief financial officer. She was later convicted of embezzling $900,000, though the losses were covered by insurance.

Chaput said the church has gradually started to regain its monetary footing with a new chief financial officer, who started in April 2012, and with what he called a "reinvigorated" finance council.

The bottom line has also been boosted by the sales of a home known as the cardinal's residence, which Saint Joseph's University bought last year for $10 million, and a vacation house for priests in Ventnor, New Jersey Chaput did not mention how much the beach property sold for, though it had been assessed at about $6.3 million.

Next month, eight more church properties will be put on the auction block. The parcels up for sale on July 24 include two former schools and three former convents in Philadelphia, plus three large lots in Bucks and Montgomery counties.

Chaput said results for the current fiscal year, which ends Sunday, will be more upbeat. He did not say when those figures would be released.

The archdiocese serves about 1.5 million Catholics in Philadelphia and four surrounding counties.

Traditionalists Indicate Definitive Break With Catholic Church

On the 25th anniversary of the illicit ordination of four bishops by traditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the Society of St. Pius X indicated a definitive break of talks with the Catholic Church.
 
In a statement June 27, three of the four bishops originally ordained expressed “their filial gratitude towards their venerable founder, who, after so many years spent serving the Church and the Sovereign Pontiff, so as to safeguard the faith and the Catholic priesthood, did not hesitate to suffer the unjust accusation of disobedience."

The document — titled “Declaration on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the episcopal consecrations (30th June 1988 – 27th June 2013)” — is signed by Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais and Alfonso de Galarreta.

Bishop Richard Williamson, also ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre, was expelled last year from the society.

The group was founded in 1970 by the French native Archbishop Lefebvre in response to errors he believed had crept into the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council, which took place 1962-1965.

Interpretation and legacy of the Second Vatican Council was a major stumbling block for the society in their ongoing negotiations with the Vatican, aimed at healing their 24-year rift.

The society has also had a strained relationship with the Church since its founder ordained four bishops against the will of Pope John Paul II in 1988.

In their statement Thursday, the group contradicted now-retired Pope Benedict XVI’s stance on Vatican II. The letter made explicit reference to the “hermeneutic of continuity,” rejecting the interpretive lens by which Benedict XVI saw the conciliar documents in light of the Church’s Tradition.

The bishops say that the documents themselves have grave errors and that they cannot be interpreted without clashing with Tradition.

The “cause of the grave errors which are in the process of demolishing the Church does not reside in a bad interpretation of the conciliar texts — a ‘hermeneutic of rupture’ which would be opposed to a ‘hermeneutic of reform in continuity,’” they wrote, “but truly in the texts themselves, by virtue of the unheard-of choice made by Vatican II.”

The group also claims that the Second Vatican Council “inaugurated a new type of magisterium, hitherto unheard of in the Church, without roots in Tradition; a magisterium resolved to reconcile Catholic doctrine with liberal ideas; a magisterium imbued with the modernist ideas of subjectivism, of immanentism and of perpetual evolution.”

The document argues that “the reign of Christ is no longer the preoccupation of the ecclesiastical authorities” and that the liberal spirit in the Church is manifested “in religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality and the new Mass.”

Because of religious liberty, they claim, the Church is being “shamefully guided by human prudence and with such self-doubt that she asks nothing other from the state than that which the Masonic lodges wish to concede to her: the common law in the midst of, and on the same level as, other religions which she no longer dares call false.”

Because of interreligious dialogue, “the truth about the one true Church is silenced,” they also say, while the spirit of collegiality “represents the destruction of authority and in consequence the ruin of Christian institutions: families, seminaries, religious institutes.”

The Lefebvrist bishops save their harshest criticism for the Novus Ordo Mass, promulgated in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. “This Mass is penetrated with an ecumenical and Protestant spirit, democratic and humanist, which empties out the sacrifice of the cross.”

The traditionalist bishops announce that, in practice, the dialogue with the Vatican is over and that, from now on, they will wait “either when Rome returns to Tradition and to the faith of all time — which would re-establish order in the Church” or “when she explicitly acknowledges our right to profess integrally the faith and to reject the errors which oppose it, with the right and the duty for us to oppose publicly the errors and the proponents of these errors, whoever they may be — which would allow the beginning of a re-establishing of order.”
 
The statement concludes: “We persevere in the defense of Catholic Tradition, and our hope remains entire.”

Scotland's gay marriage bill published, with more freedoms for celebrants

The bill to legalise same sex marriages in Scotland has now been published, and while it has arrived later than hoped and expected, Holyrood will introduce a more open, flexible regime than the new equal marriage laws in England and Wales.

The Scottish Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) bill, released on Thursday morning, will not introduce the stringent "quadruple lock" that English and Welsh religious bodies have won. 

The Westminster legislation explicitly bans the Anglican Church of England and Church in Wales from offering same sex ceremonies; the Scottish legislation has no such measure.

It asks religious bodies and faiths to "opt in" to the new legislation, effectively making it the default position that religious bodies are not required to offer gay and lesbian ceremonies.

The Holyrood and Westminster measures offer very similar protections, however, for individual celebrants and ministers who are in churches and faith groups which have accepted same sex marriages but, on individual faith grounds, do not wish to officiate at them.

The Scottish government has won agreement from the UK government for an amendment to the Equalities Act which will give those individuals full legal protection against prosecution, for refusing to conduct a gay marriage ceremony.

And in Scotland, the tradition of having more liberal rules on who can officiate at a marriage – to include humanist celebrants and Muslim clerics for instance, has been extended to allow humanists to officiate in lesbian and gay marriages. 

This is an obvious step: humanist marriages are now the third most popular in Scotland, recently overtaking Catholic marriage ceremonies.

(Unlike humanists, there is minimal chance Muslim clerics will want that power; like orthodox Catholicism, Islam takes a very traditional stance on homosexuality. The Church of Scotland, while publicly sceptical and critical, is seen as more nuanced on the issue; after last month's vote by the General Assembly to allow congregations to opt in to selecting gay ministers, some observers suspect in a few years, the Kirk will accept same sex marriages too.)

Alex Neil, the Scottish health secretary, said:

A marriage is about love, not gender. And that is the guiding principle at the heart of this bill.

At the same time, we also want to protect freedom of speech and religion, and that's what the bill sets out to do. That is why it will be up to the religious body or individual celebrant to decide if they want to perform same sex marriages and there will be no obligation to opt in.

And, said Tom French, coordinator of the Equality Network, the Holyrood bill will protect married transgender people who want to stay in a pre gender change marriage from having to get a divorce, and then remarry their partner under the new legislation.

Faith groups which oppose gay marriage remain opposed despite Neil's promise of protections. Gordon MacDonald, from Scotland for Marriage, disputes arguments that marriage is required for full equality – the civil partnership system is enough.

He told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme:

It is not an issue of equality because of the legal rights of marriage now given to same-sex couples with civil partnerships - is it is not a matter of equality at all...
Even if ministers of religion themselves can opt out, it doesn't mean that church buildings won't be used for this purpose against the wishes of their congregation.

For the Equality Network, the umbrella campaign which has pushed hardest for the legislation, it's something of a birthday present. The group is celebrating the fifth anniversary of their equal marriage campaign this week.
French said:

We hope that our MSPs will stand by the values of equality and social justice that the Scottish parliament was founded on and vote to pass this bill with the strong majority it deserves.

Thirty-three years ago Scotland finally decriminalised homosexuality, today the large majority of Scots agree that it's time lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender were granted full equality under the law.

With the equal opportunities committee now taking written evidence, Holyrood has started the formal procedures for considering the bill. It is some months later than Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy first minister who championed the legislation, had wanted. 

When it was first unveiled, Sturgeon hoped Holyrood would – like the smoking ban – be the first UK legislature to recognise gay and lesbian marriage.

But its progress has stalled, delayed in part by the record number of consultation responses, but also by the Scottish government's decision to hold a second consultation. 

By volume most responses were opposed to gay marriage - 64% of the 62,000 responses were against it, but most of those were generated by postcard and internet petition campaigns by religious groups; of the individual submissions on the Scottish government website, the vote was 65% in favour - a finding broadly in line with opinion polls. 

There were signs of significant nerves within Alex Salmond's administration when it confronted the intense hostility of the Catholic church in particular.

Meanwhile, David Cameron's Tory led coalition has nipped in first, passing the English and Welsh measures earlier this month against vociferous internal opposition and defeating a wrecking amendment in the Lords. 

So, while equal marriages are likely to be available next year in England and Wales, they won't be until 2015 in Scotland.

Gay rights and equalities groups are delighted the Scottish government has seen this through, but there are regrets about the delay, mixed with pragmatism. Better the bill is secure and well-drafted, than rushed and flawed, says French. 

It remains to be seen how many of Holyrood's 128 eligible MSPs vote for the legislation, but there is now a heavy majority of MSPs in favour of equal marriage.

The Equality Network's monitoring shows that 89 MSPs, from all parties, will vote for the bill, while only 11 have so far declared their opposition. 

Of the 29 MSPs so far undeclared, some junior ministers are expected to vote against.

French said:

When we first started out, we had a handful of people saying that they supported same sex marriage. We would like to get this done as quickly as possible but it's important we get it right. Whether it's a few months here or a few months there really, for history, a delay isn't going to matter.

He also wanted all MSPs to have an entirely free vote, and to feel they had had enough time to study the proposals before voting:

People should be allowed to vote however they want on this. We would go further than that: we would encourage people to vote with their heart and their conscience even if they vote against it.

We want at the end of this, a clean process, where we get a big majority and an honest majority. I don't want the opponents of same sex marriage to turn around and say people were bullied or pressured to vote for it when they didn't want it.

Colin McFarlane, of the gay rights group Stonewall, said:

I'm delighted that the bill is finally in the parliament; it's now up to parliament to get on with making it a reality. We're taking nothing for granted until it's passed.

In Northern Ireland, however, hopes of same sex marriages are now dead. Stormont voted earlier this week against enact the UK parliament's legislation in the province, after Unionist parties earlier this year voted to defeat a gay marriage equity bill. 

Instead, Northern Ireland will treat same sex marriages as civil partnerships.

Monk jailed, Orthodox Patriarchate fears "a huge scandal"

An Orthodox monk has been sentenced for causing a fatal accident that kleft two people dead while driving a luxury car.  

This is only the latest in a series of scandals for the Russian Orthodox Church.

On June 26, the Patriarchate suspended from all service Hieromonk Iliya (Pavel Siomin), condemned the day before to three years in prison for causing the accident, where on 15 August two people were killed.

The priest was driving a Mercedes G-class SUV (with value on the Russian market of about 120 thousand dollars), when he lost control of the car and crashed into three construction workers who were working on a site along the Kutuzovski Prospekt in Moscow. The monk was arrested the following day. 

The judges have deemed him guilty of "grave breaches" of the rules of the road, which caused the death of the two men. Prosecutors had requested six years, while the Moscow court has sentenced him to half. According to the victims' families, the sentences is "too light". According to one of the defense lawyers, Liudmila Aivar, in August, Ilya may submit a request for parole and out of jail.
Websites and blogs are awash with critical posts accusing the judges of being unfair and unbalanced when comparing the case of Hieromonk Iliya with that of Pussy Riot. The girls of the feminist punk band who had staged an anti-Putin performance in the cathedral of Moscow were sentenced to two years in a labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and denied conditional bail, even though they are both mothers of young children .
The site of religious blogsite door-credo.ru - always very critical of the Patriarchate - presents the story as "the latest in a series of similar incidents, a mirror of the Russian clergy's misconduct, who are always certain to go unpunished." Just last summer, another priest, the abbot Timofei, caused an accident driving a BMW with diplomatic plates.
The controversy over the luxurious lifestyle and the excesses of the Russian clergy has been on the boil for at least two years and has even enveloped the Patriarch, who according to some media owns luxury apartments in Moscow and was discovered to possess a watch worth at least 20 thousand dollars.
Anonymous AsiaNews sources within the Patriarchate, argue that " sooner or later, scandal of enormous proportions will explode". "For now, though, only the intelligentsia are indignant - the source adds - that part of society that is informed and realizes the gravity of the situation, while the rest of the population is still unaware".

Attack on Greek Orthodox cathedral in Damascus leaves at least four people dead

A suicide bomber blew himself up in front of the Greek Orthodox cathedral in Bab Tuma, in central Damascus.

Four people were killed and eight more wounded, Syria's state news agency and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. 

So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The attacker mingled with a group of people queuing outside a religious building for food and medical care provided by the religious. 

According to witnesses, the blast damaged a large section of the building.

One of the oldest churches in the capital, the cathedral in Bab Tuma is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.

Vatican bank Monsignor arrested in €20m plot

A Vatican official already under investigation in a purported money-laundering plot involving the Vatican bank has been arrested in a separate operation.

Prosecutors allege Monsignor Nunzio Scarano was involved in a plot to bring €20m in cash into Italy from Switzerland aboard an Italian government plane.

Msgr Scarano, a recently suspended accountant in one of the Vatican's main financial departments, is accused of fraud, corruption and slander stemming from the plot, which never got off the ground, his attorney, Silverio Sica said.

He said Msgr Scarano was a middleman in the operation and that friends had asked him to intervene with a broker to return €20m they had given him to invest.

Mr Sica said the Monsignor persuaded the broker to return the money, and an Italian secret service agent went to Switzerland to bring the cash back aboard an Italian government aircraft.

The operation failed because the broker reneged on the deal, Mr Sica said.

The broker nevertheless, demanded his €400,000 commission. Mr Scarano paid him an initial €200,000 by cheque, which the broker deposited, Mr Sica said.

But in an attempt to not have the second cheque deposited at the bank, Msgr Scarano filed a report for a missing €200,000 cheque, Mr Sica said.

The broker and secret service agent were also were arrested along with Msgr Scarano, Mr Sica said.

It is not the only troubles facing Monsignor Scarano.

Prosecutors in the southern city of Salerno have placed him under investigation for alleged money-laundering stemming from his account at the Vatican's bank, the Institute for Religious Works.

Just this week, Pope Francis named a commission of inquiry into the bank to get to the bottom of the problems that have plagued it for decades and contributed to damaging the Vatican's reputation in global financial circles.

That investigation concerns transactions Msgr Scarano made in 2009 in which he took €560,000 in cash out of his personal IOR bank account and carried it out of the Vatican and into Italy to help pay off a mortgage on his Salerno home.

To deposit the money into an Italian bank account - and to prevent family members from finding out he had such a large chunk of cash - he asked 56 close friends to accept €10,000 in cash in exchange for a cheque or money transfer in the same amount.

Msgr Scarano was then able to deposit the amounts in his Italian account.

He had given the names of the donors to prosecutors and insisted the origin of the money was clean, that the transactions did not constitute money-laundering, and that he only took the money "temporarily" for his personal use.

"He declares himself absolutely innocent," Mr Sica said of the Salerno investigation.

Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi said the Vatican is taking the appropriate measures to deal with Msgr Scarano's case.

Complaints over on-air treatment of priest upheld

Two complaints against RTÉ’s Liveline have been upheld by broadcasting watchdog the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) after it found a Catholic priest had been harassed following a magazine article linking the Taoiseach with King Herod.

Both complaints relate to the Mar 5 edition of Liveline, in which a listener complained about an editorial in the religious magazine Alive! on the abortion debate, written by the magazine’s editor, Fr Brian McKevitt.

The on-air row was triggered when a listener, named Joan, said she felt an article in Alive! linking Taoiseach Enda Kenny to Herod was “particularly nasty” and was “anonymous abuse and a form of bullying”.

Fr McKevitt then joined in the debate on-air, with some callers supporting Joan’s view and others backing the priest, who stressed that he was not comparing the Taoiseach with Herod but was simply exploring the reasons why people might make such a connection in the context of the ongoing abortion legislation debate.

The BAI received two complaints about the treatment of Fr McKevitt. The first complainant, Jim McGuinness, claimed presenter, Joe Duffy, harassed the priest on air and that the line-up of callers abused the priest. 

The second complainant, John Fanning, claimed the on-air debate “degenerated into a character assassination by radio conducted and orchestrated by the programme presenter, Mr Joe Duffy”.

RTÉ denied this and said it exchanges on the programme were “robust” and that Joe Duffy was able to facilitate that process.

In upholding the complaints the BAI said: “In comparison to the treatment of contributions made by those callers alleging that Fr McKevitt’s article had inappropriately compared An Taoiseach with King Herod, the programme presenter interrupted the contribution from Fr McKevitt on a regular basis.”

It also found that Joe Duffy had raised some of the issues discussed, rather than listeners, and concluded: “the manner in which the discussion was handled was not in the interests of listeners and lacked fairness, objectivity and impartiality”.

The BAI’s compliance committee rejected four other complaints — two against Prime Time on its introductions to aspects of abortion and ADHD, and another complaint against Liveline on a guest’s claims about cannabis, and against The Late Late Show and a segment in which George Hook advocated gay marriage.

Eight complaints were resolved by the BAI executive complaint forum, including a quip from TV3 The Morning Show presenter Martin King that the mother of a newborn panda was “hungover” after the previous children’s allowance night, and a Tubridy 2FM segment on sex toys which a complainant heard over the speaker system in a supermarket.

- www.bai.ie

Government ‘expects’ orders to pay into Magdalene fund

The Government has thrown down the gauntlet to the four religious orders that ran the Magdalene Laundries, saying it expects them to contribute money towards the redress scheme — as two groups said they would not pay.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter told the Dáil the Government, survivors of the laundries and the wider public “expect” those who ran the institutions to pay to compensate the women who suffered in their care. 

Mr Shatter’s challenge comes as two of the orders have told the Government they will not be contributing any money towards the Quirke redress scheme, expected to cost between €34m and €58m.

The Irish Examiner understands from sources that both the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge told the Government in advance of the Quirke Report being published on Wednesday, they would not be contributing money to the compensation fund.

The report recommended the women be paid compensation ranging from €11,500 to a maximum of €100,000 depending on the duration spent in a Magdalene Laundry.

None of the orders made any comment on whether or not they would contribute to the scheme. 

The Sisters of Mercy, the Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge did say they would continue to look after the women who worked in the laundries and are still in their care — just not financially.

Last year, the Irish Examiner reported that the four orders who ran the Magdalene Laundries made almost €300m in property deals during the boom.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge received €55m from just one sale of land in the High Park campus, Dublin, in 2006.

The Sisters of Charity made €63m in sell-offs during the boom, of which €45m came from the 2001 deal for land around its former laundry in Donnybrook, Dublin. 

Last year, the order, which amassed a €233m property portfolio, said it could not afford to release €3m it promised to put into a trust fund for the victims of institutional child abuse.

The Sisters of Mercy has sold €165m worth of property between 1999 and 2009.

The Good Shepherd Sisters, which ran laundries in Limerick, Cork, Waterford, and New Ross, made €3.4m by selling some of its sites and houses between 1999 and 2009. 

Two of these were near its old laundry in Limerick City.

Archbishop slams ‘smugness’ of bank culture

The country’s second most senior Catholic cleric says the “smugness” laid bare in the Anglo tapes jars with the desperate conditions many victims of the economic collapse now suffer.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said the recordings underlined the need for stronger regulation and oversight of financial institutions to ensure they did not abuse public trust again.

“Self-regulation works for saints,” he said.

He was speaking after a visit to the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin where Franciscans provide more than 750 meals daily to the city’s poor and hand out 1,600 food parcels every week.

“The only comment I can make is, ‘think what I heard on the radio this morning [about Anglo], think what I’ve seen here today’. They’re two realities of Irish life — the smugness of some people and the total insecurity and precariousness of the people here. Both of those are linked.”

He said he had confidence in the Garda probe into activities at the bank but cautioned that the complexities and burden of proof involved presented challenges. He said any other inquiry should be focused on the facts of what happened.

“It shouldn’t be just politically motivated, it should get out the facts, because we need a functioning economic and monetary system but we also need to see the pitfalls that exist.

“We have to learn the lessons of the past so we can move forward in the future. Here [at the Capuchin Centre] you see a totally other side of the fruits of what went on in those years.”

He said questions had to be asked about how the behaviour at Anglo evolved. “You ask yourself why is it that in such a huge institution that ethics didn’t address the question of how you manage honestly and transparently a business where you look after people’s monies that have been given to you in trust?”

Parallels could be drawn with the Catholic Church, he said. “The extraordinary complexity of the financial world can give people the impression that, I’m not really responsible for what happened.

“We had this a little bit in the Church with the management of child sexual abuse — that it was a systems failure. I use the example where you are baking a cake. I only put the sugar in and I only put the flour in but the cake is there and it’s bad cake, it’s a mouldy cake.

“Everybody has to live up to their responsibilities. But there’s a problem in human nature — there is a goodness in all of us but there is a tendency to go in the wrong direction. That’s why we need checks and balances. We need proper regulation, we need transparency.

“There was a particular period in time when in the financial world, the idea was that the markets must be left free, anything which impedes the markets impedes their function... [but] self- regulation works with saints.”

Rent boy scandal rocks the Vatican

THE Vatican is bracing itself for a rent boy scandal after a convicted pedophile priest apparently sought vengeance by informing on other child abusers in the Roman clergy. 
 
Don Patrizio Poggi, who served a five-year sentence for abusing five 14 and 15-year-old boys at his parish on the outskirts of the Italian capital, has reportedly handed names to police. 

So far, four people have formally been placed under investigation by Rome magistrates.

The suspects are said to include a monsignor who is currently the secretary of an important bishop. 

Also being investigated is a former Carabinieri police officer suspected of recruiting under-age boys for the alleged prostitution ring.

The brewing scandal comes just weeks after Pope Francis confirmed the existence of a "gay lobby" in the Vatican to a visiting Latin American church group.

The apparent network inside the supposedly celibate and staunchly anti-homosexual Church is one reason why Pope Francis is working on a thorough house-cleaning of the Roman curia. 

Vatican watchers believe a far-reaching reshuffle of top posts is imminent. 

Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, current head of the governorate that runs the Vatican city-state, is tipped to take over from the powerful but divisive Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The latest scandal traces its roots to the criminal case against Poggi, now 46, who was convicted in 1999 of abusing boys at his St Philip Neri church in the Rome suburb of Primavalle.

After serving his sentence, the disgraced priest sought reinstatement by the Vatican but was denied a post. 

In revenge, he is said to have gone to police with one of the alleged "rent boys" serving priests.

According to Italian press reports, Poggi named 20 people as being involved in the prostitution ring.

Good Pope, Bad Pope - The Hatred of Benedict and Francis, Measured in Books (Contribution)

In his brief time as Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger dressed ostentatiously. He wore fancy red shoes and golden robes and otherwise aspired to resemble a monarch from a time before democracy.

His wardrobe was a "f**k you" to millions of poor Catholics around the world who revered him, and yet his daring fashion may be his most admirable quality.
 
Framed as a biography of Ratzinger, Daniel Gawthrop's The Trial of Pope Benedict lists the erstwhile pope's multitude of faults with passion and conviction. 

Besides the more commonly known complaints about Ratzinger's public ambivalence about the Catholic Church's pedophilia problem (and his behind-the-scenes work to cover up the scandal), he also loathed the forward-thinking changes brought to the church after the Vatican II conference of the mid-1960s, and his very public snubs of Islam during a visit to Turkey may have been an attempt to incite religious violence.

Gawthrop's understanding of Ratzinger's biography and writings allow him to make some assumptions about the man's character that are, at the very least, fun to entertain. 

(Of the Turkish visit, Gawthrop theorizes that Ratzinger appreciates Islam's conservatism: "It's quite possible that Ratzinger was coming out of the closet here as a moderate Islamophile, a Catholic suffering the ecclesial equivalent of that old Freudian canard, penis envy.") 

While the book's framing sequence, which imagines Ratzinger on trial at the Hague, is a step too far toward the dramatic, the rest of The Trial is an informative and damning account of a hateful mind that ascended to the global stage.

Ratzinger's successor is making a splash on bookshelves, too. Quickly translated into English and published in the United States in those heady days immediately after Pope Francis was confirmed, On Heaven and Earth is a pleasure to read. 

The book, originally published in Argentina in 1995, is a dialogue between then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorka about faith, other religions, fundamentalism, and guilt. It's a conversation between two men of great intellect and great faith.

While at certain points some readers will part ways with Bergoglio, there are plenty of human revelations that will charm anyone with a pulse. 

Bergoglio admits that as a young seminarian, he nearly gave up his calling after becoming "enchanted by a young woman at my uncle's wedding." 

It's a refreshingly un-Benedict-like admission of humanity, but ultimately it's to illustrate his affirmation that celibacy is important for priests. 

(In the same paragraph where he admits celibacy didn't become a clerical law until 1100, Bergoglio affirms: "Tradition has weight and validity. Catholic priests chose celibacy little by little.")

Just when you start to believe that Bergoglio will make a wholly different kind of pope than Benedict—he's practically a different species—you come to the more bruising passages. 

Near the end, his opinions on gay marriage spring not from his typical amiable thoughtfulness, but from pure-cut bigotry. 

Bergoglio fumbles toward the sciences to make his case, calling gay marriage "anthropologic regression," and saying that while he doesn't hate gay people, "every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help them shape their identity." 

After so many decent statements delivered throughout On Heaven and Earth, this Ratzingerian retreat from logic and from love is more than just uncomfortable — it's disappointing.

Mary's Meals founder meets Pope Francis

The founder of Mary's Meals – the charity set up to help feed the poorest children in the world – has travelled to the Vatican at the invitation of Pope Francis.

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, who set up the organisation in 2002, was invited to Rome after the Pope heard about his work within the Catholic community. 

His charity, which was one of the organisations previously supported by The Telegraph's Christmas Appeal, provides food for 750,000 children every school day. 

Mr MacFarlane-Barrow said: "It was a huge privilege and blessing to meet the Holy Father today and represent everyone involved in the mission of Mary's Meals. I presented Pope Francis with the blue Mary's Meals mug and let him know we are now reaching over three quarters of a million children every school day – many of them having escaped the rubbish dumps where they used to scavenge for their next meal, or the fields where they worked. He gave us a blessing, which we were very grateful for." 

Pope Francis held a general audience in St Peter's Square on Wednesday morning, before meeting Mr MacFarlane-Barrow and his wife.

The Scotsman was inspired to start the charity by a visit to Malawi during the 2002 famine, where he met a 14-year-old boy, Edward, who told him: "I want to have enough food to eat and to go to school one day". 

Mary's Meals began by feeding 200 children in a school in Malawi, and now provides daily sustenance for children in schools in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. 

Pope Francis has made championing the poor a key pillar of his papacy.

Earlier this year he said: "Poverty in the world is a scandal. In a world where there is so much wealth, so many resources to feed everyone, it is unfathomable that there are so many hungry children, that there are so many children without an education, so many poor persons. We all have to think if we can become a little poorer, all of us have to do this."

A humble pope in an august office (Opinion)

The most potent symbol to date of Pope Francis’ five-month papacy is an empty chair. 

The chair — a large white throne — was to seat His Holiness in the Vatican this past Saturday. 

The pope was scheduled to hear a performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, a long-planned event. 

But minutes before the performance Archbishop Rino Fisichella told the audience that “the Holy Father cannot be present because of an urgent piece of work which cannot be postponed.”

Later, it was reported that Francis had privately dismissed the event with a brusque, “I’m not a Renaissance Prince who listens to music instead of working.” 

Regardless of whether the quote is apocryphal, the comment expresses well the man’s style. 

He has declared an end to the Papal Gentlemen, an office which, reformed under Pope Paul VI (1963-78), became an institution whose often aristocratic members officiated at public ceremonies, with their main duty being to meet and greet distinguished visitors. 

Reports quote the pope’s belief that they were “archaic, useless, even damaging.”

That last may refer to a sex scandal allegedly involving Angelo Balducci, a “Gentleman” who is claimed to have been soliciting male lovers through connections in the Vatican. This, in turn, may be part of the reason why Francis — again, in private — lamented the presence of a “gay mafia” in high places.

He recently prevailed on the French ambassador to Rome, Alain LeRoy, to greatly simplify a dinner for the Italian members of the Legion d’Honneur. Each guest had a papal note by his plate warning that “food wasted is food stolen from the poor.” 

He has told his bishops not to act like princes; lives in the Vatican hotel, not in the magnificent papal suite; and has repeatedly spoken of living life “as a gift, not as a treasure to be kept to ourselves.”

There’s substance as well as style here — substance based on a calculation. 

In the early years of last century, Europe’s Catholics — living in a relatively wealthy part of the world, even if many were poor — accounted for 65 percent of the world’s 300 million. 

Today, Europe has 24 percent of the 1.1 billion worldwide Catholics — with Latin America, the Asia Pacific region and especially sub-Saharan Africa showing rapid growth. 

Poverty is an often tangible part of everyday Catholic life; a fact that Francis believes contradicts the luxury of cardinals’ and archbishops’ palaces and the concentrated magnificence of the Vatican.

He has been a harsher critic than his immediate predecessors of the sins of capitalism: Commenting on the collapse of the Bangladeshi sweatshop in May, where more than 1,000 workers died*, he said that “not paying fairly, not giving a job because you are only looking at balance sheets, only looking at how to make a profit. That goes against God!” 

Receiving new ambassadors to the Holy See in May, he warned against “a return to the golden calf” and “the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”

It’s a world away from the scholarly, introverted style of Benedict XVI — for whom the scandals and pressures of the Vatican finally became too much to bear. 

It’s closer to the expressive, even crowd-pleasing style of Pope John Paul II, but it’s much more militantly humble.

There is some risk in Francis’ strategy. 

There’s an argument that a display of power and wealth are needed especially for poor men and women, who wish to belong to a powerful institution led by great men wearing gorgeous garments.

But the pope’s efforts are also shrewd. 

His warnings against the “dictatorship of an economy… lacking any truly humane goal” align with the feeling of many across the world.

In Italy, Francis has found a stroke of luck: a humbled Silvio Berlusconi. His predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, had a hedonistic Italian prime minister to deal with. 

In Benedict’s papacy (2005-2012), Berlusconi was beset with sex and other scandals, about which the papacy largely stayed silent because Berlusconi was a lesser evil than a pro-secular left. 

But that silence came at the cost of distress on the part of many Catholics. 

Berlusconi isn’t gone, but earlier this week he was convicted of paying for sex with a minor, and abusing his office — and given a seven-year sentence. 

Lengthy appeals make it all but certain he won’t go to jail. 

But, already appealing other convictions, he won’t be back as prime minister either. 

The Vatican’s moral/immoral dance of the past years will no longer need to be danced by Francis, who seems to be further from Berlusconi’s personality than any man in Italy.

Yet, if kicking out the Papal Gentlemen and ducking the concert are large gestures, delivering on the substance of his humility agenda will be much harder for Francis. 

The papacy is not a government of any more than the few hundred souls within the Holy See. 

While Catholic social teaching is long on ideas, it has no better idea of how to cope with present crises than political parties of the left or right.

Francis has to inspire his priests with the zeal to re-convert their often semi-detached flocks into activists for radical social change. He must avoid the excesses of leftism, yet not collapse into mere populism. 

He must identify the Church with programs of poverty alleviation; develop practical answers to the unemployment of the young (maybe as pastoral assistants, aids to aged parishioners or menders of crumbling churches); be present at policy discussions on the economy; and give social teaching some realist underpinning. 

The Catholic Church has a great many men (it’s chosen to marginalize women, for the most part) of high intelligence — of whom Francis, a Jesuit, is one. 

Let them bend their minds to address poverty’s constant companion — unemployment.

The choral part of Beethoven’s Ninth — the symphony Francis missed — proclaims that “All men will be brothers!” 

Easier sung than done. 

Perhaps it was better for the pope to stay at his desk than be discouraged by the height of the hill he has decided to climb.

Pope Francis appears set to sign off on Legion of Christ reform

Pope Francis is signaling he will sign off on the reform process of the Legion of Christ religious order, which was disgraced by revelations its founder was a pedophile.
 
In a letter made public Wednesday, Francis confirmed the order would convene a general assembly in early 2014 to elect new leadership and approve a revised set of constitutions.

He said these would be "fundamental steps in the path towards authentic and profound renewal."

Then-Pope Benedict XVI took over the Legion in 2010 after a Vatican investigation determined its founder led a double life: The late Rev. Marcial Maciel sexually molested seminarians and fathered three children.

Benedict ordered a wholesale reform of the order after finding serious problems with its culture. 

Many priests disillusioned with the reform have left.

Archbishop Myers on Fugee: 'Our decision was appropriate at the time'

The decision to return Fr. Michael Fugee to active but restricted ministry in the Newark, N.J., archdiocese "was appropriate at the time," says Archbishop John Myers, though he added he would seek to avoid future court agreements appointing the archdiocese into a supervisory role.

"We would not enter into a memorandum of understanding that places a burden on the Church. The state has more resources. Our advice would be to tell the priest, 'Go back for a second trial and clear your name,' " Myers said.

The response came in the Newark archbishop's first interview since his archdiocese became embroiled in the U.S. Catholic church's latest clergy sex abuse scandal, which centered on Fugee, who was arrested May 20 for violating a memorandum of understanding restricting him from ministry to children. 

The order came in lieu of a retrial on charges of sexual assault against a 14-year-old boy dating back to 1999, of which a jury found him guilty in 2003 but an appeals court overturned in 2006 on the basis of judicial error.

Myers spoke Thursday with the National Catholic Register, which published the interview Tuesday.

In the interview, he said the facts of the Fugee case "have not been fully reported" and the assignments he gave the priest, including his appointment to co-director of the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests, were meant to increase supervision and prevent contact with children.

Outside of Fugee, Myers said there are "about 16 or 17 priests under supervision" in the archdiocese, and identified such supervision as an area requiring greater attention from he and his fellow bishops.

"At the U.S. bishops' meeting in San Diego this June, we discussed the fact that supervision is a problem under the charter. What if a priest moves to Florida? How do we supervise [those who move]? My suggestion is that the bishops work to address these issues soon," he said.

In Fugee's case, Myers said he was first placed in a parish "with other priests who all knew his situation" before moving to another parish where the pastor would allow him to hear confessions at youth retreats when the others were unavailable.

"There were activities that he was not permitted to do; unfortunately, the pastor permitted this," the archbishop said.

Myers also discussed several aspects of Fugee's court case. He said the appellate court's decision to overturn the guilty verdict was made because "the judge's instructions to the jury lacked guidance on how to deal with whether Father Fugee was acting in a supervisory way with the young man, such as a coach or a teacher."

In regard to Fugee's 2001 deposition statement in which he confessed to groping the alleged victim, Myers said the statement, which was made public online by the Newark Star-Ledger, was "part of a larger period of questioning over some three hours that was not taken down," during which the priest denied wrongdoing multiple times. Fugee would later testify in court that the confession was a mistake and the result of tiredness, Myers said.

"The average person is looking for a black-and-white answer, but there are cases where there are more grays than black and white. That is what the court and the review board were dealing with," he said.

The Archdiocesan Review Board "looked into the allegation as if they were cops," Myers said, with the board opening the case in late 2006 and ultimately completing the process in 2009.

"The review board did not give Father Fugee a clean bill of health: He engaged in activity that was ill advised but did not rise to the level of sexual abuse. They said the limitations stated in the memorandum were appropriate safeguards. There would be no unsupervised ministry with minors and youth," he said, adding that Fugee could celebrate Mass, as well as baptisms and funerals, with young people present.

"If he were to go outside the diocese to minister to young people, he still needed permission to do that, and he knew we would have told him, 'No,' " Myers said.

Though barred from active ministry, Fugee, out on bail, is currently residing in a rectory for a "charismatic-movement parish" where people come for Mass and then return to their hometowns, Myers said. Any further canonical action against him will wait until the Bergen County prosecutor concludes his investigation of the case.

Litany Of The Most Precious Blood

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy
Christ, hear us
Christ, hear us
Christ, graciously hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us
God the Father of Heaven,
have mercy on us
God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
have mercy on us
God, the Holy Spirit,
have mercy on us
Holy Trinity, One God,
have mercy on us
Blood of Christ, only-begotten Son of the eternal Father,
save us
Blood of Christ, Incarnate Word or God,
save us
Blood of Christ, of the New and Eternal Testament,
save us
Blood of Christ, falling upon the earth in Agony,
save us
Blood of Christ, shed profusely in the Scourging,
save us
Blood of Christ, flowing forth in the Crowning with Thorns,
save us
Blood of Christ, poured out on the Cross,
save us
Blood of Christ, price of our salvation,
save us
Blood of Christ, without which there is no forgiveness,
save us
Blood of Christ, Eucharistic drink and refreshment of souls,
save us
Blood of Christ, stream of mercy,
save us
Blood of Christ, victor over demons,
save us
Blood of Christ, courage of Martyrs,
save us
Blood of Christ, strength of Confessors,
save us
Blood of Christ, bringing forth Virgins,
save us
Blood of Christ, help of those in peril,
save us
Blood of Christ, relief of the burdened,
save us
Blood of Christ, solace in sorrow,
save us
Blood of Christ, hope of the penitent,
save us
Blood of Christ, consolation of the dying,
save us
Blood of Christ, peace and tenderness of hearts,
save us
Blood of Christ, pledge of eternal life,
save us
Blood of Christ, freeing souls from purgatory,
save us
Blood of Christ, most worthy of all glory and honor,
save us
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,
spare us, O Lord
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,
graciously hear us, O Lord
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us, O Lord
V. Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, in Thy Blood.
R. And made us, for our God, a kingdom.
Almighty and eternal God,
Thou hast appointed Thine only-begotten Son
the Redeemer of the world and willed to be appeased by his blood.
Grant, we beg of Thee,
that we may worthily adore this price of our salvation
and through its power
be safeguarded from the evils of the present life
so that we may rejoice in its fruits forever in heaven.
Through the same Christ our Lord.
Amen.