Catholic World Report

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Pope Benedict XVI has harsh words for Irish bishops following summit on abuse

By Michael Kelly

Pope Benedict XVI meets with Irish bishops at the Vatican Feb. 15. (CNS) Pope Benedict XVI has challenged Irish bishops to face up to the child abuse crisis with honesty and courage.

In a communiqué issued February 16 after a crisis two-day summit between the Pope, Irish bishops, and senior curial officials, the Holy See said the meeting “examined the failure of Irish Church authorities for many years to act effectively in dealing with cases involving the sexual abuse of young people by some Irish clergy and religious.”

The Rome meeting comes amid public anger in Ireland after two separate judicial commissions found that Church leaders had for decades failed to report allegations of sexual abuse against priests to the civil authorities. The reports also found that in many cases senior clerics put the avoidance of scandal and the good name of the Church ahead of the rights of victims.

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Another Myth of Secular Salvation

Film

James Cameron’s Avatar: Hollywood’s self-proclaimed “King of the World” is back.

By Steven D. Greydanus

In the last weekend of a year of record box-office returns that broke the $10 billion mark for the first time, Hollywood closed out the decade in grand style with the biggest weekend box office in history. At the top of the charts, for the second weekend in a row, was James Cameron’s Avatar.

Barely losing steam in the early days of 2010, Avatar toppled Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to become 2009’s top-grossing film—no mean feat for a sui generis film with no preexisting franchise appeal, no above-the-title major stars, and a director whose last film was a dozen years earlier.

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No Room on the Lifeboat?

NEWS - EUROPE

Proposed changes to French bioethics laws target Down syndrome children.

By Michael J. Miller

This spring the French parliament is scheduled to debate a bill proposing revisions to the national bioethics laws currently in force. In January 2010 the pertinent legislative commission published its report, which addresses questions about surrogate motherhood, assisted reproduction, human embryo research, pre-natal screening, and organ donation. The report relies heavily on recommendations issued on November 17, 2009 by the French national ethics committee, the Comité Consultatif National d’Éthique (CCNE).

Pre-implantation diagnostic testing, although controversial, was allowed in strictly defined cases by the 1994 bioethics law. A couple with a family history of a “particularly serious” genetic disease was legally permitted to have their embryonic offspring (produced through in vitro fertilization) screened for that one disease; any embryos in which the genetic disorder was detected would be “discarded,” so as to implant only disease-free embryos in the mother. The CCNE recently recommended extending pre-implantation screening to include trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome.

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In the Name of the Church

Interview

Cardinal Arinze on the liturgy as public prayer.

Interview by Matthew A. Rarey

Cardinal Francis Arinze has enjoyed a meteoric career, from becoming the youngest bishop in the world in 1965 at the age of 32, to serving in several of the most vital posts in the Vatican. The native Nigerian currently is prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, having served as prefect from 2002 to 2008. In that position, he helped oversee the process of preparing translations of the liturgy that are truer to the original Latin.

In November, Cardinal Arinze made a visit to Chicago, principally to give the keynote address at the annual fundraiser for the Chastity Education Initiative of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Respect Life Office. He spoke with CWR during the visit.

CWR: Upon sending to Rome the proposed new English translation of the Roman Missal, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, “There is a tremendous moment of religious renewal that is possible now.” What do you hope would be some of the fruits of the new translation, however it is finalized?

Cardinal Francis Arinze: My hope is that those who want the Mass in English will have a text which would be as near to the original Latin as possible. A faithful translation of the Latin, respecting also the character of English, helping the people to pray with the spirit of piety characteristic of the Latin rite. The best text that can be offered today to the English speaking world—that is my hope. Because the text of the public prayer of the Church guides our prayer—communal prayer, liturgical prayer—it should also inspire our personal prayer.

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The Wolves Roamed Freely

Special Report

Recent judicial commission reports contain devastating findings about abuse and cover-up in the Irish Church.

By Michael Kelly

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Ireland, left, and Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, address the media just outside St. Peter's Square in Rome Dec. 11. The church leaders met earlier that day with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss a repor t on clerical sexual abuse in Ireland. For almost two decades, the Catholic Church in Ireland has struggled to come to terms with a punishing litany of revelations about sexual misconduct by priests and religious. The crisis continues to envelop Irish Catholicism and recent judicial reports have led to the resignation of four bishops, public squabbling by members of the hierarchy, and a promise of structural reform from the Vatican.

In 1992, the enigmatic bishop of Galway, Eamon Casey, was forced to step down after it emerged that he had fathered a child with an American divorcée some 20 years earlier and was using diocesan funds to pay for the upkeep of his son. Bishop Casey fled to Ecuador and his scandal was to mark the beginning of a long dark night for Catholic Ireland.

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The First Vocation Crisis

Special Report

Coinciding with the decline of marriage in the United States is the decline of sacramental marriage in the Church. Here’s a look at the US bishops’ efforts to address the collapse.

By Jeff Ziegler

Addressing the societal collapse of marriage, the US bishops have issued a pastoral letter praised by defenders of the Church’s teaching on family life.

In an August interview, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York discussed the four greatest challenges he believes the Church in the United States is facing today. First on his list was the state of marriage.

“That’s where we have the real vocation crisis,” he said. “We have a vocation crisis to lifelong, life-giving, loving, faithful marriage. If we take care of that one, we’ll have all the priests and nuns we need for the Church.”

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The People's Veto

Special Report

Why gay marriage failed in Maine.

By Sean Higgins

In the days leading up to Maine’s gay marriage vote on November 3, it seemed like a big, possibly momentous, shift in American culture was about to take place, one that could give major momentum to the gay rights movement.

All the major outlets reported that it was close. “Most polls suggest the electorate is evenly divided on the issue,” reported the Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post breathlessly told readers, “Public opinion polls in Maine show a dead heat.” It followed that with a quote from Maine Governor John Baldacci, a Democrat, who explained that, “I believe it is something in the water or the air in this state that recognizes individual rights and anti-discrimination.”

Nate Silver, a pollster for the popular political website fivethirtyeight.com, wrote that “the grassroots energy has been reversed, with the pro-gay marriage side feeling more emboldened than traditional marriage groups. This is true both outside the state of Maine and within it.”

On election night, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was positively giddy. He explained that a victory for gay rights groups in Maine would be “a big cultural change. Every time voters have spoken—every time—they have rejected gay marriage. But this shows the country is changing.” Apparently nobody told the Maine voters about their historic role.

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