Melbourne, Australia, Mar 5, 2018 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, arrived at a Melbourne court Monday to begin the first day of his preliminary hearing over sexual abuse charges brought against him.
The committal hearing, likely to last upwards of one month, is taking place before Magistrate Belinda Wallington at the Melbourne Magistrates Court to determine if Cardinal Pell will ultimately face a trial.
Testimonies from alleged victims will be heard during the hearing, although one abuse charge against the 76-year old cardinal was withdrawn Friday, as the key complainant, Damian Dignan, died in January of leukemia.
However, the total number of charges brought against Pell are not public, although some of the charges previously brought against Pell date as far back as 1961.
According to the AP, members of the public and media have been prohibited from attending the hearing during the alleged victims’ testimonies to the Australian court, which began March 5. These testimonies and their cross-examinations could last up to two weeks.
Pell, who is being represented by four lawyers in court, is pleading not guilty to the abuse counts and has denied the charges brought against him, saying, “the whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me.”
“I am innocent of these charges, they are false,” he told media last June.
After Pell was charged with multiple instances of sexual abuse by Victoria state police in 2016, the cardinal took leave of his position as the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy and a member of the Pope’s council of nine cardinal advisers. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Ballarat in 1966.
Pell, who is the most senior Catholic cleric to have been charged with sexual abuse, has been living in Sydney during the ongoing hearings.
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Canberra, Australia, Dec 15, 2017 / 02:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a wide-ranging report released Friday, Australia’s royal commission found serious failings in the protection of children from abuse in the Catholic Church and other major institutions.
The commission recommended Dec. 15 that priests should be legally obligated to disclose details of sexual abuse revealed in the confessional and that priestly celibacy should be made optional.
The Vatican responded by saying the report should be “studied seriously”, reiterating its commitment to hearing and accompanying victims of child sex abuse in the pursuit of healing and justice.
Church officials in Australia apologized for the suffering caused and pledged their commitment to ensuring justice, while also noting the impossibility of violating the secrecy of sacramental confession.
The report was the result of an investigation in which the commission reviewed thousands of accounts of child abuse from figures in major institutions. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was established in 2013 to investigate the handling of child sex abuse allegations by religious groups, schools, government organizations, and sporting associations.
Of the institutions examined, the most accusations were brought against the Catholic Church, in which more than 4,000 cases of child abuse reportedly occurred, making up 61.8 percent of all reported child abuse cases from religious entities.
In a previously released portion of the report, the commission found that seven percent of Catholic priests in Australia serving between 1950 and 2009 have been accused of child sex crimes.
“Tens of thousands of children have been sexually abused in many Australian institutions. We will never know the true number,” the report said.
“It is not a case of a few ‘rotten apples’. Society’s major institutions have seriously failed.”
Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, president of the Australian bishops’ conference, said the report reveals a “shameful past, in which a prevailing culture of secrecy and self-protection led to unnecessary suffering for many victims and their families.”
He also reiterated his “unconditional apology for this suffering and a commitment to ensuring justice for those affected.”
Sister Ruth Durick OSU, president of Catholic Religious Australia, added that religious orders across Australia are will continue their recent work of reforming orders to better protect children.
“We acknowledge with gratitude the courage of all those survivors who have come forward to the Royal Commission,” Sr. Ruth said. “We will be taking very seriously the Royal Commission’s report and have commissioned an initial assessment of its findings by the Truth, Justice and Healing Council.”
As part of the report, the commission made numerous recommendations, such as changes to Australia’s criminal justice system and various recommendations for the Catholic Church, “many of which will have a significant impact on the way the Catholic Church operates in Australia,” the bishops said in their statement.
However, among some of the controversial recommendations are that priests should be legally obligated to disclose details of sexual abuse revealed in the confessional, and that they should face criminal charges if they refuse to do so.
In a statement in August, Hart stressed the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of confession while also ensuring that children are protected.
“Confession in the Catholic Church is a spiritual encounter with God through the priest,” Hart said in an Aug. 14 statement.
Confession “is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion, and it is recognized in the Law of Australia and many other countries,” he said. “It must remain so here in Australia…(but) outside of this, all offenses against children must be reported to the authorities, and we are absolutely committed to doing so.”
Additionally, the report recommended that the Catholic Church make celibacy an optional requirement of the priesthood, rather than a mandatory one, because while celibacy is not a cause of child abuse, the commission considered it a contributing factor when combined with other risk factors, according to the BBC.
Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney told the Guardian that changing the celibacy requirement is not the solution to the abuse crisis.
“We know very well that institutions who have celibate clergy and institutions that don’t have celibate clergy both face these problems. We know very well that this happens in families that are certainly not observing celibacy,” he said.
The Holy See also responded to the report, saying in a statement on Friday that it “deserves to be studied seriously.”
“The Holy See remains committed to being close to the Catholic Church in Australia – lay faithful, religious, and clergy alike – as they listen to and accompany victims and survivors in an effort to bring about healing and justice,” the Vatican statement said.
“In his recent meeting with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Pope Francis said the Church is called to be a place of compassion, especially for those who have suffered, and reaffirmed that the Church is committed to safe environments for the protection of all children and vulnerable adults.”
At the end of the statement from the Australian bishop’s conference, the Church leaders restated their commitment to making amends for past abuse, and called on state governments to aid them in this task.
“Both leaders said the Church will continue to push for the introduction of a national redress scheme for the survivors of child sexual abuse in which the Church will participate.”
Philip Freier, the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, apologized for “the shameful way we sometimes actively worked against and discouraged those who came to us and reported abuse.”
Bishop Stephen Chow’s ordination as bishop in Hong Kong’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Dec. 5, 2021 / Screenshot from livestream
Rome Newsroom, Dec 4, 2021 / 03:00 am (CNA).
Bishop Stephen Chow Sau-yan was ordained a bishop in Hong Kong’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Saturday.
“As a successor to the Apostles by the grace of Almighty God, I request your constant prayers that I may always be loyal to God’s will as a shepherd to the People of God in Hong Kong, and faithfully carry out my duties,” Chow said at the Mass on Dec. 4.
Cardinal John Tong Hon, the apostolic administrator of Hong Kong, presided over the Mass. Cardinal Joseph Zen and auxiliary Bishop Joseph Ha were co-celebrants.
“Through the Bishop’s wisdom and prudence, it is Christ himself who leads you in your earthly pilgrimage toward eternal happiness,” Tong said in his homily, according to the diocese of Hong Kong.
“He has been entrusted with the task of bearing witness to the truth of the Gospel, and with the ministry of the Spirit and of justice,” he said.
During the Mass, Chow laid face down on the floor in total surrender to God as the congregation recited the Litany of the Saints in Cantonese.
Bishop Chow said in a brief speech at the end of the Mass that he wanted to help “foster healing and connections” in the Catholic community in his “beloved hometown.”
“As the bishop, it is my desire to be a bridge between the government and the church in Hong Kong and between the Catholic Church, fellow Christian denominations, and other religions,” he said.
“It is through sincere connection with one another, including within our own diocese that emphatic understanding can be established, appreciation can be fostered, respect and trust can be deepened, and hopefully collaboration can become a living culture in our community.”
Chow also read aloud an excerpt from a letter that he recently received from Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J. The archbishop emeritus of Ottawa-Cornwall wrote: “Given the history of the church in China and Hong Kong, Catholicism can no longer be seen as a foreign religion, but as integral to Hong Kong society.”
More than 6,000 people tuned in live to watch Chow’s consecration Mass on YouTube.
Among those watching the livestream were priests and seminarians in Italy from the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (PIME), who have launched a prayer campaign for the newly consecrated bishop.
Father Gianni Criveller, who is helping to organize the campaign at the PIME missionary seminary in the Italian city of Monza, told UCA News that he knows that Bishop Chow will face “great difficulties and challenges.”
“The long-awaited consecration of the bishop calls for prayer and solidarity. Bishop Stephen has a very difficult task ahead of him humanly. In fact, it seems nearly impossible. However, we believe in the power of prayer and in the communion of those who entrust their lives to the Lord Jesus,” he said.
Pope Francis appointed Chow to be bishop of Hong Kong in May. Before his appointment, Hong Kong had been without a permanent bishop since January 2019.
Chow, 62, previously served as the provincial of the Jesuits’ Chinese Province. In that role, he led the Jesuit order in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and mainland China as the Vatican-China deal was first signed and during the crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy protest movement.
Born in Hong Kong in 1959, Chow went on to study in the United States, earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in psychology from the University of Minnesota, before entering the Society of Jesus in Dublin, Ireland at the age of 25.
During his Jesuit novitiate, he obtained a licentiate in philosophy in Ireland and then returned in 1988 to Hong Kong, where he was ordained to the priesthood on July 16, 1994.
Chow continued his studies at Loyola University in Chicago, where he earned a master’s degree in organizational development in 1995. He spent the next five years working as a campus minister, vocations director, and ethics teacher at Wah Yan College in Kowloon and Hong Kong.
In 2000, Chow began a doctoral program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education studying development and psychology. He graduated with a Doctorate in Education in 2006.
The following year, he made his final vows in the Jesuit order and worked as an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong from 2008 to 2015 and Jesuit Formator from 2009 to 2017. He also served as the president of the Chinese Jesuit Province’s education commission since 2009 and the Hong Kong Diocesan Council for Education since 2017.
Chow began his role as provincial of the Chinese Province of the Society of Jesus on Jan. 1, 2018.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Hong Kongers have historically enjoyed freedom of worship and evangelization, while in mainland China, by contrast, there is a long history of persecution for Christians who run afoul of the government.
With the 2020 passage of new “national security laws,” the Chinese government seized more power to suppress pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, which it sees as a direct challenge to its power.
Hong Kong’s National Security Law is broad in its definitions of terrorism, sedition, and foreign collusion. Under the law, a person who is convicted of the aforementioned crimes will receive a minimum of 10 years in prison, with the possibility of a life sentence.
On April 16, authorities in Hong Kong sentenced several Catholic pro-democracy figures, including lawyer Martin Lee and media tycoon Jimmy Lai, to prison sentences under the new security law.
“Hong Kong is going through perhaps the most dramatic phase of its history and has almost disappeared from the radar of international attention. However, those who love Hong Kong have not forgotten it,” Criveller said.
Valparaiso, Chile, May 13, 2018 / 03:52 pm (ACI Prensa).- As infants, Monica and Cristian Moya were hovering on the verge of death. But after their mother consecrated them to the Virgin Mary, they recovered from a severe case of pneumonia.
Today, Cristian Moya is a priest. Sister Monica Moya made her final vows with the Congregation of the Daughters of Saint Mary of Providence – founded by Saint Luis Guanella – last year.
In an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, Sister Monica recalled that their mother told them the story of their consecration to Mary just a few years ago.
The twins were born January 15, 1974 in San Antonio Province in the Valparaiso Region of Chile.
They were struck with a severe case of pneumonia when they were about three months old. In critical condition at the hospital, doctors informed their parents “that a blood transfusion was the last thing they would do for us,” the sister said.
Their mother – who had lost her first child at the age of one due to a heart condition – decided to consecrate the twins to the Virgin Mary, under her title of Nuestra Señora Purísima of Lo Vasquez (Our Lady Most Pure), a very well-known and beloved Marian title in Chile.
“My mom says that the only thing that came to her mind was to offer us to the Virgin and leave us in her hands. After that our recovery occurred,” Sister Monica said.
“Maybe you can look at this as a simple coincidence, but now one of her children is a priest and the other a nun,” she reflected.
Also notable, she added, is that Cristian “did his priestly formation in the seminary that is next to the Shrine of Nuestra Señora Purísima de Lo Vásquez,” the same church where their mother had gone to beg for the recovery of her children.
Sister Monica said that her mother’s offering “impacted me a lot and has made me think that the Lord took charge of taking me on this path, which… my parents also contributed to through prayer, Christian formation, and by themselves as a married couple.”
Besides the Virgin Mary, the nun’s vocation was also strongly tied to the person of Saint Joseph, patron of her congregation and whose solemnity coincides with the day she became a postulant, then a novice and also when she made her first vows.
While it is customary for a bishop to officiate the ceremony of final vows, Sister Monica was able to obtain permission for her twin brother to preside at the Mass.
Sister Monica considers her vocation “a gift and a miracle.”
“It’s something that has surpassed everything my mind can understand, it is a very particular grace that helps me say ‘yes’ every day.”
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
How dare he attempt to clean up Vatican finances, including the notorious Vatican bank.