Category Archives: Pope Benedict XVI

Former Monks Featured in Movie

Former Saint John’s Abbey monks Pat Wall and A.W. Richard Sipe are featured in the HBO documentary “Mea Maxima Culpa”. The movie premiered on the HBO network on Monday, February 4, 2013. Sipe and Wall discuss clergy abuse, celibacy and coverup … Continue reading

‘Mea Maxima Culpa’ Director Alex Gibney Praises Pope Benedict’s Resignation

(Yahoo) When I learned of the news that Pope Benedict XVI was going to become the first pope in six centuries to resign from office, I immediately thought, I wonder what Alex Gibney makes of this? His documentary, Mea Maxima … Continue reading

(Book Review) The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability…

What has made a bad situation worse, as the eminent QC Geoffrey Robertson argues in this coolly devastating inquiry, is canon law – the church’s own arcane, highly secretive legal system, which deals with alleged child abusers in a dismayingly … Continue reading

What if the Church’s own rules applied to it?

As we have recently been forcibly reminded, the Roman Catholic Church holds it better for the cries of raped and violated children to be ignored, and for the excuses and alibis of their rapists and torturers indulged, and for a … Continue reading

Vatican Toughens Rules On Sexual Abuse Of Children

They also specify that priests who acquire, possess or distribute child pornography will be considered to have committed a serious offence subject to the same disciplinary action as abusers. VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican on Thursday made sweeping revisions … Continue reading

Examining the Crisis: Scandal vs. crisis; PR vs. raw data

Ron Westrum, professor of sociology at Eastern Michigan University, suggests that organizations react in a series of stages to “anomalous reports.” They are: 1) suppression, 2) encapsulation, 3) public relations, 4) local fix, 5) global fix, and 6) investigation of … Continue reading

A Death in Rome by Francisco Schulte, OSB

I was at St. Peter’s Square and in the basilica with some guests the evening before the pope died; we had gone there to tour the church and, of course, to pray for him at the tomb of his predecessor, … Continue reading