"Vatican admits pope’s butler arrested; He is 2d insider snared in scandal" by Nicole Winfield | Associated Press, May 27, 2012
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican confirmed Saturday that the pope’s butler has been arrested in its embarrassing leaks scandal.
Paolo Gabriele, a layman and a member of the papal household, was arrested Wednesday after secret documents were found in his Vatican City apartment, and he was still being held Saturday, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said in a statement.
Gabriele is often seen by Pope Benedict XVI’s side in public, riding in the front seat of his open-air jeep during Wednesday general audiences or shielding the pontiff from the rain. He has been the pope’s personal butler since 2006, one of the few members of the small papal household that also includes the pontiff’s private secretaries and four consecrated women who care for the papal apartment.
His arrest followed another stunning development at the Vatican last week, the ouster of the president of the Vatican bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, by his board. Sources close to the investigation said he, too, was found to have leaked documents, though the official reason for his ouster was that he simply failed to do his job.
The scandal has seriously embarrassed the Vatican as it tries to show the world financial community that it has turned a page and shed its reputation as a scandal-plagued tax haven.
Vatican documents leaked to the press in recent months have undermined that effort, alleging corruption in Vatican finance, as well as internal bickering over the Holy See’s efforts to show more transparency in its financial operations.
But perhaps most critically, the leaks have seemed aimed at one main goal: to discredit Pope Benedict XVI’s number two, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state.
The scandal took on even greater weight this month with publication of “His Holiness,’’ a book that reproduced confidential letters and memos to and from Benedict and his personal secretary. The Vatican called the book criminal and vowed to take legal action against the author, publisher, and whoever leaked the documents.
The Vatican had already warned of legal action against the author, Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, after he broadcast letters in January from the former number two Vatican administrator to the pope in which he begged not to be transferred for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States.
He ought to feel right at home over here.
Nuzzi, author of “Vatican SpA,’’ a 2009 volume laying out shady dealings at the Vatican bank based on leaked documents, said he was approached by sources inside the Vatican with a trove of new documents, most of them of fairly recent vintage and many of them painting Bertone in a negative light.
Bertone, 77, had no diplomatic experience when, after Benedict’s election, he took over the high-profile job as the main administrator of the Vatican and its external relations. He had long been Benedict’s loyal deputy as a canon lawyer at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
But he has been blamed for a series of gaffes that have plagued Benedict’s papacy and, according to the leaked documents, generated a not inconsiderable amount of ill will directed at him from other Vatican officials.
“For some time and in various parts of the church, criticism even by the faithful has been growing about the lack of coordination and confusion that reign at its center,’’ Cardinal Paolo Sardi, the former number two official in the Vatican secretariat of state, wrote to the pope in 2009, according to the letter reproduced in “His Holiness.’’
At a press conference last week, Nuzzi defended the publication of the book and said he was not afraid of Vatican retaliation. In fact, he even taunted Vatican prosecutors to seek help from Italian magistrates to investigate the case, charging that it would be a remarkable turnaround, given that the Vatican has been less than helpful in the past when Italian prosecutors came asking for information for their investigations.
He praised his sources - and said there were several - in his acknowledgments.
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Related: Vatican Investigations
"The Legion of Christ religious order, already discredited for having covered up the crimes of its pedophile founder, suffered another blow to its credibility after its superior admitted Tuesday that he knew in 2005 that his most prominent priest had broken his vows of celibacy and fathered a child, yet did nothing to prevent him from teaching and preaching about morality....
The situation has become so bad for Catholics we actually breathe a sigh of relief when it's a heterosexual transgression. Both are monstrous, but the pooper-pumping.... ugh.
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"Cardinal ordered silence on priests accused of abuse; Monsignor tells of dealing with ‘sick individuals’ " by Maryclaire Dale | Associated Press, May 24, 2012
PHILADELPHIA - Monsignor William Lynn took the stand in his own defense Wednesday in a groundbreaking child-endangerment and conspiracy case....
I've tried not to duck the issue.
Lynn, 61, is the first Roman Catholic church official in the United
States charged with a crime for his handling of complaints that priests
were molesting children. Prosecutors spent 10 years investigating the
Philadelphia Archdiocese before bringing charges against Lynn, the point
person for priest assignments as secretary for clergy from 1992 to
2004. No other church official in Philadelphia was charged.
That prompted Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington to ask, somewhat rhetorically, if Lynn remembered the Catholic teaching on sins of omission....
That explains the propensity with which my Jewish-run prism of a media commits that sin. No guilt.
Defense lawyers paint Lynn as a cog in the wheel of a vast bureaucracy and a scapegoat for the priest sexual-abuse crisis.
But prosecutors call him a key figure in policy decisions and the man who knew better than perhaps anyone the harrowing accounts of child sexual abuse buried in the church vaults.
Lynn’s decision to take the stand Wednesday is risky, giving prosecutors a chance to interrogate him on cross-examination about his handling of 20 files on accused priests. Friends and relatives, several of them priests, filled several rows of seats behind the defense table.
Lynn faces up to 21 years in prison if convicted. He is on leave from the archdiocese, which is paying for his defense.
That didn't work for the Nazis.
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Also see:
Prosecutors rest in clergy sex abuse case
Philadelphia clergy abuse scandal grows
Franciscan files paint a picture of generations of sexual abuse
Sort of diminishes the effect of the next article, especially since some criminal priests have assisted in setting up abortions to cover their crimes.
"Catholic dioceses, colleges file suit over birth control mandate:" by Rachel Zoll | Associated Press, May 22, 2012
NEW YORK - Roman Catholic dioceses, schools, and other groups sued the Obama administration Monday in eight states and the District of Columbia over a federal mandate that most employers provide workers free birth control as part of their health insurance.
The 12 federal lawsuits represent the largest push against the mandate since President Obama announced the policy in January. Among the 43 groups suing are the University of Notre Dame, the Archdioceses of Washington and New York, the Michigan Catholic Conference, and the Catholic University of America.
“We have tried negotiation with the administration and legislation with the Congress, and we’ll keep at it, but there’s still no fix,’’ said New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Time is running out, and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now.’’
The suits bring the total number of cases now pending over the mandate to more than 30.
The Archdiocese of Boston did not join the effort, although it supports the legal challenges. “There is no need for every single diocese or other Catholic organization to sue,’’ Terrence Donilon, archdiocese spokesman, said in a statement. “The various plaintiffs reflect a broad cross-section of Catholic institutions, and together they represent the wide variety of issues, impacts, economic consequences, and divergent facts that exist among Catholic organizations nationwide.’’
The Health and Human Services Department adopted the rule to improve health care for women. Last year, an advisory panel from the Institute of Medicine, which advises the federal government, recommended including birth control on the list of covered services, partly because it promotes maternal and child health by allowing women to space their pregnancies.
However, many faith leaders from across religious traditions protested, saying the mandate violates religious freedom.
The original rule includes a religious exemption that allows houses of worship to opt out, but keeps the requirement in place for religiously affiliated charities.
In response to the political furor, Obama offered to soften the rule so that insurers would pay for birth control instead of religious groups. However, the bishops and others have said that the accommodation doesn’t go far enough to protect religious freedom.
Health and Human Services spokeswoman Erin Shields said Monday the department does not comment on pending litigation. When Obama announced the accommodation in February, he said no religious group would have to pay for the contraceptive services or provide the services directly.
Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, said in a statement that the school decided to sue “after much deliberation, discussion and efforts to find a solution acceptable to the various parties.’’
The university said that the mandate violates religious freedom by requiring many religiously affiliated hospitals, schools, and charities to comply.
“We do not seek to impose our religious beliefs on others,’’ Jenkins said. “We simply ask that the government not impose its values on the university when those values conflict with our religious teachings.’’
Other religious colleges and institutions have already filed federal suit over the mandate, but observers had been closely watching for Notre Dame’s next step.
The university, among the best-known Catholic schools in the country, has indicated past willingness to work with Obama, despite their differences with him on abortion and other issues.
Notre Dame came under strong criticism from bishops and others in 2009 for inviting Obama, who supports abortion rights, as a commencement speaker and presenting him with an honorary law degree.
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I have a confession to make: It's not the issue I'll be basing my vote on, sorry.
