Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal

ROME — A culture of silence across Asia may be keeping many victims of clergy sex abuse there from coming forward, a top Asian church official t...

According to the Vatican's own doctrine, it is God who turns men into priests. "Defrocking" Father Roy Bourgeois will not render him any less a priest. The dress does not make the man a priest.

Headlines around the world this week have reported that Irish broadcaster RTE obtained a 1997 letter from the Vatican that instructed Irish bishops no...

By Francis X. Rocca Religion News Service VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican on Wednesday (Jan. 19) tried to tamp down allegations a controversial 1997 lett...

By Kevin Eckstrom Religion News Service (RNS) The calendar may have said 2010, but for Pope Benedict XVI and much of his global flock, it looked and ...

Princess was one of the first brave sexual abuse victims to speak out. Without him, it's possible that the church would have continued its cover-up for years.

There were clearly some gay priests who were attracted to adolescent boys, and who preyed on them. But not the vast majority of gay priests, who never abused anyone. This is a critical point.

Leave it to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the totems of the British Atheist movement, to once again point out common sense, noting that the Pope's political sidestep is not recognized by the UN.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A day after the Vatican's No. 2 official suggested a link between pedophilia and homosexuality, the pope's top spokesman issued a c...

Celibacy does not cause pedophilia. But that hasn't stopped otherwise thoughtful pundits and commentators, and among them even some Catholics, from opining on celibacy as a cause of the crisis.

The Catholic Church has chosen the comfortable approach to its communications during this ongoing sex abuse scandal: to cloister itself. Systematically, it has closed down any venue or platform for discussion.

The days of papal apologies and expressions of contrition and shame have come and gone. The Church now lays blame on the reporters, not on the perpetrators and those who overlooked their transgressions.

For Catholics, what we need to acknowledge is that, without the interventions of the press, however flawed, we likely would not be up to speed on the problem -- its seriousness and its scale.

Repentance, demotions to desk duty, and other meaningless slaps on the wrists: these undeserved courtesies that the Church affords abusing priests are an outrageous insult to victims.

How do some of us stay in the Church? In grief, in sadness, with a resolve not to be shut out by those who say they are speaking in the name of the Father. The Church is not an institution; it is the people.

If you claim the authority of God, but don't do what God would do, then what do you turn into? You are like a dog asleep in a manger, not eating the food of life, and blocking others as you sleep.

The Pope now has an urgent responsibility -- and an extraordinary opportunity. He must not only move beyond apologies to action, but could also use his influence to urge all religious institutions to address sexuality in healthier, more open and responsible ways.

I'd like to propose a new Vatican Council, one that is needed for the Church but also for the world, as it would benefit greatly from an application of traditional Catholic values presented by a reinvigorated Church.

A cardinal seen as a future candidate for the papacy has broken a Vatican taboo by raising the possibility that priestly celibacy is among the causes ...