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As Pope John Paul II celebrates the 25th anniversary of his election today, U.S. Roman Catholics overwhelmingly approve of the job he has done, even though most fault his handling of sexual abuse by priests, feel the church is out of touch with their views and hope the next pope will bring change, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Half of all American Catholics think the 83-year-old pontiff should resign for health reasons, the poll found. Though visibly frail and suffering from Parkinson's disease, John Paul has scheduled a week of activities in Rome to mark his anniversary, including...

The priests in Wisconsin who recently voted for a married priesthood to respond to the shortage of priests won for themselves what our Protestant brothers and sisters would call cheap grace. They did something that addressed a serious problem, which made them feel good, and earned for them a lot of public attention. Hence they earned ''grace.'' However, it accomplished nothing, and required no effort. Hence it was ''cheap grace'' -- grace that was easy to earn but had no impact on anything or anybody. I wonder how many of the priests really thought that the Roman Curia, which is...

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now, a Catholic writer and his new book on what he calls the crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church, a crisis that goes well beyond the sex abuse scandal. The book is A PEOPLE ADRIFT, and the author is Peter Steinfels, a lifelong Catholic who says the church he loves, the largest church in the U.S., the church of one American in four, is "on the verge of either an irreversible decline or a thoroughgoing transformation." We spent a recent Sunday with Steinfels and his wife, Margaret, beginning with their walk to mass at New York's Church...

<p>THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL of 1962 -- 65 transformed Roman Catholicism. The church redefined itself as "the People of God" and began allowing priests to speak the Mass in their own languages. With such reforms, it eroded traditional walls between the hierarchy and the laity, with results that have been debated to this day.</p>

ALWAYS OUR BISHOPS An RCF Pastoral PREFACE The purpose of this pastoral message is to reach to parishioners who are trying to cope with discovery of incompetence, heresy or downright buffoonery on the part of their diocesan bishop. It urges parishioners to draw upon the reservoirs of faith, hope and love as they face uncharted futures and the humiliation of Clown Masses. It asks them to recognize that the Church offers enormous spiritual resources to strengthen and support them at this moment in their family's life and in the days to come. This message draws upon the Catechism of the...

Former Catholic Church watchdog says clergyman used smear tactics October 1, 2003 BY RACHEL ZOLL Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who resigned this year as head of a watchdog panel on clergy abuse, has told a conservative Roman Catholic magazine that a clergyman tried to undermine him by circulating a letter that accused him of keeping a mistress. Keating said the letter -- which eventually made its way to top American church leaders -- also claimed he never attended mass. ''I was stunned and outraged,'' Keating said in an article he wrote for the October issue of the magazine Crisis....

It's been nearly two years since the sexual abuse scandal in the American Catholic Church first began, and one month since Father John Geoghan - the man whose conviction started it all - was murdered by a fellow inmate at a Massachusetts prison. By this point, calls for reform and accountability within the Church hierarchy have become commonplace. But until now, these calls have been coming primarily from the laity. That's changing, as VOA's Maura Farrelly reports. They call themselves "Voice of the Ordained." They're a small but vocal group of 150 priests and 52 former priests from three dioceses...

THE Vatican is about to publish a series of interdictions banning altar girls and forbidding joint services with Protestants, the Catholic monthly Jesus said today. The magazine said the Vatican would issue 37 specific measures this year or early in 2004. They were foreshadowed in Pope John Paul II's encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia on the Catholic Mass published April 17. In a measure that is certain to arouse a polemic in the ecumenical movement, the magazine said Roman Catholic priests would no longer be allowed to celebrate the Mass with ministers of other Christian denominations, unless this is authorised...

Body to be independent of Catholic hierarchy A gathering of about 80 priests from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee voted Thursday to form an alliance that could be both a support network and an independent voice as they strive to meet the needs of the faithful amid a priest shortage and a changing church. Details of the alliance's structure, purpose, and activities remained to be worked out, but its formation would place Milwaukee among a handful of dioceses around the nation that have such formal organizations. The organizers will meet Tuesday to begin that process. "There was an overwhelming yes and...

THOU ART A WIMP FOREVER: I went to the meeting with the bishops that Deal Hudson and Russell Shaw arranged. I did not expect much, and I was not disappointed. The bishops were told 1. that they had to be more direct in dealing with dissenting Catholics, and 2. that they should at the least stop appointing notorious pro-abortion politicians to prominent committees (Leon Panetta at the national Review Board). The response to 1 : we are family, doing anything might make matters worse and only help pro-abortion politicians The response to 2 : if his bishop vouches for the...

One of the worst consequences of the homosexual and child sexual abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church is the affect it has had on all priests and brothers serving the Catholic Church. After Mass last year, an Augustinian priest at our local parish told me, with eyes welling and voice choked with anxiety, “it’s beyond terrible, Karl - they think we’re all gay.” It’s hard to turn on the TV or read the paper and get a different message from the secular media. Since the scandals in Boston broke early last year, the American public has been assaulted with hideous...

<p>The leaders of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops this week met secretly with a group of prominent Catholic business executives, academics, and journalists to discuss the future of the church in light of the clergy sexual abuse crisis.</p> <p>The daylong meeting, which took place Monday at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, represented an unusually high-level effort to bring together the leaders of the US church with some of its leading thinkers and the most prominent of the faithful. On the agenda, according to participants, were no-holds-barred discussions of the role of laypeople in the church, accountability, communications, management, and finances within the church.</p>

June 21, 2003 Bishops' Session Assesses the State of the U.S. Church By LAURIE GOODSTEIN T. LOUIS, June 20 — In a closed-door meeting they described as "a day of prayerful reflection," the nation's Roman Catholic bishops began a re-examination of the sexual abuse crisis by asking themselves how the American church had strayed so far from its ideals. To focus the discussion, bishops said they had polled themselves in the last few months, and fixed on these problems as their priorities: the low attendance of Catholics at Mass and confession; the corrosive effects of American culture on faith; and...

Conservative Bishops, Liberal Results by James Hitchcock A young man applies to study for the priesthood and is interviewed by a committee whose chairman, a high-ranking diocesan official, asks him his "feelings" about the ordination of women. The candidate replies that the matter has been settled by the Holy Father. The chairman replies, "We're not asking what the Pope thinks. We want to know how you feel about it". The young man states simply that he accepts the Church's teaching on the matter. He is subsequently informed that the committee has found him unsuitable for the priesthood. An indirect appeal...

CARDINAL MAIDA'S LETTER Reverend Robert Ruedisueli, Pastor St. Mark Parish 4257 Bart Avenue Warren, MI 48091-1977 Dear Father Ruedisueli Recently it has come to my attention that your parish will be hosting Dr. Anthony Padovano for a full day lecture series entitled: "Finding Optimism and Hope for the Future Church" on May 14th, from 9:30am. until 3:00 pm. Although Ms. JoAnn Loria is listed on the promotional literature as the person responsible for information, I presume that you, as Pastor, have given consent for the lecture series. As chief Teacher and Pastor of the Archdiocese, I must ask that you...

<p>Boston-area Catholics, increasingly alienated by the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the church, say the characteristic they would most like to see in a new archbishop is openness to change, according to a new Boston Globe poll.</p> <p>Overwhelming majorities of Catholics living in the Archdiocese of Boston still have favorable opinions of their own parish priests and of Pope John Paul II, and 41 percent say their faith is very important to their everyday lives.</p>

THE NUNC DIMITTIS OF JOHN PAUL II Ralph McInerny The final prayer of the final hour of the Divine Office that Pope John Paul II has said throughout his priestly life is the Nunc dimittis. Lord, now you can let your servant go in peace, your word has been fulfilled; my own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel. The words are spoken by Simeon in Luke 2:29-32, and if in English they lose something of the...

Vatican symposium hears homosexuality A ‘risk factor’ in, but not cause of sex abuse National Catholic Reporter By JOHN L. ALLEN JR. Rome Experts on sexual disorders told a private Vatican symposium this week, attended by officials charged with handling the abuse crisis that has rocked the Catholic Church, that homosexuality is a risk factor but not a cause of the sexual abuse of minors. One Vatican official who attended parts of the four-day symposium on pedophilia told NCR that this message came through “loud and clear” and predicted that it might help delay, or even derail, a much-anticipated document...

U.S. Catholic-Episcopal talks propose that bishops join each others' meetings WASHINGTON (AP) _ A panel of U.S. Roman Catholic and Episcopal Church delegates proposed Tuesday that bishops from the two denominations attend each others' official meetings to foster Christian unity. The idea is part of the Americans' response to a 1999 report on church authority produced in international talks between the Vatican and the Anglican Communion (in which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch). The American paper says Episcopal and Anglican bishops should accompany Roman Catholic colleagues when they make their periodic reports to the pope and attend Vatican...

A committee appointed by the Roman Catholic bishops in the United States has selected researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City of New York to undertake the most extensive study ever of the extent of child sexual abuse in the church and how much it has cost the church financially. For nearly two decades, Catholic bishops resisted proposals from researchers, and from within their own ranks, to conduct a full accounting of the problem. But at the height of the scandal last June at their meeting in Dallas, the bishops called for such an assessment...