Free Republic

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today: February 24, 2004 at 3:45:30 PST Vatican Reinstates Accused Navy Chaplain ASSOCIATED PRESS DETROIT (AP) - The Vatican has reinstated a U.S. Navy chaplain as an active priest after he was placed on administrative leave amid sex abuse allegations, Detroit Roman Catholic leaders said. The Rev. Brian Bjorklund, 64, was suspended last summer over allegations he molested a 17-year-old boy in his early years in the ministry. He was ordained in 1966. Vatican leaders say the alleged contact was not a violation of church law at the time, though it is now. News of Bjorklund's reinstatement comes four...

Catholic no comment on Anglican gay bishop consecration The consecration of openly gay Episcopalian Rev Gene Robinson in the US early yesterday Australian time has provoked widespread condemnation from from Anglican Communion churches, but so far no comment from within the Catholic Church in Australia or overseas. Pressed by the local newspaper, Ballarat Catholic Bishop Peter Connors said it was an issue for the Anglican Church and declined to make any further comment. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that 44 Episcopal bishops laid their hands on his head and proclaimed him a successor to Jesus's apostles during an elaborate three-hour...

Mel Gibson hits back at 'vicious' critics of Christ film By Marcus Warren in New York (Filed: 09/09/2003) Mel Gibson turned on critics of his film The Passion, about Jesus Christ, over claims that it is anti-Semitic but his language has ignited a new controversy. The Australian-born actor and director said he was the target of "vehement anti-Christian sentiment" but admitted that the row over his £16 million self-financed film was good publicity. In one of a series of inflammatory remarks quoted in this week's The New Yorker, Gibson accuses "modern secular Judaism" of trying "to blame the Holocaust on...

News -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted on Sat, Aug. 30, 2003 Vatican promoted priest despite warnings of sex abuse, records show BY REESE DUNKLIN The Dallas Morning News DALLAS - (KRT) - The Vatican promoted a U.S. priest through its international diplomatic corps despite high-level warnings in the 1990s that he had sexually abused a girl, according to interviews and records. The case is believed to be the first in which the Vatican has been found harboring an abuser in its ranks. In a message to American Catholic leaders during last year's abuse crisis, Pope John Paul II said: "There is no place...

Statement regarding the Tridentine Mass and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter June 24, 2003 In response to various comments and inquiries, following is an explanation of why the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter was prohibited from celebrating a Tridentine Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine. Earlier this year, the Basilica of the National Shrine had granted permission for a Eucharistic liturgy to be celebrated June 22 by a group on pilgrimage from Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary. No mention was made of a Tridentine Mass in the original requests to the liturgy office or pilgrimage office, nor...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Wanderer Home PageIssue Date August 28, 2003 The Milwaukee Petition . . . Do The Faithful Realize The Problems With Optional Celibacy? By FR. JOSEPH F. WILSON From Milwaukee comes word that over 160 priests have signed a petition requesting that the Church consider allowing optional celibacy in the Roman Rite, and requesting that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) take this subject up for deliberation. I wish heartily to second their proposal, to this extent: We should all definitely stop and think about this petition, and the fact that it has been put forward...

Search Asia Times Advanced Search Front Page SPENGLER Catholicism - isn't that a gay thing? In 1506, the Venetian prostitutes' guild lodged a complaint with the Signoria that homosexuality had become so prevalent as to threaten its livelihood. Civilizations in decline typically take on the characteristics of Bonobo monkeys, Nero's Rome being the most lurid example. No precedent exists to my knowledge, though, for the priesthood to become the homosexual vanguard. American Catholic priests are five or 10 times as likely to be homosexual as ordinary American men. In 1990, an American Franciscan priest mailed a survey to 500 priests...

NEWS: August 19, 2003 Bird’s Eye View of the News Atila Sinke Guimarães RATZINGER, A TOOTHLESS LION - For the last 20 years Sr. Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Fr. Robert Nugent, SDS, have been two leading American religious stars in the Catholic “ministry” with gays and lesbians. Their innovative progressivist positions on the topic have generated a lot of publicity, so I don’t need to remind my reader who they are. On July 13, 1999 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued to both Sr. Gramick and Fr. Nugent a formal condemnation along with a permanent prohibition to...

Is the Pope Square? August 5, 2003 Speaking as a Catholic, I wish the Vatican would say nothing about same-sex “marriage.” It’s beneath its dignity to enter into debate with a sick joke, and when it does so it only allows progressive-minded fools to change the subject. Such fools, some of them nominal Catholics, argue that the Church is a bunch of hypocritical old men nervously obsessed with sex and Jesus told us to be nice to each other and refusing to let homosexuals marry isn’t very nice because they don’t bother anyone and anyway what about all those pedophile...

Home > News & Society News More Religion News Click here to go back to the News & Society page. Today's Top Picks Gibson Says He Has 'Softened' Crucifixion Story in New Jesus Movie Rabbis who have screened 'The Passion' say it threatens to undo decades of progress between Christians and Jews By Kevin Eckstrom Religion News Service Director Mel Gibson, under heavy fire from Jewish groups for his $25 million movie on the death of Jesus, has "softened the story" and made changes to make "The Passion" more palatable to critics, according to a spokesman. Scheduled for release next...

AUGUST 15, 2003 | current issue | back issues | subscribe | Dr. Laura Loses Her Religion Radio Host Drops Judaism, 'Envies' Christian Friends By LISA KEYS FORWARD STAFF With 12 million Americans tuning in daily, controversial syndicated radio-show host Laura Schlessinger — known to all as "Dr. Laura" — is arguably the best-known Orthodox Jew in the United States. Rather, she was. In a shocking if little-noticed revelation, Schlessinger — who very publicly converted to Judaism five years ago — opened "The Dr. Laura Schlessinger Program" on August 5 with the confession that she will no longer practice Judaism....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, Virginia, there is a religious war -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: August 11, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. He may be beloved of progressives everywhere, but the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, now bishop-elect of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire, is a flaming fraud. Insensitive, you say? Consider his conduct. Fifteen years ago, Robinson dissolved his marriage, dumped his wife, abandoned his two little girls and went off to shack up. He thus violated his marriage vows, flouted the teachings of the Anglican faith he was ordained to uphold and entered into a sinful liaison his...