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[Catholic Caucus] ‘We Live for Christ,’ Says Priest in Viral Photo Bringing Last Rites in Horrific Wreck Above, Father John Killackey walks down Interstate 81 southbound on July 8. HARRISBURG, Pa. — A lone young priest in a cassock walked in a downpour toward the scene of a horrific wreck of tractor-trailers and cars on a Pennsylvania interstate and gave the last rites to a truck driver, the lone fatality of the crash. Unbeknownst to him, a bystander photographed the moment, which captured the imagination of social media and went viral. The priest, Father John Killackey, was identified as a...

First of all, I would like to say that a "Christopher" is a "Bearer of Christ". Here is what Catherine De Heuck has to say about a "Catholic Priest". 1. A Priest is a Lover of God. 2. A Priest is a Lover of Souls. 3. A Priest is a Holy Man because he walks before the Face of the all Holy. 4. A Priest understands all things. 5. A Priest forgives all things. 6. A Priest encompasses all things. The Heart of a Priest like Christ's; is pierced with the lance of love. 7. The Heart of a Priest...

In an article which may be found here, Dr. William Oddie notes that, "Pope Francis has now once again (though to judge by the so far sparse coverage, you’d think he’d never said or done anything before) expressed his abhorrence of clerical sex abuse. Previous popes—indeed most senior clergy—are normally too reticent, however, to do what he has now done as well, that is to say, he has defended the Catholic Church’s record on tackling the sexual abuse of children by priests, by declaring what is now the simple truth: that “no one else has done more” than the Church...

The Catholic Church's leading exorcist priest asserts that a Vatican employee's daughter thought to be buried in a mob boss's tomb was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties, reports Nick Pisa of the Daily Mail. Father Gabriel Amorth, who was ordained in 1954 and has carried out more than 70,000 exorcisms, made the claim to Italian newspaper La Stampa as police examine the contents of mobster Enrico De Pedis's tomb for clues about the 1983 disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi. Father Amorth, 85, noted that an archivist at the Vatican previously admitted to recruiting girls for parties and told La Stampa...

Priests and church members in China’s immense underground Catholic Church were arrested this weekend in the community of Tianshui — as the Chinese government continues its persecution of Christians. Among those rounded up were the administrator of the underground diocese, Father John Baptist Wang Ruohan, retired Bishop Casmir Wang Milu, Father John Wang Ruowang, as well as several other priests and dozens of parish lay leaders, according to sources. Bishop Wang and the two Wang priests are all brothers. They are being held in different places and subjected to political indoctrination sessions designed to break their will. The Chinese government...

Their description of the perpetrators of abuse might strike some as hairsplitting. “Less than 5 percent of the priests with allegations of abuse exhibited behavior consistent with a diagnosis of pedophilia (a psychiatric disorder that is characterized by recurrent fantasies, urges, and behaviors about prepubescent children),” they note. “Thus, it is inaccurate to refer to abusers as ‘pedophile priests.’” But their explanation is not very comforting. “Most sexual abuse victims of priests (51 percent) were between the ages of eleven and fourteen

Police investigating claims of child abuse by Belgian clergy have told the BBC they are probing death threats against witnesses and magistrates. Last month police raided a meeting of Belgium's Catholic bishops as part of their investigation, seizing computers and documents. They even searched the tomb of at least one cardinal, prompting an angry response from the Vatican. The country is one of several where the Church has been shaken by abuse claims. The investigation into child abuse allegations in Belgium's Catholic Church has already prompted extraordinary scenes, says the BBC's Dominic Hughes in Brussels. But now the investigation has...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Recently, Time magazine featured a cover story critical of the past sexual abuses of children within the Catholic Church. The following open letter to the Editor of Time magazine appeals for consistency in their reporting on the sexual abuse of children and asks why the issue of Indiana University's research conducted by Alfred Kinsey has not been addressed. An Open Letter to Time Magazine June 2010 Regarding: Priest Sex Abuse Stories Dear Editor: Considering your recent stories on priest sex abuse and your "enthusiasm" for protecting minors, when can we expect a story about the pedophiles that Alfred...

Holy Week and the Priesthood March 27th, 2010 by Fr. Kyle Schnippel This week is a study of contradictions.  We begin the week we call ‘Holy’ by welcoming Christ triumphantly into Jerusalem.  Just a few short moments later, we proclaim the story of his Passion from one of the Synoptic Gospels.  Holy Thursday begins the final moments of Jesus’ earthly life, while also marking the beginning of our entrance, through Him, into Eternal Life.  Good Friday’s solemn veneration of the Cross and Holy Saturday’s Proclamation of the Exultet continue the contrast right up to the end, as we proclaim the...

Support Same Sex Marriage - - Or Else! Making a List - - Checking It Twice! thelastcrusade.org A longtime Washington, D.C., liberal Internet activist has founded a Web site that he says will collect accounts of homosexuals in the Catholic priesthood - - accounts that he will use to “encourage” them to change their views on homosexual marriage and other issues. “Outing” the priests--publicly revealing their homosexuality--is “not off the table,” Phil Attey, founder of the Web site ChurchOuting.com, told CNSNews.com. The site will also collect information on straight priests who have broken their vow of celibacy, using the...

FILE- Archbishop of Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl walks with United States Chief Justice John Roberts after the Red Mass at Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, in Washington, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009. (AP photo) (CNSNews.com) – A longtime Washington, D.C., liberal Internet activist has founded a Web site that he says will collect accounts of homosexuals in the Catholic priesthood--accounts he will use to “encourage” them to change their views on homosexual marriage and other issues. “Outing” the priests--publicly revealing their homosexuality--is “not off the table,” Phil Attey, founder of the Web site ChurchOuting.com, told CNSNews.com. The site will also collect information on straight...

Indonesia Update In a South Jakarta courtroom this week, a Singaporean terror suspect admitted that he was part of a plot to hijack an Aeroflot aircraft from Bangkok and crash it into Singapore’s Changi International Airport. Mohammad Hasan bin Sayanudin, alias Fajar Taslim, was testifying against two other terrorist suspects. All three are charged with killing a Christian high school teacher in South Sumatra province during 2007. They are also charged with plotting to kill two Catholic priests in 2005 and to carry out a bombing of a café in West Sumatra. According to Sayanudin, those who were part of...

Now Bishop Robinson intends to make the Catholic Church his new mission field for his crusade.In a report first confirmed by the Associated Press and confirmed in numerous Press and Media venues, Bishop Robinson has acknowledged that he led a “confidential retreat” of 75 Roman Catholic Priests in 2005 at which he encouraged their open dissent from the teaching of the Church and their overt disobedience to their vowed celibacy. His intention now seems to be to take his self styled libertine revolution into the Catholic Church.

This is an article about a man who did not want me to write it. A few weeks ago, I gave a commencement speech at a Catholic elementary school. I received the invitation from a 13-year-old young lady, Elisabeth, who began listening to my radio show at 6-and-a-half years of age, who has now finished the eighth grade and prepares, next semester, to enter high school. Years ago, her mom wrote a letter to me. The mom drove the car one day with her daughter inside. The daughter's book about Helen Keller somehow flew out of the car window as...

<p>WASHINGTON - House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., requested Sunday that the Justice Department conduct an investigation into former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record)'s electronic messages to teenage boys — a lurid scandal that has put House Republicans in political peril.</p>

Brothers in Christ The vocation to holiness expressed in the life and martyrdom of two Mexican brothers inspires their family today, including a grand knight in Guadalajara April 3 has become an unofficial feast day for Cristóbal Huerta Wilde. On that day, the grand knight of Fray Antonio Alcalde Council 3552 in Guadalajara, Central-South Mexico, remembers in a special way the heroic life and martyrdom of his grandfather, Ezequiel Huerta Gutiérrez. Ezequiel and his brother, Salvador, were executed by a government firing squad April 3, 1927, due to their involvement with the Cristeros, a group of rebels, including hundreds of...

BEIJING -- Seven priests of China's underground Roman Catholic Church have been detained for attending an unauthorized retreat following the election of the new pope, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Thursday. The priests were detained early Wednesday at the retreat led by Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo in China's northern city of Jinzhou, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement. China allows worship only in state-supervised churches that reject Vatican authority over their operations. Leaders of the underground church, which remains loyal to the pope and has several million followers, are routinely arrested and harassed. The government said it hoped...

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- If I am accurately perceiving the national controversy over pederasty in the American Roman Catholic Church, I have to conclude that the Boy Scouts of America are vindicated. The only logical conclusion deducible from the media's outrage over revelations of pederasty in the pulpit is that the Boy Scouts' ban against homosexual scout leaders is OK. The vast majority of irregularities reported in the present scandal have been between errant priests and post-pubescent boys. Apparently, the Boy Scouts' wisdom and prudence goes beyond tying knots and putting out forest fires. Maybe now the Boy Scouts will again...

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...

The Diocese Report has obtained a copy of a letter from a Vatican undersecretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of apostolic Life, regarding the ordination of a Dominican seminarian, Mr. Patrick Baikauskas in Illinois. A letter was sent by a supporter of Roman Catholic Faithful (a lay group headed by Stephen Brady) to this and several congregations concerning the order of The Domminican Province of St. Albert the Great and especially their admittance of Mr. Baikauskas to the seminary. Letters were also sent to several prelates in the state of Illinois. The cause for the...