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For years, perhaps even centuries, it has been an open secret in Rome: Some prelates in the Vatican hierarchy are, in fact, gay. But the whispers were amplified this week when Pope Francis himself, in a private audience, appeared to have acknowledged what he called a “gay lobby” operating inside the Vatican, vying for power and influence. Speaking to a meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious Men and Women on June 6, Francis discussed a dossier he had received from his predecessor, Benedict XVI. “The ‘gay lobby’ is mentioned, and it is true, it is there....

He tells the Sydney Morning Herald, "I'm just glad that it's all coming to light so we can clean up the church so these things aren't happening any more. These are horrible things. Paedophiles or what have you hiding behind the cloth needs to be dealt with and addressed. But my faith will never waver because of people who are weak in the flesh." Wahlberg adds of his religious lifestyle, "Being a Catholic and also being a husband and a parent definitely makes me think a little bit longer and harder about the (movie) choices I make, but being an...

HURLINGHAM, Argentina — Father Julio Cesar Grassi was a celebrity in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires. The young, dynamic, media-savvy priest networked with wealthy Argentines to fund an array of schools, orphanages and job training programs for poor and abandoned youths, winning praise from Argentine politicians and his superior, Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Grassi called his foundation Felices los Niños, "Happy Children." Today, Grassi is a convicted sex offender who remains free on a conditional release after being sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2009 for molesting a prepubescent boy in his care. Yet in the years after Grassi's...

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien dramatically broke his silence last night to admit sexual misconduct during his career with the Roman Catholic Church. The former archbishop and leader of the Church in Scotland said there had been times when his behaviour had “fallen below the standards expected” of a priest, archbishop and cardinal. His admission came a week to the day after allegations by three serving priests and one retired priest that Cardinal O’Brien had behaved inappropriately towards them during the 1980s were first made public. In a brief but frank statement, the former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh apologised and...

"Homosexuality is incompatible with the priestly vocation. Otherwise, celibacy itself would lose its meaning as a renunciation. It would be extremely dangerous if celibacy became a sort of pretext for bringing people into the priesthood who don't want to get married anyway," the pope said. The pope cited a 2005 Vatican document that drew a sharp line against priestly ordination of homosexuals. He said the document emphasized that homosexual candidates cannot become priests because their sexual orientation interferes with "the proper sense of paternity" that belongs to the priesthood. The pope said it was important to select priestly candidates very...

Cardinal Peter Turkson made the comments to an American journalist He said similar sex scandals would not happen in African churches Cardinal Turkson is second favourite to take over as PopeThe African cardinal widely tipped to be the first black pope in modern history faced a firestorm of criticism last night after he laid the blame for clerical sex abuse crises at the feet of gay priests. Cardinal Peter Turkson, who comes from Ghana, told an American journalist that similar sex scandals would never convulse churches in Africa because the culture was inimical to homosexuality. ‘African traditional systems kind of...

An internationally prominent Catholic priest has dropped out of sight in the Philippines, years after admitting to me that he had sex with altar boys in the U.S. and supplied them with drugs. Monsignor Cristobal Garcia’s sudden low profile coincides with a new National Geographic article on the ivory trade. It calls Garcia “one of the best known ivory collectors in the Philippines” and quotes him as giving advice on how to smuggle ivory into the U.S., in defiance of a 1989 global trade ban. The magazine refers to my 2005 investigative piece on the priest, who had fled the...

'Up to 11 boys were castrated while in the care of the Dutch Roman Catholic church in the 1950s to rid them of homosexuality, a newspaper investigation has said. A young man was castrated in 1956 after telling police he was being abused by priests, the newspaper reported. The justice minister is investigating the role of the government at the time. Last year, an inquiry found thousands of children had been sexually abused in Dutch Catholic institutions since 1945. Dutch MPs called for an inquiry after the report was published in the NRC Handelsblad newspaper at the weekend.'

With all due respect, Pope Benedict XVI either lives in an alternate reality or needs better PR handlers. His comments over the weekend to U.S. bishops about the sex abuse of children showed a continued disconnect with the church’s mishandling of this ongoing scandal. The pope referenced the church’s “conscientious effort” to confront sex abuse by priests. Uh? Perhaps the pope meant to say conscientious cover-up. No institution has done more to deny and downplay the sexual abuse of young boys than the Catholic Church. No institution has done more to discredit victims and protect pedophile priests than the Catholic...

Victims of clerical sexual abuse will find it easier to bring compensation claims against the Catholic church after a judge ruled it can be held responsible for the wrongdoings of its priests. [SNIP] The judge said although there had been no formal contract between the church and the priest, the late Father Baldwin, there were "crucial features" that should be recognised. He said: "He [Baldwin] was provided with the premises, the pulpit and the clerical robes. He was directed into the community with that full authority and was given free rein to act as a representative of the church. He...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City's Catholic bishop has become the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children after he and his diocese waited five months to tell police about hundreds of images of child pornography discovered on a priest's computer, officials said Friday. Bishop Robert Finn, the first U.S. bishop criminally charged with sheltering an abusive clergyman, and the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese have pleaded not guilty on one count each of failing to report suspected child abuse. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Finn and the diocese were required...

A Roman Catholic archbishop who resigned in 2002 over a sex and financial scandal involving a man has written a memoir that describes how he struggled with being gay. Archbishop Rembert Weakland, former head of the Milwaukee archdiocese, "is up front about his homosexuality in a church that preferred to ignore gays," Publisher's Weekly wrote in a review Monday. The book, "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop," is set to be released in June and is described by the publisher as a self-examination by Weakland of his "psychological, spiritual and sexual growth." The Vatican says...

Gay, Catholic and fed up with his church's efforts to quash the same-sex marriage movement, Phil Attey has come up with a controversial strategy: outing gay priests who speak out against homosexuality. (snip) He said he will out only gay priests and bishops who speak out against homosexuality. In the case of priests not publicly opposed to gay marriage but still in the closet, he said his goal is not to threaten them but to encourage them to "come out for the next generation and stand up against the anti-gay stance of the church." Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry,...

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...

NEW YORK (AP) — A Roman Catholic archbishop who resigned in 2002 over a sex and financial scandal involving a man has written a memoir that describes how he struggled with being gay. Archbishop Rembert Weakland, former head of the Milwaukee archdiocese, "is up front about his homosexuality in a church that preferred to ignore gays," Publisher's Weekly wrote in a review Monday. The book, "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop," is set to be released in June and is described by the publisher as a self-examination by Weakland of his "psychological, spiritual and sexual...

(From 2002-but even more relevant today) The sex-abuse scandal currently plaguing the Catholic priesthood has already grown to the point where it poses a serious threat to the power, prestige, and credibility of the American Catholic Church. The sky, so to speak, is falling. An institution whose fundamental strength and continuity (whatever its many problems) could once be taken for granted is experiencing a genuine crisis. Yet, over and above its significance for the Catholic Church, the greatest lesson of this scandal has yet to be drawn. The uproar over priestly sex abuse — especially the calls to do away...

THE Melbourne Catholic Church has embraced a Vatican recommendation to test potential priests for sexual orientation. Under the guidelines, potential priests who "appear" to be gay must be banned. The head of the Vatican committee that made the recommendations has made it clear celibate gays should also be banned because homosexuality is ‘‘a type of deviation’’. Archdiocese of Melbourne spokesman James O’Farrell confirmed Carlton’s Corpus Christi Catholic seminary had started adhering to the guidelines, but refused to comment further.

A federal appeals court says the Vatican can be sued for abuse committed by its priests. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests can sue the Vatican even though it is considered a sovereign nation. The appeals court said there are exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and abuse can be one of them. The Oregon case has been working its way through the federal appeals court since a judge in Portland ruled in 2006 that the Holy See can be held responsible for the actions of individual...

The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles is pursuing the theory that the prelate deprived parishioners of 'the right of honest services' by failing to protect their children from predatory clerics. By Scott Glover and Jack Leonard 4:44 PM PST, January 28, 2009 The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles has launched a federal grand jury investigation into Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in connection with his response to the alleged molestation of children by priests in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the case. The probe, in which U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien is personally involved,...

The sexual-abuse litigation that has raged for years against the Catholic church just got a lot more interesting. In a landmark ruling yesterday, the Sixth Circuit concluded that the Vatican could be held liable for negligence in sexual-abuse cases filed in the U.S. It is the first time a circuit court reached that conclusion, and the opinion is considered a breakthrough by those allegedly abused by priests. Here’s the WSJ story. Catholic dioceses in the U.S. have paid out more than $3 billion to alleged abuse victims, most of that coming since the scandal broke open nationwide in 2002. Click...