sundance

A Catholic Church sex scandal round-up

During the Pope’s visit to Malta this past weekend, he visited with abuse victims, paying a lot of lip service to “healing” and “investigations.” Yeah right! He also commended Malta for keeping divorce and abortion illegal. What century is this!? So here’s a roundup of some recent abuse scandal pieces to keep you riled up:

• Last week we mentioned Dr. Lothstein, a psychologist who’s treated more than 300 priests who was interviewed for a New York Times article; more recently he was interviewed by NPR, with more revelations about pedophile priests being reinstated.
  
  
• This 2003 This American Life story, recently re-aired, profiles a priest who was a “fixer”, sent in by the Catholic Church to places rocked by sex scandals, in order to restore order via deception — he eventually flipped and worked for lawyers prosecuting abuse cases! (It’s Act 1, so you won’t have to weed through the entire episode.)

Pope Benedict calls for sustainable business, development models

Pope Benedict XVI added to his growing reputation as the “green Pope” yesterday (July 7) with the release of a new encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth). A call for sustainable development in the broadest sense, the Pope’s letter addressed the human and environmental costs of “business as usual,” and established “doing well by doing good” as the business philosophy most consistent with Church doctrine and Biblical teaching.