Word: priesting
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...American visit, however, poses an unprecedented pastoral challenge for the 80-year-old pontiff. Benedict's is the first papal trip to the United States since the priest sex abuse crisis erupted in 2001. It is a controversy that has left much of the American laity bitterly disillusioned with their Church's leadership. For many of the 67 million American Catholics, how the Pope confronts the lingering fallout from the pedophilia scandal may largely determine the success of this visit...
...have also looted numerous retail stores. Patrick Gardere, whose showroom was ransacked Monday, fears that store owners may then take things into their own hands. "It's been quiet now," he said, "but if business owners have to protect themselves, that's how civil war starts." One Roman Catholic priest in Port-au-Prince, who called Haiti's situation a "near-famine," told the Associated Press this week, "Some can't take the hunger anymore." If "some" turns into many or most, as seems likely, the world may once again have to watch the hemisphere's poorest nation be reduced...
Although the Catholic priest shortage continues in the U.S., the priest-abuse scandals have not sparked a massive parishioner exodus. (Benedict is expected to address the topic on this trip, but there have been no leaks as to how.) Perhaps out of relief that he has been writing encyclicals about love and charity rather than heresy, U.S. Catholics seem to be treating him a lot like former Pontiffs: handing him a 70% approval rating while continuing to ignore church teaching on birth control and abortion...
...Preachers called out numerous institutions - not just TV networks. African-American rappers that glamorize violence and sexist barbs in the name of "keeping it real" were the subject of vitriolic tirades, too. "Why, they're no better than prosperity-pimping preachers!" shouted Father Michael Pfleger, a popular white Catholic priest, whose messages have raised eyebrows among his own Church's leaders...
...response to controversy isn't to walk out of the room but to try to understand what's fueling the fire. He also drew a distinction between political advice and spiritual guidance, arguing that many Americans know what it's like to disagree with something their pastor or priest or rabbi says...