Word: rome
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...last week to America's bishops; "how great must be that evil." After years in which the Vatican downplayed the sex scandals that have plagued the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S., John Paul II publicly acknowledged the enormity of the problem. Indeed, the bishops, who have long petitioned Rome for special disciplinary powers to deal with the crisis, are deeply aware of its dimensions. In June the hierarchy had to elect a new national secretary to replace New Mexico's Robert Sanchez, the Archbishop of Santa Fe, who resigned from the post and his see amid revelations that...
...scandals -- ranging from clandestine liaisons with adult parishioners to clerical pedophilia -- have focused fresh attention on the life of the Catholic priest and turned him into a suspect figure in many eyes. Says Monsignor Edwin O'Brien, rector of the North American Pontifical College in Rome: "A priest would have to be out of his mind now to touch a kid, even if it's just to pat him on the head or tap him on the shoulder." The scandals are forcing the American clergy -- and, ever so reluctantly, the Vatican -- to examine the nature and tradition of the priesthood...
Among young American seminarians in Rome, a sense of siege has set in. "Our eroticized society degrades us, and somehow that eroticism invades our lives no matter how we fight it," says Enrique Lopez, 28, a New Mexico native who knew Archbishop Sanchez and who is training to be a diocesan priest. "If Sanchez had been embezzling money or something like that, it would have been a scandal. But because he was involved in a sex scandal, it touched his dignity. I don't think that's fair." Says Lopez's fellow seminarian John Riccardo, 28, of Detroit...
While the Vatican clearly recognizes the damage done by the sex scandals, it believes the problem is a limited, if not distinctly American, one. One bishop who recently visited Rome noted that "the United States is a very sexual society." And one with a special talent for the propagation of scandal. In his letter John Paul bluntly criticized the U.S. media, charging them with making matters worse by their treatment of the problem. "Evil can indeed be sensational, but the sensationalism surrounding it is always dangerous for morality." The licentiousness of the secular world is another scapegoat. Last week Joaquin...
London: William Mader Paris: Thomas A. Sancton, Margot Hornblower Brussels: Jay Branegan Bonn: James O. Jackson Central Europe: James L. Graff Moscow: John Kohan, James Carney, Ann M. Simmons Rome: John Moody Istanbul: James Wilde Jerusalem: Lisa Beyer Cairo: Dean Fischer, William Dowell Beirut: Lara Marlowe Nairobi: Andrew Purvis Johannesburg: Scott MacLeod New Delhi: Jefferson Penberthy Beijing: Jaime A. FlorCruz Southeast Asia: Richard Hornik Tokyo: Edward W. Desmond, Kumiko Makihara Ottawa: Gavin Scott Latin America: Laura Lopez...