Word: rome
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has wreaked spiritual havoc on the faithful - and their leaders. Bishop Wilton Gregory hopes to help repair that damage. Thursday, as America's Catholic cardinals left Rome, relief hung thick in the air: at last, activity would replace passivity. The unspeakable had been spoken, and the Pope himself had called the abuse "a crime." Now, when the press asks questions about the heinous crimes of priests, at least the country's cardinals and bishops will be able to acknowledge the problem, and remind parishioners that a solution is being worked...
...president of the 190-member U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the 54-year-old Gregory will play a critical role in determining the course of action eventually taken against clergy found guilty of sexual abuse. And because Gregory has taken the lead in the extraordinary conference of cardinals in Rome of the past few days, he is our Person of the Week...
...Catholic Church does. And over the past few months, as news surfaced about the sexual abuse of children and teens by priests from Boston to Los Angeles and evidence of official cover-ups grew, American Catholics looked to the Vatican for some kind of sign. The silence out of Rome was deafening until last Monday, when the Pope finally issued a call. America's embattled Cardinals - all 13 of them - were summoned to an unprecedented meeting to be solely devoted to the spreading uproar...
...convocation, taking place today, means the Vatican has finally accepted that the American church's pedophilia problem is Rome's as well. "When there's a problem in the family, you call the members of the family together to discuss it," says a Vatican insider...
...That may be so, but many observers believe the dramatic summons, which followed a secret visit to Rome by Boston's Bernard Cardinal Law, who has been under pressure to resign because of his handling of abuse cases in his archdiocese, was the result of a reluctant acknowledgment that the problem was beginning to hurt the church in tangible ways. Some parishioners in the U.S. have threatened to withhold funds until the controversy is addressed. "The profound and potentially long-lasting alienation of the laity is a very significant factor," says Scott Appleby, director of the Cushwa Center...