Tag: Vatican

• Friday, April 12th 2019 - 07:50 UTC

  Ex Pope Benedict blames clerical abuse on the “all out sexual freedom” of the sixties

  

  Retired Pope Benedict XVI has published a letter which blames clerical sex abuse on the “all-out sexual freedom” of the 1960s. He said that cultural and historical change had led to a “dissolution” of morality in Catholicism.

• Friday, March 29th 2019 - 08:52 UTC

  Pope rejecting hand kissing from worshippers: a “simple question of hygiene”

  

  Pope Francis has addressed the mystery of why he withdrew his hand from worshippers' kisses, explaining it was a “simple question of hygiene”. Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said the Pope was worried about germs when meeting Catholics last Wednesday.

• Wednesday, March 27th 2019 - 08:08 UTC

  Conservative Catholics blast the Pope because he dislikes people kneeling and ring kissing

  

  To kiss the ring on the pope’s hand or not to - that is the question. On Monday, when Pope Francis visited a Catholic shrine in Loreto, he repeatedly withdrew his right hand as a long line of people bowed and tried to kiss the ring on it.

• Tuesday, March 26th 2019 - 09:15 UTC

  Lopez Obrador urges Spain and the Vatican to apologize for abuses during the conquest; Madrid strongly rejects

  

  The Mexican president has sent a letter to Spain's King Felipe VI and Pope Francis urging them to apologize for human rights abuses committed during the conquest of the region. Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the indigenous peoples of Mexico had been the victims of massacres.

• Wednesday, March 13th 2019 - 09:40 UTC

  Ex Vatican treasurer sentenced to six years in jail for sexually abusing choir boys

  

  Former Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell was sentenced to 6 years in jail on Wednesday by an Australian court for sexually abusing two choir boys in Melbourne in the 1990s. Pell, a former top adviser to Pope Francis, is the most senior Catholic worldwide to be convicted for child sex offences.

• Tuesday, March 5th 2019 - 09:32 UTC

  Pope Francis will open Vatican archives on Pius XII and the Holocaust

  

  Pope Francis has said the Roman Catholic Church will open up its archives on Pius XII, who was Pope during World War Two. Pius, who was Pope from 1939 to 1958, has been accused of tolerating the rise of Nazi Germany and of not doing enough to protect Jews during the Holocaust. The Vatican says he worked behind the scenes to try to protect Jews.

• Tuesday, February 26th 2019 - 09:55 UTC

  Another blow for the Catholic Church: Cardinal Pell found guilty of sexually assaulting choirboys

  

  Australian Cardinal George Pell who helped elect popes and ran the Vatican's finances, has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two choirboys, becoming the most senior Catholic cleric ever convicted of child sex crimes.

• Monday, February 25th 2019 - 09:05 UTC

  Pope ends sexual abuse conference calling for an “all out battle” but victims remain deeply disappointed

  

  Pope Francis has ended his conference on the sexual abuse of children by clergy by calling for an “all-out battle” against a crime that should be “erased from the face of the earth”. But victims and their advocates expressed deep disappointment, saying Francis had merely repeated old promises and offered few new concrete proposals.

• Friday, February 22nd 2019 - 09:31 UTC

  “Hear the cry of the little ones who plead for justice,” Pope Francis tells Vatican summit fighting sex abuse

  

  Pope Francis on Thursday opened a landmark Vatican summit on fighting child sex abuse, calling for “concrete measures” and handing top Catholic bishops a roadmap to tackling paedophilia in the church.

• Thursday, February 21st 2019 - 09:31 UTC

  Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy demand to meet Pope Francis

  

  Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy demanded on Wednesday to meet Pope Francis to press their call for the Church to apply a zero-tolerance policy including the dismissal of bishops who covered up such offences.