Religion

The Sacramento Bee reports: The author of a California bill to declare gay conversion therapy a fraudulent business practice has abandoned his effort for this year after a fierce outcry from the state’s religious community. Assembly Bill 2943 would have made it illegal to sell any service intended to change an individual’s sexuality or gender identity. The measure had already …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Thursday to force the city of Philadelphia to resume the placement of children in need of foster care with a Catholic agency that refuses to accept gay couples as foster parents. In a decision that Catholic Social Services had said would force its foster care program to close, the justices refused the …

The Guardian reports: The Vatican has rolled back on a recommendation by Pope Francis that parents seek psychiatric help for children who show homosexual tendencies. The pope made the comments to journalists as he was flying back to Rome from Ireland, but the Vatican later removed his phrase from its official account, saying he had not meant to suggest that …

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: Investigators “have evidence that the Vatican had knowledge of the cover-up,” involving priests accused of sexually abusing thousands of Pennsylvania children over decades, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Tuesday morning on NBC’s Today show. “I can’t speak specifically to Pope Francis, but I think the broader issues here with the Vatican knowing about this, with …

Agence France-Presse reports: Pope Francis has recommended parents seek psychiatric help for children who show homosexual tendencies, during a press conference on his plane taking him back to Rome from Ireland. A journalist asked the pontiff on Sunday what he would say to parents who observe homosexual traits in their children. “I would say first of all pray, not to …

Agence France-Presse reports: Pope Francis has declined to comment on a claim he personally ignored sexual abuse allegations against a senior clergyman, after a visit to Ireland dominated by Church scandals. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican envoy to the United States, said he had told Francis of the allegations against prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2013. But …

The Washington Post reports: A former Vatican ambassador to the United States has alleged in an 11-page letter that Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis — among other top Catholic Church officials — had been aware of sexual misconduct allegations against a top American cardinal years before that prelate resigned this summer. The letter from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano [photo], …

The BBC reports: Pope Francis has said he is ashamed of the Catholic Church’s failure to adequately address the “repellent crimes” of sex abuse by clergy. The Pope was addressing political leaders and diplomats at Dublin Castle during the first papal visit to the Republic of Ireland for 40 years. He is expected to meet victims of clerical sex abuse …

USA Today reports: A surge in calls to a clergy abuse hotline in Pennsylvania is breathing new life into a vast investigation of “predator priests” and Roman Catholic Church leaders accused of protecting them. The hotline has drawn more than 300 calls since the release of a withering grand jury report last week claiming church leaders protected hundreds of accused …

NBC News reports: Pope Francis on Monday issued a letter to Catholics around the world condemning sexual abuse and cover-up, and demanding accountability in response to new revelations in the United States of decades of misconduct by the Catholic Church. Francis begged forgiveness for the pain suffered by victims and said lay Catholics must be involved in any effort to …

The Associated Press reports: A Pennsylvania bishop named in a grand jury report on rampant sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy said Friday he has “profound remorse” and offers his “heartfelt apology” to the victims. Speaking at a Mass of Forgiveness, Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer opened by reading the first paragraph of this week’s stunning report that said more than …

The Salt Lake Tribune reports: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints really, truly, absolutely wants to be known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Not the LDS Church. Not the Mormon church. It made that clear Thursday — even though the last attempt to eradicate those nicknames for the Utah-based faith flopped. The new push …

CNN reports: The Vatican broke its silence on Thursday about a Pennsylvania grand jury report that detailed decades of sexual abuses by priests and cover-ups by bishops, calling the accusations “criminal and morally reprehensible.” “Regarding the report made public in Pennsylvania this week, there are two words that can express the feelings faced with these horrible crimes: shame and sorrow,” …

CNN reports: The Vatican has declined to respond to an explosive grand jury report detailing decades of sexual abuse and cover-ups by priests and bishops in Pennsylvania, refusing even to say whether church officials in Rome have read the damaging documents. “We have no comment at this time,” Paloma Ovejero, deputy director of the Vatican’s press office, said Wednesday. But …

The Allentown Morning Call reports: George said he never discussed the nude Polaroids, or the twisted, secret gift he and the other kids had been given decades ago by the men who preyed on them. These weren’t the kinds of things you could share without feeling humiliated, especially not if you grew up tough, like he did on the South …

The Allentown Morning Call reports: A scathing grand jury report released Tuesday reveals sexual abuse by hundreds of priests that went unchecked for decades in dioceses across Pennsylvania, including Allentown. Instead of reporting pedophiles, dioceses routinely shuffled them from parish to parish, enabling them to prey upon new victims, the document shows. The statewide grand jury spent two years on …

Irish Central reports: Irish leader Leo Varadkar will bring up same sex marriage to Pope Francis when he meets him in Ireland on August 25th saying that such marriages are the same as any conventional marriage and should be treated as such by the church. Varadkar is Ireland’s first gay leader. Questioned on what he would say to the Pope …

USA Today reports: Pope Francis has changed church teaching about the death penalty, saying in a new policy published Thursday that it is always “inadmissible” because it “attacks” the inherent dignity of all humans. The Vatican said Francis had approved a change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church – the compilation of official Catholic Church teaching. Previously, the catechism …

Via press release from the Satanic Temple: The Satanic Temple’s infamous Baphomet statue will make an appearance at the Arkansas state Capitol on August 16th from 1-3pm during “The Satanic Temple’s Rally for the First Amendment.” The rally is intended to bring together religious leaders of different faiths to discuss the importance of the First Amendment and its protection for …

The New York Times reports: The pope has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington and a prominent diplomat who has been at the center of a mushrooming scandal after several men came forward with allegations of decades-old sexual abuse, the Vatican announced on Saturday. In a statement, the Vatican said: “Yesterday evening the …