Tag Archives: organized crime

Italian Police Capture Mob Boss After 30-Year Manhunt

Reuters reports: Italian police on Monday arrested Matteo Messina Denaro, the country’s most wanted mafia boss who had been on the run since 1993, swooping on a private hospital in the Sicilian capital Palermo where he was undergoing treatment. Prosecutors say Messina Denaro, 60, is a boss of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia. He had been sentenced in absentia to a …

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German Catholic Church Holds “Penance Service” Over Sexual Abuse Scandal: “This Is A Confession Of Guilt”

Religion News Service reports: Germany’s Roman Catholic archdiocese of Cologne held a service of penance Thursday for cases of sexual abuse by clergy, saying the ritual was not an absolution for the perpetrators but a “confession of guilt.” The German Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse reports has caused a crisis in Cologne, where the archbishop, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki …

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French Catholic Church To Compensate Abuse Victims

The Associated Press reports: France’s Catholic Church announced on Monday that it would financially compensate sex abuse victims by selling property assets or taking out a loan if needed. French bishops said in a written statement they will set up an “independent, national body” tasked with addressing compensation issues. They committed to allocating money to a specific fund “in order …

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Top US Catholic Rips Social Justice As “Pseudo Religion”

Religion News Service reports: Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, railed against “new social justice movements” during a speech Thursday (Nov. 4), decrying them as “pseudo-religions” that ultimately serve as “dangerous substitutes for true religion.” The prelate argued the United States, like Europe, has been subject to “aggressive secularization,” insisting “there has been a …

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French Government Orders Catholic Priests To Report All Child Sexual Abuse Claims, Even If Heard In Confession

The Guardian reports: Catholic priests must report all child sexual abuse allegations to police, including if they hear about it in the secrecy of the confession box, the French interior minister has said after reprimanding France’s top bishop for claiming that the secrecy of the Catholic confessional was “above the laws of the Republic”. France is reeling from the publication …

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Pope Expresses “Shame” After French Catholic Church Acknowledges 300,000+ Cases Of Child Sexual Abuse

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis expressed “shame” for himself and the Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday for the scale of child sexual abuse within the church in France and acknowledged failures in putting the needs of victims first. The pope spoke during his regular audience at the Vatican about a report released Tuesday that estimated some 330,000 French children …

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Pope Urges Bishops To Listen To Molestation Victims

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis urged European bishops on Saturday to listen to survivors of clergy sexual abuse and consider them partners in reform, warning that their failure to do so risks the very future of the Catholic Church. Francis issued a video message to Central and Eastern European bishops who are gathering in Poland starting on Sunday for …

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Boston Archdiocese Finds Priest Guilty Of Child Sex Abuse, Assigns Him To A “Life Of Prayer And Penance”

The Associated Press reports: A Catholic priest that led parishes in Massachusetts has been found guilty of sexually abusing a child in the 1960s by a church panel and barred from public ministry, the Archdiocese of Boston said Friday. Paul J. McLaughlin, a former pastor of St. Peter Parish in Lowell and Immaculate Conception Parish in Marlboro, will not be …

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Ex-NY Bishop Admits Decades-Long Abuse Coverup

The Albany Times-Union reports: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany engaged in a decades-long cover-up of chronic child sexual abuse committed by its priests by employing practices described in a recent statement from former Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, who ran the diocese from 1977 to 2014. Hubbard’s statement, issued through his attorney in response to a series of questions from …

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Ex-Cardinal Charged With Sexual Assault Of Teen Boy, Allegedly Then Told “Sinner” Victim To Pray For Himself

NPR reports: Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked after a Vatican investigation confirmed he had sexually molested adults as well as children, has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy during a wedding reception in the 1970s, court records show. Court documents obtained by The Boston Globe shows that McCarrick is charged with three counts of indecent assault …

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Bishops Bankrolled Opposition To MI LGBT Rights Push

Michigan Business reports: Campaign finance reports filed on Monday show the Lansing-based Michigan Catholic Conference, which bills itself as “the official voice of the Catholic Church in Michigan on matters of public policy,” has made $238,874.80 in direct and in-kind contributions to Citizens for Equality, Fairness and Justice, an organization formed in April that has actively opposed the LGBTQ initiative. …

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AP: Sitting On “$10 Billion In Cash,” Catholic Church Took Billions More From Feds In COVID Relief Bailouts

The Associated Press reports: As the pandemic began to unfold, scores of Catholic dioceses across the U.S. received aid through the Paycheck Protection Program while sitting on well over $10 billion in cash, short-term investments or other available funds, an Associated Press investigation has found. And despite the broad economic downturn, these assets have grown in many dioceses. Yet even …

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Pope Vows To “Uproot Evil” Of Clergy Sexual Abuse

Reuters reports: Pope Francis, in his first public comment after the release of an explosive report on the Vatican’s mishandling of the case of ex-U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, on Wednesday again vowed to put an end to sexual abuse in the Church. “Yesterday, the report about the painful case of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was published. I renew my closeness to …

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Cardinal Blasts Pope: Those Suffering The “Homosexual Condition” Should Have No Right To “Form Families”

Via press release from Cardinal Raymond Burke: First of all, the context and the occasion of such declarations make them devoid of any magisterial weight. They are rightly interpreted as simple private opinions of the person who made them. These declarations do not bind, in any manner, the consciences of the faithful who are rather obliged to adhere with religious …

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Bishop Who Ignored Child Sexual Abuse Condemns Pope: We Cannot Accept “Objectively Immoral” Unions

“The Holy Father’s apparent support for the recognition of civil unions for same-sex couples needs to be clarified. “The Pope’s statement clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the Church about same-sex unions. “The Church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships. Individuals with same-sex attraction are beloved children of God and must have their personal human …

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SF Archbishop Responds To Pope : “There No Reason” Why Brothers And Sisters Shouldn’t Get Civil Unions

From San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone: In our bishops region’s audience with Pope Francis last January during our ad limina visit (the visit diocesan bishops make every five years to the Vatican), the topic of civil unions came up in conversation. The Holy Father clearly differentiated between a civil arrangement which accords mutual benefits to two people, and marriage. The …

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NY Diocese Declares Bankruptcy, Largest One Yet

The Associated Press reports: A Roman Catholic diocese in New York City’s suburbs has become the largest in the U.S. to declare bankruptcy to protect itself from a wave of lawsuits filed over past sexual abuse by clergy members. The Diocese of Rockville Centre filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday. It is the eighth largest diocese or archdiocese …

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Pope Francis To Mafia: Stop Using Virgin Mary Imagery

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis is giving his blessing to a new Vatican think tank that is seeking to prevent the Mafia and organized crime groups from exploiting the image of the Virgin Mary for their own illicit ends. The Vatican’s Pontifical Marian Academy launched the think tank Friday at a conference titled “Liberating Mary from the Mafia.” It …

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US Bishop-Elect Resigns Over Molestation Allegations

Reuters reports: An American bishop-elect has resigned just weeks before he was due to start the job, following an allegation that he had sexually abused a minor, Catholic Church officials said on Monday. Father Michel Mulloy, 66, was appointed by Pope Francis on June 19 to be bishop of Duluth, Minnesota and was due to be formally installed in a …

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Pope: Gossiping Is A “Plague Worse Than COVID”

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis said Sunday that gossiping is a “plague worse than COVID” that is seeking to divide the Catholic Church. Francis strayed from his prepared text to double down on his frequent complaint about gossiping within church communities and even within the Vatican bureaucracy. Francis went on at some length to say the devil is the …

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