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Posted by bcadmin | Jan 16, 2020 | News, Today's Saint |
Marcellus lived during the time of the Emperor Diocletian, a great persecutor of Christians. In the year 305, Diocletian abdicated and Pope Marcellus was elected three years later in 308. When Marcellus took office, the Church in Rome was in chaos. Through the terrible persecutions, churches had been confiscated and some burial places of Christians […]
Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the relator general of the Amazon synod, has written to sympathetic bishops, offering suggestions on how they might promote a forthcoming papal document summarizing the Synod’s conclusions. The document should be released…
Read MoreBishop Vincent Guo Xijin, who has resisted pressure to join the government-backed Patriotic Association, has been evicted from his residence and is now homeless. Bishop Guo agreed to step down as head of the Mindong diocese, as part of the secret accor…
Read MoreA peace agreement in South Sudan, mediated by the St. Egidio community, makes it more likely that Pope Francis will follow through with his plan to visit the troubled young African country.
Read MoreA Belgian missionary priest was found dead in his parish in South Africa on January 12. Early reports said that the crime was motivated by robbery. But Church officials, mourning the death of Father Jozef Hollanders, said: “Everyone knows he had …
Read MoreNashville, Tenn., Jan 15, 2020 / 08:34 pm (CNA).- Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced Jan. 15 that he intends to sign into law a bill to protect adoption organizations which place children based on the belief in marriage as a union between a man and …
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Lyon, France, Jan 15, 2020 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- Bernard Preynat, a former priest of the Archdiocese of Lyon, is on trial before a civil court in France. He has been accused of sexually abusing dozens of minors between 1971 and 1991; he was found guilty by an ecclesiastical tribunal last year.
Allegations against Preynat, 74, became public in 2015. Prosecutors dropped the case the following year after an initial investigation, but a victims’ group with more than 80 members who say they were abused by Preynat led to a reopening of the case.
Preynat led a scouting camp until 1991, when parents accused him of abuse to the Lyon-Vienne archdiocese. He was then banned from leading scouting groups, but remained in ministry until being removed by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon in 2015.
Cardinal Barbarin was convicted by a French civil court in March 2019 on charges of failing to report the allegations against Preynat.
An ecclesiastical trial against Preynat was opened in August 2018, and he was convicted in July 2019 of committing delicts of a sexual character against minors under the age of 16. He was sentenced to dismissal from the clerical state.
“In view of the facts and their recurrence, the large number of victims, the fact that Father Bernard Preynat abused the authority conferred on him by his position within the scout group that he had founded and which he led since its creation, assuming the dual responsibility of head and chaplain, the tribunal decided to apply the maximum penalty provided for by the law of the Church, namely dismissal from the clerical state,” the Lyon archdiocese stated July 4, 2019.
At his civil trial in Lyon Jan. 14, Preynat acknowledged “caressing” boys, saying, “it could be four or five children a week.”
“I have heard the suffering of these people, which I’m guilty of causing,” he said. “I hope that this trial can take place as quickly as possible.”
He is charged with sexual assault of 10 minors from 1986 to 1991, and faces up to 10 years in prison.
He has been accused of abusing some 80 boy scouts who were between 7 and 15, beginning in the 1970s, but many of the incidents have passed the statute of limitations.
Preynat’s trial was to have begun Jan. 13, but was delayed a day so lawyers could participate in a protest of planned pension reforms.
In 2017, Cardinal Barbarin told Le Monde that he did not conceal allegations against Preynat, but that his response to the allegations had been “inadequate.” He said he opened an investigation against Preynat after becoming aware of the allegations against him.
The cardinal was given a six-month suspended sentence when he was convicted of failure to report the allegations against Preynat, but has appealed. The result of his appeal should come later this month.
Cardinal Barbarin offered to resign as Archbishop of Lyon, but its acceptance is pending the outcome of his appeal; he has, however, stepped back from the governance of his see. Bishop Michel Dubost has been serving as apostolic administrator of Lyon since June 2019.
Eighty-six percent of Democrats consider President Donald Trump “racist,” according to a July 2019 Quinnipiac poll. By contrast, 91% of Republicans do not consider him “racist.” Perhaps more disturbing, a November 2018 online Axios poll by SurveyMonkey found that a whopping 61% of Democrats believe Republicans are “racist/bigoted/sexist.” A comparatively small 31% of Republicans feel the same […]
Read MoreEighty-six percent of Democrats consider President Donald Trump “racist,” according to a July 2019 Quinnipiac poll. By contrast, 91% of Republicans do not consider him “racist.” Perhaps more disturbing, a November 2018 online Axios poll by SurveyMonkey found that a whopping 61% of Democrats believe Republicans are “racist/bigoted/sexist.” A comparatively small 31% of Republicans feel the same […]
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 16, 2020 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Books, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Features, George Bernanos, Ignatius Press, J.R.R. Tolkien, News, Nicholas Diat, Romano Guardini, secularism |
Some years ago, while on retreat with the Passionists, I listened to a Korean priest describe how he came to America. As a young man in Seoul he had money, girlfriends, a cool car, and […]
Read MoreMexico City, Mexico, Jan 15, 2020 / 06:02 pm (CNA).- The bishops’ conference of Mexico has called on the country’s government to get rid of the statute of limitations in cases of sexual abuse of minors.
“We want to ask in the name of…
Read MoreKarlo accepts challenges from Protestant callers (and Catholics) on Catholic beliefs that seem to contradict the Bible.
Questions Covered:
06:30 – I have a Protestant friend who doesn’t believe there is a scriptural basis for celibacy in the pri…
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Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jan 15, 2020 / 04:51 pm (CNA).- Amid a continuing economic crisis in Argentina, the Catholic relief agency Caritas is working to provide food for thousands of families struggling to access adequate nutrition.
Bishop Carlos Tissera, president of Caritas Argentina, said the agency hopes to bring hope amid the suffering experienced by so many people in the country.
“Our model is Christ who came to serve with simplicity and humility,” he said.
For the past two years, Argentina has faced a deep recession, with inflation rates topping 53% last year. A recent report from the Argentina Observatory of Social Debt at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina found the rate of poverty at decade-high levels, with 40% of the population below the poverty line in the last trimester of 2019.
Last year, the Argentine Bishops’ Commission for Social Ministry warned that the situation had reached a crisis level.
“In face of the severe increase in destitution, poverty, unemployment and the indiscriminate increase in the price of the basic food groups, we find ourselves in an emergency food and nutrition situation which essentially affects the most vulnerable, especially children,” the commission said.
Caritas Argentina has worked to alleviate the difficult conditions facing many families in the country. Between May and December 2019, the agency collected about $27,000, which was allocated to care for 755 children and 2,358 families at soup kitchens and other facilities in eight different dioceses.
From Sept. 27-Oct. 18 last year, Caritas distributed 810 tons of food, valued at $128.8 million and provided by the Ministry of Health and Social Development.
“The logistical deployment which this aid work requires stretched us to the max,” said Sofia Terek, the coordinator of Caritas’ Immediate Aid and Emergencies Department. She added that “despite our volunteers’ efforts, we still see a high percentage of people in poverty.”
“We think this is due to the fact that every day there are more people needing basic nutrition: the price hikes and the lack of work is making access harder for the growing vulnerable population,” she said.
Washington D.C., Jan 15, 2020 / 04:40 pm (CNA).- Four months after the Diocese of Scranton began looking into allegations against the rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, a spokesman for the diocese said the inves…
Read MoreBy Solène Tadié | ROME — For centuries, monasteries that have contained women seeking to live the contemplative life have represented a protected oasis of peace and prayer in the middle of the commotion…
Read MoreKarlo accepts challenges from Protestant callers (and Catholics) on Catholic beliefs that seem to contradict the Bible.
Questions Covered:
16:06 – Why do Catholics call priests “Father” when Scripture clearly says not to?
22:14 – I am a P…
Washington D.C., Jan 15, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- A new study says that while most Californians support the redefinition of marriage and the family, they choose intact marriages and traditional families.
“People with the most amount of choice and…
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 15, 2020 | Associated Press, Catholic Church, Church in the US, News, Opus Dei, President Donald Trump, Trump administration |
Pat Cipollone doesn’t seem like Donald Trump’s kind of fixer. But the president has turned to Cipollone, his White House counsel, when it matters most — to lead his defense in his impeachment trial.
Read MoreBy Catholic News Agency | VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has named Dr. Francesca Di Giovanni as undersecretary for multilateral affairs in the Vatican Secretariat of State, marking the first time…
Read MoreRichmond, Va., Jan 15, 2020 / 03:36 pm (CNA).- Bishop Barry Knestout of the Diocese of Richmond has issued a statement responding to concerns that a local parish church is to host an Episcopalian consecration of a female bishop.
The online petition, t…
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