Scottish academics will study records of a 1641 Catholic massacre of Irish Protestants in a bid to determine how many people were really killed.
Irish Cardinal Sean Brady says the country’s bishops will perform an act of penance equivalent to putting on “sackcloth and ashes” this Lent as a sign of humility and empathy with the victims of clerical child abuse.
In a statement issued after a two-day meeting with the bishops of the Irish Church, Pope Benedict described child abuse as “a heinous crime and a grave sin”.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has told Irish bishops at an extraordinary summit with Pope Benedict that they must admit their own blame in cover-ups of generations of sex abuse of minors, or risk losing the faith of Catholics
A British academic is crediting Irish parliamentarian, Gerry Adams, with new insight into Judas’ betrayal of Jesus based on the Sinn Fein leader’s experiences in the Republican movement.
Groups representing Irish survivors of clerical sex abuse are seeeking one billion euros ($1.4 billion) compensation from the Vatican for victims.
Saying that the Church faces a “watershed moment” in the wake of the Irish government report on abuse in church-run institutions, former Jesuit provincial, Fr Gerry O’Hanlon, has called for a national synod to deal with “institutional dysfunctionality”.
Retired Irish Bishop Dermot O’Mahony has challenged the support Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has shown for his priests and the current diocesan policy since the publication of the Irish government’s report on abuse in church instutitions.
Ireland’s Catholic bishops will meet Pope Benedict in Rome next month to discuss the consequences of the church’s cover-ups of clerical sexual abuse.
Congregation for the Clergy Prefect, Cardinal Clauudio Hummes has said that Ireland’s sex abuse scandals are not representative of the behaviour of the vast majority of priests in the Catholic Church.
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