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Monday, February 27, 2012

Chicago Cardinal Said to Snub Irish Prime Minister’s visit over Vatican Embassy closure/Sexual Abuse Silence "Deadly" for Church: Vatican official (Reuters)

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Chicago-cardinal-said-to-snub-Irish-Prime-Ministers-visit-over-Vatican-Embassy-closure-140411403.html

"Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has turned down an invitation to the Irish Fellowship Club’s St. Patrick Day dinner, and speculation is rife that it is because Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny is the main speaker, the Chicago Sun Times has reported.
Kenny lashed out at the Vatican in a widely reported attack last year over their refusal to cooperate in the inquiry into child sexual abuse in the diocese of Cloyne in Cork.
Then, late last year, the Irish government decided to close their Vatican Embassy in a move widely seen as related to the strong criticism of the Vatican role in the sex abuse scandals....The Sun Times asks: “Has Cardinal George now become the latest participant in the 'cold war' between Ireland and the Vatican over... the Catholic Church’s failure to tell the truth about its major sexual-abuse scandal there?"
Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Chicago-cardinal-said-to-snub-Irish-Prime-Ministers-visit-over-Vatican-Embassy-closure-140411403.html#ixzz1ndmVtZ6i

Sexual abuse silence "deadly" for Church: Vatican official (Reuters)
Hiding behind a culture of "omerta" -- the Italian word for the Mafia's code of silence -- would be deadly for the Catholic Church, the Vatican's top official for dealing with sexual abuse of minors by clergy said Wednesday. Monsignor Charles Scicluna made the unusually forthright comment in his speech to a landmark symposium in Rome on the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the Church in the past decade."The teaching ... that truth is at the basis of justice explains why a deadly culture of silence, or 'omerta,' is in itself wrong and unjust," Scicluna said in his address to the four-day symposium which brings together some 200 people including bishops, leaders of religious orders, victims of abuse and psychologists. Rarely, if ever, has a Vatican official used the word "omerta" - a serious accusation in Italian -- to compare the reluctance of some in the Church to come clean on the abuse scandal with the Mafia's code of silence.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46254582/ns/today/t/sexual-abuse-silence-deadly-church-vatican-official/

Bridget Mary's Reflection:
Finally, a Vatican official coming out with the truth on the global sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the church.
Now the question is does Vatican have the will to make the structural changes that will reform the clerical culture of cover up and silence? Is the Vatican ready for married priests and women priests and an empowered role for the people of God as decision-makers in their own church? 
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests
sofiabmm@aol.com
www.associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org

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