Paulist Father Lawrence Boadt, a leading Catholic biblical scholar and former CEO and president of Paulist Press, died at his residence in Mahwah, N.J., July 24 after a long battle with cancer. He was 67. ♦ In the wake of an undercover video and news report documenting priests in Rome engaged in homosexual acts, the Rome Diocese has called for priests engaged in "unworthy" behavior to leave the priesthood and stop sullying the reputation of the vast majority of honorable ministers. ♦ Pope Benedict XVI has given his new papal delegate, Italian Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, broad powers of authority over the Legionaries of Christ as part of a major Vatican-led reform of the order. ♦ On July 22, Sudan's bishops called upon Sudanese officials to ensure that the Jan. 9, 2011 referendum for Southern Sudan—and a separate one for Abyei—which will decide the future of the war-torn nation take place "on time, in a free and fair manner, and that the outcomes are recognized and respected.” ♦ In the wake of a series of clerical child abuse scandals, Ireland’s newest prelate, Bishop Liam S. MacDaid of Clogher, called on the people of his diocese to join him in "a repentant return to the well of salvation." Speaking at his consecration at St. Macartan's Cathedral, Monaghan, July 25, Bishop MacDaid said: "Society has forced us in the Irish church to look into the mirror, and what we saw were weakness and failure, victims and abuse. The surgeon's knife has been painful but necessary.” ♦ Kenneth Howell, an adjunct professor in the University of Illinois' religious studies department barred from teaching courses on Catholicism after he defended in class the church's teaching on homosexual behavior, was reinstated July 29.
Newsbriefs
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
Brian Strassburger, S.J., a Jesuit priest serving migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, joins “Jesuitical” this week to talk about what the election of Donald J. Trump might mean for his ministry.
“Laudato Si’” and its implementation seem to have stalled in the church. We need to revivify our efforts—and to recognize the Christological perspectives of our care for creation and our common home.
Around the affluent world, new hostility, resentment and anxiety has been directed at immigrant populations that are emerging as preferred scapegoats for all manner of political and socio-economic shortcomings.
“Each day is becoming more difficult, but we do not surrender,” Father Igor Boyko, 48, the rector of the Greek Catholic seminary in Lviv, told Gerard O’Connell. “To surrender means we are finished.”