One of the many deeply disturbing aspects of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has been the lack of discussion about penance nbsp While public apologies from bishops who protected abusive priests are becoming more common doing penance to atone for individual sins is still too rare n

Two excellent articles in the Sunday papers today shed light rather than heat on the sexual abuse crisis nbsp First off David Gibson has a terrific piece in the Washington Post entitled Five Myths about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal nbsp The myths are 1 Pope Benedict is the primary culpr

Speaking on NPR s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon on the need for penance and some of the causes of the sexual abuse crisis nbsp Weekend Edition is one of the sanest places to discuss these issues I think nbsp The link to NPR is here

I m always up for something new and fun especially if it s just down the street nbsp Anyway when the good people at Bigthink a hip new website nbsp called me up for series of interviews in their way-cool downtown studio I was game nbsp They ask all sorts of experts sitting in front of

According to Jake Martin SJ one of our television critics Showtime s The Tudors has finally hit its stride this season More often than not episodes of ldquo The Tudors rdquo jumped from plot point to plot point with all the subtlety of crashing cymbals Dialogue was a fusion of a ninth-g

The comments yesterday from a high-ranking Vatican official linking homosexuality with pedophilia essentially blaming homosexual priests for the abuse crisis are all the more surprising when you consider a few salient points First of all nearly every reputable mainstream psychologist and psychia

One factor you don t see listed by the National Review Board in their 2002 report to the U S bishops on the causes of clergy abuse is celibacy Because celibacy does not cause pedophilia But that hasn t stopped otherwise thoughtful pundits and commentators and among them even some Catholics from

A frank commentary by Frederico Lombardi S J the Vatican press officer on sexual abuse The debate concerning sexual abuse and not only that committed by the clergy continues with news items and comments of various kinds How can we sail through these stormy waters while maintaining a secure co

This is a fine article by Timothy Radcliffe O P the former master general nbsp of the Dominicans on why one remains Catholic in difficult terrible times nbsp Why stay I must lay my cards on the table even if the Church were obviously worse than other Churches I still would not go I am not

GetReligion has an interesting post on how the media handled one aspect of the abuse crisis engulfing the church nbsp nbsp The story and their analysis is complicated but worth reading nbsp Here we go For Catholics and non-Catholics alike it rsquo s difficult to read the stories attempting t