Yahoo! News: Religion News

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• Landmark US Catholic child abuse trial wraps up
• Closing statements made in Philadelphia church pedophilia trial
• Med school chair created on sexuality and religion
• Defense: Monsignor not liable for sins of church
• Prosecutor: Monsignor stuck to church 'game plan'
• Year after tornado downs steeple, church rebounds
• Pope's tiny police force hunts the enemy within
• Church paid sexually abusive priests to leave
• Pope's top aide at centre of Vatican furor
• Vatican justice medieval: French lawyer
• Closing statements in Philadelphia church pedophilia trial
• Vatican crisis highlights pope failure to reform Curia
• Revered Jerusalem church comes alive at night

Landmark US Catholic child abuse trial wraps up Posted: 31 May 2012 04:54 PM PDT Jurors in a landmark Catholic Church sex abuse case heard closing arguments Thursday in the trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the highest-ranked US church official to be charged with covering up child molestation.

Closing statements made in Philadelphia church pedophilia trial Posted: 31 May 2012 04:48 PM PDT PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The prosecution in the Philadelphia Roman Catholic Church sex abuse trial said on Thursday an accused monsignor covered up cases of pedophile priests to avoid scandal, but his defense attorney said his efforts to handle the problem were stymied by the church's hierarchy. Monsignor William Lynn, who in his 12-year job as secretary of the clergy supervised hundreds of priests, is accused of conspiracy and child endangerment and, if convicted, faces the possibility of 28 years in prison. Prosecutors say Lynn, 61, the highest-ranking U.S. ...

Med school chair created on sexuality and religion Posted: 31 May 2012 02:25 PM PDT The Morehouse School of Medicine is creating what is being called the first endowed chair on sexuality and religion at a U.S. medical school.

Defense: Monsignor not liable for sins of church Posted: 31 May 2012 12:54 PM PDT A Roman Catholic church official is being unfairly prosecuted for the sins of the church and the rogue conduct of predator-priests, a defense lawyer said Thursday as he asked jurors in a groundbreaking trial to acquit his client.

Prosecutor: Monsignor stuck to church 'game plan' Posted: 31 May 2012 12:41 PM PDT A prosecutor says a Roman Catholic church official kept to "the game plan" at the Philadelphia archdiocese, keeping pedophile priests in ministry and the public in the dark about child sexual abuse.

Year after tornado downs steeple, church rebounds Posted: 31 May 2012 10:39 AM PDT The town's oldest church had lost its steeple twice before.

Pope's tiny police force hunts the enemy within Posted: 31 May 2012 09:47 AM PDT VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - They are the pope's shadow, his bodyguards both within the borders of the Vatican and during trips abroad. They are the police of the world's smallest state. But while the Vatican's gendarmes are trained to protect Benedict XVI from external threats, this time they are hunting people who may be hiding within his inner circle. Together with other arcane institutions of the ancient Vatican state, they are trying to track down who is behind a leak of the pope's secret papers in a scandal that has shaken the papacy after the arrest of his butler. ...

Church paid sexually abusive priests to leave Posted: 31 May 2012 08:26 AM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan authorized $20,000 payments to a handful of sexually abusive priests so they would immediately leave the Milwaukee archdiocese when Dolan was archbishop there nearly a decade ago, a church spokeswoman said on Thursday. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) first announced the payments on Wednesday upon discovering minutes of a March 2003 meeting of the Milwaukee archdiocese finance council meeting. SNAP is demanding full disclosure of all such payments. ...

Pope's top aide at centre of Vatican furor Posted: 31 May 2012 07:11 AM PDT VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Amid all the rivalries and gossip exposed by a growing Vatican crisis, Pope Benedict's deputy Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has emerged as the chief target of an unprecedented campaign of leaks. The publication of embarrassing details about men he has appointed or moved out and projects he has promoted or opposed suggests a concerted effort to force him out of his post as secretary of state, or Vatican prime minister. ...

Vatican justice medieval: French lawyer Posted: 31 May 2012 06:57 AM PDT VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican's justice system harks back to medieval times and is unlikely to provide the pope's butler with fair treatment after his arrest for leaking confidential documents, according to a French lawyer involved in a previous case in the Holy See. Luc Brossollet is not involved in the so-called "Vatileaks" case shaking the papacy but he said his personal experience suggested the Vatican's judiciary is under the thumb of the Holy See and allows scant regard for the rights of defendants. ...

Closing statements in Philadelphia church pedophilia trial Posted: 31 May 2012 05:40 AM PDT PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Closing arguments were to begin on Thursday in the closely watched child sex abuse case against a Roman Catholic priest and a church monsignor who is the highest-ranking U.S. church official to stand trial in a pedophilia scandal. The jury has heard ten weeks of testimony in the trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the former secretary of the clergy in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, and the Reverend James Brennan. Lynn, 61, is accused of conspiracy and child endangerment and could face as much as 28 years in prison if convicted. ...

Vatican crisis highlights pope failure to reform Curia Posted: 31 May 2012 03:51 AM PDT VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict in 2005, epithets like "God's Rottweiler" and "Panzerkardinal" suggested he would bring some German efficiency to the opaque Vatican bureaucracy, the Curia. Instead, as the "Vatileaks" scandal has revealed, the head of the Roman Catholic Church can't even keep his own private mail secret. His hand-picked deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, faces a "monsignors' mutiny" by prelates in the halls of power. ...

Revered Jerusalem church comes alive at night Posted: 30 May 2012 11:22 PM PDT After the last tourists leave the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City at nightfall, a little-known but centuries-old tradition unfolds at one of Christianity's holiest sites.

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