Archive for December 2nd, 2015

Editorial: U.s. church leadership is in transition / National Catholic Reporter

In Florence, Italy, last month, Pope Francis addressed the Italian church and gave a bracing, 50-minute exhortation on how integral change is to a healthy life of the church.

“‘Before the problems of the church, it is not useful to search for solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism, in the restoration of obsolete conduct and forms that no longer have the capacity of being significant culturally,’ he told the gathered clerics and laypeople.

“At another point, he said, ‘Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives — but is alive, knows being unsettled, enlivened. It has a face that is not rigid, it has a body that moves and grows, it has a soft flesh: It is called Jesus Christ.’”

By National Catholic Reporter Editorial Staff — Click here to read the rest of this editorial.

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Panel on ‘Spotlight’ film explores priest sex abuse scandal, institutional cover-up and advocacy for vicitms / Harvard Law Today

The film “Spotlight” focuses on the dogged pursuit by Boston Globe reporters to expose the Catholic Church’s cover-up of the sexual abuse of children by Boston priests. But there is much more to the story, as evidenced by a wide-ranging panel discussion of the movie last week at Harvard Law School that touched on legal issues, secrets and shame, and even a potential lawsuit against the filmmakers.

Sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library and the Dean of Students Office, the panel featured Josh Singer ’01, who co-wrote the screenplay with director Tom McCarthy; Mitchell Garabedian, who represented dozens of plaintiffs in suits against the church (and was depicted by Stanley Tucci in a prominent role in the movie); and HLS professors Jeannie Suk ’02 and Lawrence Lessig, with Professor Jonathan Zittrain ’95 moderating. In the audience were Ben Bradlee Jr. and Michael Rezendes, journalists from the Globe who were also depicted in the film, and who participated in the discussion.

By Lewis Rice, Harvard Law Today — Click here to read the rest of this story.

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Association of Catholic Priests voices ‘disquiet’ over Vatican’s selection of Irish bishops / National Catholic Reporter

The Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland is to write to the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops expressing its 1,000 members’ ‘grave disquiet’ over the current selection process for bishops in the Irish church.

“A resolution was carried unanimously at the association’s annual meeting in Athlone Nov. 24 which criticized the ‘lack of any credible process of consultation’ with priests and people in recent years and the Vatican’s ‘preference for candidates drawn from a particular mindset.’

“Over 100 members of the ACP who attended the meeting backed the statement which said the choice of candidates is ‘out of sync with the realities of life in Ireland today’ and with the openness of Pope Francis to change and reform in the church.”

By Sarah Mac Donald, National Catholic Reporter — Click here to read the rest of this story.

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