NCR Today

Rick Santorum triumphant as election takes another unpredictable swing

EU set to adopt new sanctions against Syria

Editorial: War on contraception heats up health-reform debate by Philadelphia Daily News

Analysis: Obama Weighed Religious Politics Before Contraceptive Decision from Bloomberg

Opinion: An affront Catholics agree on By Charlotte Allen

ROME -- The Vatican’s top prosecutor on sex abuse cases today bluntly decried “a deadly culture of silence” on clerical abuse, calling such denial “in itself wrong and unjust.”

Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna told participants in a Vatican summit on sex abuse that while the church now has clear laws to punish abusers, just having such laws on the books isn’t enough.

“Our people need to know that the law is being applied,” he said. “No strategy for the prevention of child abuse will ever work without commitment and accountability.”

Scicluna likewise reaffirmed the obligation of church leaders to cooperate with civil authorities, including reporting abuse allegations to police and prosecutors.

“Sexual abuse of minors is not just a canonical [violation] or a breach of a code of conduct internal to an institution, whether it be religious or other,” he said. “It is also a crime prosecuted by civil law.”

As a result, Scicluna said, Catholic officials have “the duty to cooperate with state authorities in our response to child abuse.”

I must say I am a little surprised at some of the more moderate/progressive Catholics in the media (Mark Shields, Cokie Roberts, E.J. Dionne) who have questioned the Obama administration's ruling that some Catholic employers must provide coverage for contraception for their employees.

I also note that none of them of works for a Catholic organization.

Of course, even if they did, the $50 a month for birth control probably wouldn't be a financial hardship for them. But for the Catholic schoolteacher or Catholic Charities social worker, it might be.

Those schoolteachers and social workers probably are among the majority of Catholics who said they believe employers--including religiously affiliated colleges and hospitals--should be required to provide health care plans that cover birth control at no cost, according to a new survey released Tuesday by the Public Religion Research Institute.

Fr. Michael Pfleger told his parishioners at Mass on Sunday that he will remain as pastor of Chicago's St. Sabina Church, apparently indefinitely. As of July 1, he said he will become co-pastor, along with Fr. Tulani Magwaza, who has been an associate at St. Sabina for more than two years.

Details of the arrangement were reportedly worked out during a meeting between Pfleger and Cardinal Francis George at the cardinal's residence Jan. 23. In addition, Pfleger announced he will become, at George's request, the official diocesan spokesperson on gun violence, and has agreed to serve as administrator at another South Side parish, St. Margaret of Scotland, whose pastor, Fr. Daniel Mallette, was severely beaten during a break-in at the rectory in December.

The flurry of response to the Obama Administration's ruling that Catholic institutions must cover the cost of contraceptives has emphasized the political tensions underlying the conflict but neglects the strains created within the church itself.

Two consequences especially seem evident, if not immediately then in the months and years come.

They both stem from the failure of the birth control encyclical to persuade American Catholics that the prohibition made sense, in part because it left them, the ones most involved with the issue, out of the decision.

Has the Vatican been nursing a resentment against American Catholics ever since? I think much evidence suggests this is so. But under the prevailing customs of creeping infallibilism, the encyclical cannot be declared flawed or in need of reconsideration.

New controls on bishops ‘a step that may have to be taken’

ROME -- Bishop Daniel Conlon of Joliet, Illinois, is the chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People. He’s attending the four-day “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium as the official delegate of the U.S. bishops, and this morning he sat down with an exclusive interview with NCR.

The following is a transcript of the interview.

* * *
This morning you heard an Irish victim, Marie Collins, describe how her experiences of not being taken seriously led to what she called a “final death of respect” for church authorities. Can you understand that reaction?

Oh, I can certainly understand that reaction. I’ve not been a victim, so I can’t place myself in her position, but anybody who has been hurt and then not listened to is going to experience further hurt.

Are you confident that someone who comes forward today will be received differently?

Victim calls summit a sign of hope

ROME -- An Irish victim of sexual abuse bluntly told a Vatican summit this morning that her experience of being ignored, and her suffering minimized, by church leaders caused “the final death of any respect” she once felt for ecclesial authority.

Marie Collins said there must be “acknowledgement and accountability for the harm and destruction that has been done to the life of victims and their families” before she and other victims can regain trust in the leadership of the Catholic church.

Collins made the remarks at a four-day summit on the sexual abuse crisis titled “Towards Healing and Renewal” being held at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University.

In remarks to the press after her talk, Collins expressed hope that the symposium suggests the church is moving in the right direction.

"I am very hopeful about this conference. I think the fact that it is taking place here in Rome with the backing of the Vatican and the pope is a sign that the church is taking this issue very seriously and wants a global response," she said.

Every week, every day, we get new reports of deaths, killings, shootings, military repression, attacks on innocent civilians and other horrors in Syria. It is estimated that more than 5,000 people were killed in the last few months, and there's no end in sight of the repression of the Syrian government.

I just watched a CNN broadcast that featured a young Syrian opponent of the regime broadcasting through Skype that in one Syrian city, about 200 people were killed by army artillery and tank fire on Friday alone. With much emotion, the young Syrian told Anderson Cooper, "People are dying and the U.N. and others are doing nothing!"

He's right. Yes, there are some sanctions, but they do not seem to be effective. The U.N. Security Council is discussing a resolution asking for President Bashar al-Assad to step down. But no resolution, even assuming if it passed, is going to result in such resignation.

For those who despair that the American political scene is irredeemably polarized, here is a small, intriguing tale of hope. Occupy Worcester in Massachusetts and the Worcester Tea Party have found a common cause in opposing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On Friday, the two groups demonstrated in the city's federal building as part of a national day of protest against the act, which passed Dec. 31, 2011.

The Occupiers and Tea Partiers rightly fear the NDAA marks yet another erosion of our civil liberties. The bill allows for the use of military detention and military trial for any person -- U.S. citizen or foreigner -- suspected of terrorism.

Writing for the political newsletter Counterpunch, military veteran Brian Trautman called the bill "one of the greatest threats to civil liberties in our nation's history":