Donald Snyder

Set to be released March 18, the report could profoundly affect the fate of Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne, Germany: He has offered to resign if he is implicated in covering up sexual abuse.

Scholars and others spoke with NCR about Polish alienation from the church, related to the hierarchy's alliance with the authoritarian ruling party, attacks on the LGBTQ community, and clergy sex abuse.

Protests by Polish women against the Law and Justice government and against the Catholic Church continue to gain momentum after a Oct. 22 ruling by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal imposed an almost total ban on abortion.

Amid a shrinking Catholic Church in Germany, participants in the first session of synodal way meetings brought up questions about sexual morality, the ordination of women, and compulsory celibacy.

In a country where more than 200,000 Catholics left the scandal-wracked church in 2018, the loudest voices for a transformation are coming from Catholic women through such movements as Maria 2.0.

An abuse survivor is leading a march Oct. 7 in Warsaw to demand a government commission to evaluate the extent of pedophilia in Poland's Catholic Church, and to aggressively prosecute sex offenders.

The Polish Congregation of Marian Fathers is once again trying to silence Fr. Adam Boniecki. A gag order, lifted in July, was reinstituted in November. 

Marian Fr. Adam Boniecki, 83, a confidant of Pope John Paul II, has been outspoken in defending the need for church-state separation in Poland and a more humane policy of welcoming refugees from conflicts in the Middle East.