Catholic News 2
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is touting strides in reducing homelessness among military veterans as his administration reaches the halfway point in building a massive database on veterans' health....
LOCKHART, Texas (AP) -- The pilot of a hot air balloon that crashed in Texas and killed all 16 people aboard had been arrested in Missouri for driving while intoxicated in 2000, police said, and the Better Business Bureau there had warned consumers about doing business with him after complaints about his balloon touring company....
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- Just days ahead of the Olympic Games the waterways of Rio de Janeiro are as filthy as ever, contaminated with raw human sewage teeming with dangerous viruses and bacteria, according to a 16-month-long study commissioned by The Associated Press....
NEW YORK (AP) -- Donald Trump's presidential bid has thrived on controversy of his own making. Now, the Republican nominee kicks off the first full week of the general election campaign having put his strategy of saying the politically unimaginable to its greatest test yet....
SPRINGFIELD, N.J. (AP) -- Jimmy Walker did everything required of a major champion on the longest final day in 64 years at a PGA Championship....
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The boisterous revelry of the Teen Choice Awards momentarily took on a somber tone Sunday when Jessica Alba called for an end to gun violence with a group of teenagers....
KRAKOW, Poland (AP) -- Pope Francis told young people who flocked by the hundreds of thousands to his words Sunday that they need to "believe in a new humanity" stronger than evil, and cautioned against concluding that one religion is more violent than others....
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch declared Sunday that his expansive political network would not support Donald Trump, questioning whether the Republican presidential nominee believes in free markets....
Aboard the papal plane, Jul 31, 2016 / 03:30 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In response to news that Australian authorities are investigating multiple allegations of child abuse leveled against Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis cautioned against gossip and making judgements before all the facts are known.“We must wait for justice and not make a first judgement ourselves, a media trial … because this doesn't help,” Pope Francis said July 31 during his in-flight press conference from Krakow to Rome. “The judgement of gossip and then, one can... We don't know what the result will be; but be attentive to what justice decides. Once justice speaks, I will speak.”The Pope was asked about Cardinal Pell, whom he appointed prefect of the Vatican's Secretariat for the Economy in 2014, by the AP's Frances D'Emilio. He began his response by noting that “the first information that arrived was confusing. It was news from 40 years back that not even t...
Aboard the papal plane, Jul 31, 2016 / 03:30 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In response to news that Australian authorities are investigating multiple allegations of child abuse leveled against Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis cautioned against gossip and making judgements before all the facts are known.
“We must wait for justice and not make a first judgement ourselves, a media trial … because this doesn't help,” Pope Francis said July 31 during his in-flight press conference from Krakow to Rome. “The judgement of gossip and then, one can... We don't know what the result will be; but be attentive to what justice decides. Once justice speaks, I will speak.”
The Pope was asked about Cardinal Pell, whom he appointed prefect of the Vatican's Secretariat for the Economy in 2014, by the AP's Frances D'Emilio. He began his response by noting that “the first information that arrived was confusing. It was news from 40 years back that not even the police made a case about at first. It was a confusing thing.”
Pope Francis then said that the accusation have been “sent to justice” and are now in the hands of justice. “And one mustn't judge before justice judges, eh?”
“If I were to say a judgement in favor of or against Cardinal Pell, it wouldn't be good because I (would) judge before. It's true that there there is doubt, and there's that clear principal of the law: in dubio pro reo.”
The Pope referred to the legal principle that a party who is accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty, which has been a foundation of law since at least the first Christian millenium.
Rumors of the investigation initially appeared in February in an article on News Corp Australia roughly a week before Cardinal Pell was due to testify before Australia’s Royal Commission for the third time, on charges that while in Australia he had been negligent when informed of child sexual abuse, bribed a victim, and moved a known abuser from parish to parish.
Established in 2013, the Royal Commission is dedicated to investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse.
The allegations released before his Feb. 29 hearing, however, maintained that the state of Victoria had for a year been compiling a dossier investigating him for committing “multiple offenses” of child sexual abuse both while he was still a priest in the Ballarat diocese, as well as when he worked with the Archbishop of Melbourne.
On that occasion, Cardinal Pell’s office, as it has consistently done throughout, fervently denied any wrongdoing, and rejected “spurious claims” by the media accusing painting him as an abuser.
However, last week a program on ABC reported that Cardinal Pell is in fact under investigation for accusations of abuse from the Australian cities of Ballarat, Torquay, and Melbourne dating from the 1970s, '80s and '90s, when he served as a priest and later Archbishop of Melbourne.
According to ABC, the state of Victoria’s SANO police taskforce, which is charged with investigating complaints coming out of the Royal Commission, has been the one investigating.
Last month Victoria Police Chief Graham Ashton confirmed that the taskforce was investigating multiple claims against the cardinal, and said that if necessary, detectives would fly to Rome to interview Cardinal Pell. However, Ashton said this step had “not been put as necessary to me at this point in time.”
In response to the ABC report, Cardinal Pell’s office said he “emphatically and unequivocally rejects” any accusations of sexual abuse against him, and accused the network of launching a smear campaign against him.
The statement noted that this isn’t the first time such allegations have surfaced against the cardinal, yet they have always demonstrated themselves to be unfounded.
Cardinal Pell’s conduct “has been repeatedly scrutinized over many years, including before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organizations and according to leaked reports, by Victorian Police’s SANO Taskforce,” the statement said.
The cardinal, it read, “denies the allegations absolutely, and says that they, and any acceptance of them by the ABC, are nothing more than a scandalous smear campaign which appears to be championed by the ABC.”
If there were any credibility in any of the claims, “they would have been pursued by the Royal Commission by now.”
Vatican City, Jul 31, 2016 / 03:37 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has questioned the claim that Islam should be identified with violence, in contrast to the Islamic State militant group, which he says is a fundamentalist sect of the religion.“I do not believe it is right to identify Islam with violence,” the Pope told journalists during the July 31 papal flight to Rome following his apostolic journey to Poland. “This is not right and it is not true.”“I don’t like to speak about Islamic violence,” the Pope said, taking into account that one sees violence every day in the newspapers, even at the hands of baptised Catholics.“There are violent Catholics!” he said. “If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence.”The Pope expressed his belief that every religion has its fundamentalist groups, including Catholicism.Such fundamentalism, when it is present, can “kill with language,” he said, ...
Vatican City, Jul 31, 2016 / 03:37 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has questioned the claim that Islam should be identified with violence, in contrast to the Islamic State militant group, which he says is a fundamentalist sect of the religion.
“I do not believe it is right to identify Islam with violence,” the Pope told journalists during the July 31 papal flight to Rome following his apostolic journey to Poland. “This is not right and it is not true.”
“I don’t like to speak about Islamic violence,” the Pope said, taking into account that one sees violence every day in the newspapers, even at the hands of baptised Catholics.
“There are violent Catholics!” he said. “If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence.”
The Pope expressed his belief that every religion has its fundamentalist groups, including Catholicism.
Such fundamentalism, when it is present, can “kill with language,” he said, citing the worlds of the Apostle James.
Francis’ remarks came in response to a question put by a journalist regarding the murder of a French priest at the hands of Islamist militants, an attack which Pope Francis condemned. The journalist asked the Pope why he never refers to Islam when decrying these sorts of terrorist acts committed by Islamist militants.
Fr. Jacques Hamel, 86, was killed Tuesday after two armed gunmen stormed a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during Mass. The assailants entered the church and took the celebrating priest and four others hostage.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, which was carried out by Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Nabil Petitjean, both 19.
Two more men – Farid K, 30, a cousin of Petitjean, and Jean-Philippe Steven J, 20 – have been placed under formal investigation in connection to the murders, according to the BBC.
During the in-flight conference, Pope Francis explained he had a long discussion with the Al-Azhar University’s grand iiman, and so understands Muslims. “They seek peace, encounter,” he explained.
Moreover, he said that according to the nuncio to an African nation (which the Pope did not specify in the conference), many of those who pass through the Jubilee Year of Mercy Door, who go to pray at the altar of Our Lady, are Muslims who wish to take part in the Jubilee.
Francis also recalled the Muslims he encountered during last November’s trip to the Central African Republic, including the imam who at one point joined him in the popemobile.
Acknowledging that there are fundamentalist groups, the Pope stressed that there are many young people, including Europeans themselves, who “have left empty of ideals, who have no work,” and who turn to drugs and alcohol and “enlist in fundamentalist groups.”
“One can speak of the so-called ISIS,” the Pope continued, “but it is an Islamic state which presents itself as violence.”
The group thus shows its “identity card,” he said, making reference to the group of Egyptians whose throats were slit on the coast of Libya.
“This is a small fundamentalist group called ISIS,” he said. But “I do not believe it is true or correct that Islam is terrorist.”
“Terrorism is everywhere. You think of tribal terrorism of some African countries,” he said. “Terrorism grows when there are no other options, and when the center of the global economy is a the god of money and not the person – men and women – this is already the first terrorism!”
“You have cast out the wonder of creation – man and woman – and you have put money in its place. This is a basic terrorism against all of humanity! Think about it!”
Sunday evening’s in-flight press conference came at the end of Pope Francis’ July 27-31 trip to Poland, where he presided over World Youth Day celebrations in Krakow.
