| September 3, 2007 | - Previously unpublished letters by Mother Teresa revealed that beginning in 1948 and continuing until the end of her life in 1997 she was unable to sense the presence of God. “Repulsed—empty—no faith—no love—no zeal,” she wrote. “Heaven means nothing.”
| Source:
Time Magazine
|
| March 2, 2007 | - Delivering Lenten meditations at the Vatican, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi warned Pope Benedict of an Antichrist who would come as “a pacifist, ecologist, and ecumenist” to rally the ”masses” to destroy the Christian faith.
| Source:
Times, UK
|
| February 22, 2007 | - With its new slogan “The Light is On for You,” The Archdiocese of Washington launched a marketing blitz that included ads on buses and subway cars, 100,000 brochures, and a highway billboard in an effort to get Catholics to confess.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| February 22, 2007 | -
Catholic leaders criticized New York City for distributing 26 million subway-themed condoms.
| Source:
News-Medical.net
|
| February 8, 2007 | -
Catholic League president William Donohue railed against “incendiary,” “inflammatory,” and “scurrilous” bloggers.
| Source:
CNN
|
| October 20, 2006 | - A Catholic priest acknowledged having had an intimate, two-year relationship with Mark Foley when the now-disgraced Republican
congressman was a twelve-year-old altar boy.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| May 30, 2006 | -
Ted Nugent denied both poking his erect penis through a map of West Virginia and urinating on a nun.
| Source:
Belfast Telegraph
|
| May 1, 2006 | - A Vatican official called on Catholics to boycott the "Da Vinci Code" movie.
| Source:
Catholic News Service
|
| April 27, 2006 | - A farmer in Brazil pleaded guilty to killing a 73-year-old nun; the farmer had been paid by two ranchers to shoot the nun after she attempted to stop the ranchers from clearing a section of rainforest.
| Source:
Sun-Sentinel.com
|
| April 19, 2006 | - In Toluca, Mexico, a priest admitted to strangling and dismembering his pregnant lover after Easter mass.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| April 3, 2006 | -
Catholics commemorated the one-year anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II.
| Source:
San Jose Mercury News
|
| November 2, 2005 | - A U.S. Army captain stationed in Germany was sentenced to five years in prison for forcibly sodomizing three U.S. soldiers; the soldiers had asked him for counseling in his capacity as an Army chaplain and Roman Catholic priest.
| Source:
TheDenverChannel.com
|
| October 7, 2005 | - The Vatican was expected to announce that it will allow gay men to become priests if the men have lived chastely for three years.
| Source:
CBC News
|
| October 6, 2005 | - The Catholic Church of Scotland published a guide to the Bible stating that the account of creation in the book of Genesis is “symbolic.” The virgin birth of Jesus, however, is still considered to be fact.
| Source:
The Scotsman
|
| September 16, 2005 | - The Vatican was investigating all 229 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States for evidence of homosexuality.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| July 15, 2005 | - Four six-hundred-year-old papal seals were found in a toilet shaft in Germany.
| Source:
Mail & Guardian Online
|
| July 8, 2005 | - Four teenagers were charged with urinating into the holy water at the Saint Pius X church in Rochester, New York.
| Source:
The Pittsburgh Channel
|
| May 8, 2005 | - Ave Maria University, a Catholic college founded by the retired CEO of Domino's Pizza, graduated its first class and gave an honorary degree to L. Paul Bremer, who told the assembled graduates that Muslim extremists were against the separation of church and state.
| Source:
Netscape News
|
| April 23, 2005 | - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who belonged to the Hitler Youth before he became a priest, won the papacy by a landslide and styled himself Benedict XVI. The new pope dislikes homosexuality (he moved quickly to condemn a Spanish bill that would permit gays to marry), abortion, and the death penalty, but he loves little kittens. In 2001, he ordered Catholic bishops to hide allegations against pedophile priests from the public.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
New York Daily News
Source 3:
The Observer
|
| April 18, 2005 | -
Catholic cardinals convened a conclave.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| April 7, 2005 | - Tailors sewed the next pope's
robes.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| March 27, 2005 | - A priest dripped some wine onto Terri Schiavo's tongue.
| Source:
ABCNews.com
|
| March 14, 2005 | - A Wisconsin woman rammed her car into a Catholic church after deciding that God does not exist; her car was destroyed, but the church was unharmed.
| Source:
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
|
| January 9, 2005 | -
Satanists were upset to learn that the Regina Apostolorum, a Vatican university, was going to offer courses in Satanism and exorcism. The church, said a prominent Satanist, “has the blood of countless millions on its bejeweled fingers.”
| Source:
Telegraph.co.uk
|
| December 22, 2004 | - The Pope defrocked Maurice Blackwell, a Baltimore-area priest; in 2002, Blackwell was shot and wounded by an altar boy he allegedly molested.
| Source:
Sign On San Diego
|
| December 8, 2004 | - The Vatican disapproved of a nativity scene in Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London that depicted David and Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice, as Joseph and Mary, with George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and the Duke of Edinburgh standing in for the three wise men. "There is a tradition in which each generation tries to reenact the nativity," explained a spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury, "but oh deary me."
| Source:
BBC
|
| November 15, 2004 | -
Catholic dioceses in America were buckling under the financial strain of sex-abuse lawsuits; dioceses in Tucson, Arizona, and Portland, Oregon, had declared bankruptcy.
| Source:
Chicago Sun-Times
|
| September 24, 2004 | - The BBC cancelled a satirical cartoon series called "Popetown," which featured corrupt bishops and depicted the pope jumping around the Vatican on a pogo stick.
| Source:
Guardian, Associated Press
|
| July 11, 2004 | -
Ireland was said to be short of priests.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 7, 2004 | -
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, filed for bankruptcy.
| Source:
Oregonian
|
| May 15, 2004 | - The Vatican warned Roman Catholic women not to marry Muslims.
| Source:
Telegraph
|
| March 2, 2004 | -
Russian religious leaders refused to permit Roman Catholics to attend a conference on religious tolerance.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 2, 2004 | -
California's supreme court ruled that a Catholic charity must cover birth control in its employee health coverage.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 17, 2004 | - It was reported that 4,450 Roman Catholic priests have been accused of sexually abusing
children since 1950.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 17, 2003 | - American Roman Catholic bishops embarked on a new campaign against contraception. "The Church teaches us a lot of things we don't practice," said Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver. "But it's the constant of the Roman Catholic Church that contraception is wrong, sinful, and contrary to the meaning of married life."
| |
| October 31, 2003 | - A gang of Catholic schoolgirls chased down and pummeled a flasher in Philadelphia.
| Source:
CNN
|
| August 28, 2003 | - Ireland's Roman Catholic Kiltegan Fathers paid $353,000 to the victim of a pedophile priest who once attacked the victim as his father lay dying nearby.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 10, 2003 | - A Roman Catholic bishop in Canada warned that Jean Chrétien might burn in hell for legalizing gay marriage.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 15, 2003 | -
In Singapore the Roman Catholic Church suspended confessions because of the SARS epidemic and declared a “general absolution” of sins for the Easter season.
| |
| December 31, 2002 | -
The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston filed a motion to dismiss all sexual-abuse lawsuits pending against it on the grounds that the suits violate the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.
| |
| December 31, 2002 | -
People in Malawi beat up three Roman Catholic priests suspected of being vampires.
| |
| October 22, 2002 | -
The Vatican rejected the “zero tolerance” policy on pedophile priests crafted by American Catholic bishops because it does not conform to the laws of the Roman Catholic Church. Some of the American bishops said that they were relieved.
| |
| June 18, 2002 | -
The Roman Catholic diocese of Brooklyn denied John Gotti a public funeral mass because of concerns that crowds of onlookers “would take away from the decorum.” In Dallas, Texas, a council of Roman Catholic bishops decided to remove any priest from the ministry who has ever abused a child.
| |
| June 11, 2002 | -
Prominent American Roman Catholic officials criticized new proposals on sex abuse by a council of bishops because the new policy would allow bishops the discretion to give sexually abusive priests a second chance if they repent.
| |
| May 28, 2002 | -
J. Kendrick Williams, the Roman Catholic bishop of Lexington, Kentucky, removed himself from pastoral duties until the church completes an investigation of charges that he molested an altar boy.
| |
| May 28, 2002 | -
Pope John Paul II traveled to Bulgaria as part of his continuing mission to unify the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches.
| |
| May 28, 2002 | -
Archimandrite Sioniy, the rector of the Orthodox seminary in Sofia, proposed a solution to the ongoing Catholic pedophilia scandal: “If the Catholic priests could marry and have families, as we do, then perhaps the problem would not be so great.”
| |
| May 21, 2002 | -
Roman Catholic officials from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati declared that priests who molest postpubescent minors are “ephebophiles” not “pedophiles” and as such they are more amenable to treatment and can sometimes be returned to the ministry.
| |
| May 14, 2002 | -
Cardinal Bernard F. Law was deposed in Boston by lawyers for 86 people who say they were sexually molested by the Rev. John J. Geoghan, whom the Catholic Church moved from one parish to another even though he was a known pedophile. When Law was asked whether he was aware that Geoghan was a child molester when he was placed in the parish of one of the victims, Law replied: “I was aware that there was involvement because, because of the, of having removed him out of one parish and putting him between assignments before sending him back to another, and then necessitating a letter that would not have been necessary unless there had been a problem.”
| |
| April 23, 2002 | -
A Roman Catholic bishop in Germany was forced to resign because of accusations that he molested a woman during an exorcism.
| |
| April 9, 2002 | -
The Roman Catholic church agreed to pay $1.2 million to a woman in Los Angeles who was sexually abused by a priest when she was a teenager; in New York a priest was charged with raping a child.
| |
| March 26, 2002 | -
The Catholic Church in the Philippines was appealing to followers not to crucify themselves during Holy Week, pointing out that the popular practice of nailing oneself to a cross has become more a tourist attraction than a genuine act of penance.
| |
| March 26, 2002 | -
An Italian archbishop asked Roman Catholics to refrain from sending text messages for a day as a sacrifice to God, proposing that Good Friday be the “day of short messages abstinence.”
| |
| March 26, 2002 | -
Pope John Paul II, addressing a string of pedophilia scandals embroiling America's Roman Catholic priesthood, confirmed that the priests involved are sinners, and regretted that such criminal behavior casts a “dark shadow of suspicion” across the entire clergy.
| |
| March 26, 2002 | -
The Justice Department's “Operation Candyman” led to the arrests of 90 people, including two Roman Catholic
priests, on various charges relating to child pornography.
| |
| March 12, 2002 | -
The Roman Catholic bishop of Palm Beach, Florida, resigned after he was exposed as a child molester.
| |
| March 5, 2002 | -
Catholic pedophilia scandals were popping up all over Christendom.
| |
| January 15, 2002 | -
Protestants attacked little girls and their parents as they attempted to leave their Catholic school in Belfast; riots ensued, people threw fire and acid bombs, and a Catholic mailman was murdered.
| |
| September 11, 2001 | - After much hullabaloo, the delegates who remained at the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance agreed to condemn the old European slave trade and to express concern about the “plight of the Palestinians under foreign occupation.” After two days of throwing stones at Catholic schoolgirls who were on their way to school, Protestants in Belfast decided to throw a pipe bomb.
| |
| August 7, 2001 | - The Southern Africa
Catholic Bishops Conference condemned the use of condoms to prevent AIDS because using rubbers is sinful and dangerous.
| |
| June 12, 2001 | - Three Guatemalan military officers were sentenced to 30 years in prison for crushing the head of a Roman Catholic bishop in 1998, a few days after he issued a report blaming the military for the deaths of some 200,000 people.
| |
| May 29, 2001 | - The Museum of International Folk, part of the Museum of New Mexico, decided to leave an artwork on display that depicts Our Lady of Guadalupe wearing a rose-covered bikini; Roman Catholics were outraged.
| |
| May 1, 2001 | - After a construction worker at New York's Kennedy International Airport complained about a new mural to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the artist voluntarily painted a loincloth over the genitals of Jesus, who originally was depicted naked and crucified.
| |
| April 17, 2001 | - The Dutch legalized euthanasia; Germany's
Roman Catholic Church denounced the decision and warned against adopting a “culture of death.” China executed 89 people in one day.
| |
| April 3, 2001 | -
Catholics in Santa Fe, New Mexico, were upset about a photographic collage depicting the Blessed Virgin in a two-piece swimsuit made out of roses.
| |
| March 27, 2001 | - A new internal report alleged that Roman Catholic priests have been sexually abusing nuns in several countries, especially in Africa, where the notion that nuns are probably HIV-negative was apparently a contributing factor.
| |
| December 26, 2000 | - Many Roman Catholics were hoping that Pope John Paul II would use his absolute power in such matters to declare the Virgin Mary a co-redeemer with Jesus Christ; 6 million Catholics, including 550 bishops and 42 cardinals, have signed petitions beseeching the Pope to do so, which effectively would make the Virgin a god.
| |
| December 5, 2000 | - Exorcism was identified as a growth field for Roman Catholic priests.
| |
| October 24, 2000 | - The Most Reverend John Ward, Archbishop of Cardiff, was being urged to resign by other British
Catholic officials for having ordained a known pedophile who subsequently abused at least two young boys. The priest, Joseph Jordan, was also accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice by hiding a computer containing child
pornography from investigators.
| |
| October 3, 2000 | - A crazed Roman Catholic priest drove a car into an abortion clinic and proceeded to hack at the walls with an ax; he stopped after the owner of the building twice fired warning shots with his 12-gauge shotgun.
| |
| September 26, 2000 | - A British court ruled that a pair of Siamese twins must be separated even though the operation will be fatal for one of them; the parents, who are Roman Catholic, had refused on religious grounds to give permission for the operation.
| |
| September 26, 2000 | - The Vatican announced that on October 1, the anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China by Mao Tse-tung, the Pope will canonize 120 Chinese Catholics whom it considers martyrs; the Chinese foreign ministry said that this would “seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.” Several Chinese Protestant leaders insisted that China's Christians faced little persecution.
| |
| September 12, 2000 | - The Vatican proclaimed, not for the first time, that the Roman Catholic Church was the one true Church of Christ and that worshippers of false gods were in a “gravely deficient situation” with respect to their eternal souls.
| |
