Saturday, Dec 20th
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Special Interest Glance
The Catholic Church has never had a particularly easy relationship with science. After all, this is the institution that sentenced Galileo Galilei as a heretic for his theories on the universe during the Roman Inquisition.
Two thousand years later, the church forgave Galileo and called the whole misunderstanding a “tragic mutual incomprehension” but it remains safe to say the Vatican doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to empirical open-mindedness.
There are about a dozen holocaust museums in the United States. The largest is The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.. It is dedicated to “helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy.”
The first Catholic Church official to go on trial for allegedly covering up sexual abuse of children by predator priests was described by prosecutors Monday as more concerned with protecting the church than children.
Calling Lynn "the keeper of secrets," Coelho said: "The protection of children is the furthest thing from defendant Lynn’s mind.’’
In a landmark case, Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged with endangering children by protecting abusive priests and covering up the child rape and sexual abuse scandal that rocked the church. Lynn, 61, supervised priest assignments as secretary for clergy at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004.
The charge is only a misdemeanor, but if prosecutors are able to win a conviction against Kansas City Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Finn, they could be opening up a whole new front in the national priest abuse crisis.
Finn is accused of violating Missouri’s mandatory reporter law by failing to tell state officials about hundreds of images of suspected child pornography found on the computer of a priest in his diocese.
Two former employees of the world's largest Christian television channel Trinity Broadcasting Network are accusing the non-profit of spending $50 million of its funding on extravagant personal expenses.
Among purchases, the network founded by Televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch, is accused of misappropriating its 'charitable assets' toward a $50 million jet, 13 mansions and a $100,000-mobile home for Mrs Crouch's dogs.
Sexual abuse victims angrily accused the Vatican on Saturday of protecting a notorious Mexican priest for decades, and said they were dismayed that Pope Benedict XVI will not meet with them on his visit to the country.
Benedict has sat down with abuse victims in almost every country he has visited. But his spokesman said Mexican bishops did not request such an encounter here -- an omission that victims' advocates said was unconscionable.
The United States District Court judge, Amy Berman Jackson, said that the E.P.A.’s unilateral decision in January 2011 to rescind the waste disposal permit for the Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County, W.Va., exceeded the agency’s authority and violated federal law. She declared that the permit was now valid, paving the way for a mining project covering 2,278 acres to go forward.
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