A draft proposal outlining the Catholic Church’s response to child sexual abuse cases falls just short of the zero tolerance policy hoped for by victims and victim advocates. The proposal, which will be debated at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to be held in Dallas next week, recommends that every priest who sexually abuses […]
Voters in Switzerland approved the decriminalization of abortion in a pivotal decision that Swiss Justice Minister Ruth Metzler called a “historic victory for women.” In an effort to challenge a law passed by Swiss lawmakers last year, an anti-abortion coalition brought a referendum before voters Sunday. In a country where 44.1 percent of the population […]
A Roman Catholic priest from Illinois pled guilty this week to charges that he conspired to make and distribute gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also known as the “date-rape” drug. Rev. Jeffrey Windy allegedly had a chemical solvent used to make the drug delivered to St. Patrick’s Church in Sheffield, Illinois where he worked and then […]
A Roman Catholic priest from Illinois pled guilty this week to charges that he conspired to make and distribute gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also known as the “date-rape” drug. Rev. Jeffrey Windy allegedly had a chemical solvent used to make the drug delivered to St. Patrick’s Church in Sheffield, Illinois where he worked and then […]
Despite intense lobbying by the California Catholic Conference, the California Senate voted along party lines 22-11 to approve SB 1301, a bill that would allow nurses and other healthcare providers – who are already authorized to write prescriptions – to prescribe mifepristone, the early abortion pill. Currently, it is unlawful in California for a nurse […]
Commenting on child sex abuse in the Catholic Church, Reverend Gianfranco Ghirlanda, Dean of Canon Law Faculty at Pontificial Gregorian University in Rome, argued that bishops should not inform their parishioners if a priest has committed pedophilia because the priest “would be totally discredited in front of his parochial community and in fact would be […]
Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) has threatened to introduce an amendment to the emergency appropriations bill that would give the president discretion over how much, if any, of the $34 million appropriated to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will be released during the 2002 fiscal year. According to the Washington Times, the Republican leadership in […]
A survey of Pennsylvania hospital emergency departments shows that only one in three hospitals routinely offer emergency contraception (EC) to survivors of rape, and half of these hospitals have no standard procedure for counseling patients about EC. Moreover, at many hospitals, the provision of EC is entirely dependent on the will of individual physicians. Women […]
A diverse coalition of religious leaders and people of faith called on the Bush Administration Tuesday to release the $34 million in funding which he has withheld under pressure from anti-choice Congressional forces. The ad-hoc coalition of 136 leaders from 31 countries sent a letter to President Bush this week stating, “As a UN agency, […]
Cardinals from across the United States are set to meet at the Vatican this week to discuss pedophilia in the Roman Catholic Church. While the scandal has rocked the moral authority of the Church, Rev. Thomas Doyle, an Air Force chaplain formerly with the Vatican embassy in Washington, suggests that the motives for the meeting […]
Just one day after the High Court of Australia dismissed an appeal by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference calling for a ban on fertility treatments for lesbians and single women, Prime Minister John Howard announced that the government will consider amending the country’s Sex Discrimination Act to create a legal basis for the ban. According […]
The Vatican has called a summit of U.S. cardinals to discuss child sex abuse by members of the clergy. The meeting will focus solely on the pedophilia scandal in the U.S., and media speculate that the Vatican will attempt to create a U.S. national policy for addressing charges of sex abuse. The problem of pedophilia, […]
The Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania announced that it is transferring priest Bill Hausen to another parish after Hausen, in a homily delivered on Easter Sunday, called for women to be ordained and expressed anger at the Roman Catholic Church for the child sexual abuse scandal. “If that homily had not been delivered, he may not […]
Church records released under court order in Massachusetts show that the Archdiocese of Boston knew of allegations of pedophilia against priest Paul Shanley and had shared information about the allegations with the Vatican by 1979. There is no evidence, however, that the Vatican or the Archdiocese asked Shanley to leave his post as priest. As […]
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has been forced to cut new programs and staff because of under-funding experienced after the Bush Administration froze $34 million appropriated for UNFPA by Congress. According to UNFPA spokesperson Stirling Scruggs, the U.S. hold “could mean 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths, and 77,000 infant […]
Emergency rooms in Washington state hospitals will now be required to provide emergency contraception (EC) to victims of rape. The bill, which was signed into law last week by Washington governor Gary Locke (D), establishes a statewide protocol for treating rape survivors in hospital emergency rooms. At issue, however, are the state’s Catholic hospitals and […]
One of Ireland’s most well-known bishops, Bishop Brendan Comiskey, announced his resignation yesterday amid allegations that he protected a pedophile priest from prosecution. Comiskey’s announcement came on the eve of a documentary debut chronicling the story of the Father Sean Fortune, a priest who was accused of sexually abusing dozens of boys in the 1980’s […]
Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell of the diocese of Palm Beach, FL, submitted his resignation to Pope John Paul II yesterday, making him the highest-ranking church official to resign, amidst the discoveries in recent months of pedophilia and sexual abuse involving the Catholic Church. O’Connell admitted last week that he sexually abused a teenage seminary student […]
The Boston Archdiocese announced yesterday that it will pay 86 people who have filed claims of sexual abuse at the hands of the defrocked Boston priest, John J. Geoghan, up to $30 million. As part of the settlement, the archdiocese also agreed not to make the accusers sign confidentiality agreements, a practice that had been […]
Irish voters narrowly defeated a referendum that would have increased the prohibitions on when women in Ireland are permitted to seek an abortion. The confusingly worded referendum would have allowed woman to have an abortion if her life was at risk, but would have barred the threat of suicide as one of the possible life […]
