There’s a strange silence at the Vatican during Holy Week on the clergy sex abuse crisis as European bishops push for more transparency. Others are just ticked off. Meanwhile, the scandal is opening up old wounds in Boston. Filipino Catholics nailed themselves to crosses in an annual display that the Catholic Church frowns upon (left, AP photo).
Catholic priests, meanwhile, struggle with how to address (or not) the scandal. Jim Martin reminds the church not to shoot the (media) messenger, while others think the abuse scandal could overwhelm Benedict XVI’s legacy as pope. The Anglican bishop of London says racy “adverts” (gotta love that word) rob children of innocence in the same way predatory priests do.
The apple-cheeked nun in charge of the Vatican investigation of U.S. Catholic nuns has named 19 primary targets for the three-year probe, asking her hosts to receive investigators with grace, patience and courage.
The Times of London, meanwhile, takes a look at what’s involved in making millions and millions of hot cross buns for Easter. And the Salt Lake Tribune looks at what’s involved in all those meetings Mormons love to have (though not as many as they used to).
A Rhode Island man is accused of duping a group of Massachusetts nuns with a $3 million donation for a school that turned out to be fake. And actor John Malkovich is trying to recover $2.3 million from a fund managed by Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff; a trustee said he probably won’t see more than the $670,000 he deposited. A defiant Scott Roeder, convicted of killing Kansas abortionist George Tiller in the foyer of his church, was sentenced yesterday to life in prison; he’ll be eligible for parole in 50 years.
The National Association of Evangelicals‘ relief arm, World Relief, is under fire for a new policy that says it will only hire Christians. The EEOC is going after Lowe’s after a Baptist employee complained he was forced to work on Sundays. A federal court has ruled that Homeland Security officials violated the rights of a Texas evangelical ministry when they seized the group’s “$1 million” gospel tracts (the government doesn’t print $1 million notes, so it wasn’t forgery). Contractors have filed suits against the Crystal Cathedral, saying they’re owed $2 million in outstanding payments.
Muslim groups say travellers are having a hard time re-entering the United States when they return from overseas. The ACLU, meanwhile, is hoping to help protect Muslims from aggressive questioning by the FBI.
A Russian newspaper is reporting that one of the female suicide bombers in the Moscow subway attacks was a 17-year-old widow of an Islamic extremist who was killed last December. Spanish police scuffled with a group of Muslims who were trying to pray inside a Cordoba cathedral that was once the Great Mosque. A Muslim woman in Malaysia will perform community service instead of being caned six times for drinking beer. A Lebanese man charged with sorcery by Saudi officials was scheduled to be beheaded today.
