Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 9/1/18

I was a Roman Catholic for 27 years, and after coming out of Catholicism and accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior in 1983, I’ve been an observer of the church on-and-off for the last thirty-five years and a very keen observer for the last four. In sixty-two years, I’ve never seen anything like the current crisis in the Catholic church with the mounting dissatisfaction among conservative Catholics with pope Francis amidst the revelations this summer of U.S. cardinal, Theodore McCarrick’s long history of pedophilia and sexual abuse, the 300 pedophile priest and cover-up tsunami in Pennsylvania, and, just this past week, the accusation from Catholic archbishop, Carlo Maria Vigano, that pope Francis covered up for McCarrick. Catholics’ faith in their religious institution is being shaken to the core. What’s next? Despite these extremely sordid scandals, the worst sin of the Catholic church is deceiving billions of lost souls with its false gospel of sacramental grace and merit.

• Pope keeps silent on accusation of abuse cover-up
• Vatican whistle-blower renews attacks on Pope Francis over disgraced cardinal as crisis in Catholic Church deepens
• Mark Thiessan: Pope Francis, corruption and what’s next – now I get how the Reformation happened
• Catholics now asked: ‘How can you be a Catholic?’
• The unbearable ugliness of the Catholic Church
• It’s becoming harder to explain why I’m still Catholic
• Priest abuse: Illinois, Florida, Missouri, New York also looking into Catholic church

No comments needed. The headlines say it all.

• Catholic priest beaten by man saying ‘this is for all the little kids’

I can understand the anger and frustration of people who have witnessed the news reports documenting an endless stream of abusive Catholic priests and the cover-up by the hierarchy for sixteen long years, and now, with these new revelations descending to unimaginable lows, but there is no justification for violence against individual priests who may not even be guilty of such crimes.

• Catholic conference hears appeal for Church to welcome gay people

Overshadowed by the scandalous headlines this past week was this story about progressive Jesuit priest, James Martin’s call to affirm practicing LBGTers within the church at the World Meeting of Families Catholic conference in Dublin, Ireland.

• 27 Catholic scholars ask Pope to stop German church giving Communion to Protestants

Also overshadowed was this initiative by conservative Catholics to protest pope Francis’ initial steps in the allowance of intercommunion with Protestants, something conservative Catholics thought they would never see and which contradicts dogma previously held to be infallible.