Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI sits in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 8, 2015. A long-awaited report on sexual abuse faulted his handling of four cases.
AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia
A German report accused retired Pope Benedict XVI of mishandling several cases of sexual abuse in the 1970s and 1980s. Here are a few of our related articles on the Catholic Church’s crisis.
Theodore McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington D.C., prays during the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2011.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File
In the Catholic understanding, priesthood is not simply a job that a someone can be fired from. Ordination is a deeply spiritual ceremony that is believed to transfer the power of the Holy Spirit.
A woman holds up a quilt with photos of people who say they were abused as children by priests, in San Diego, 2007.
AP Photo/Denis Poroy
There is rich Catholic heritage of resistance. Catholic protesters have used powerful religious symbols, including vials of their own blood, as an extension of Christ’s blood, to demand change.
Victims or their family members react to a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation that identified more than 1,000 child victims of clergy sexual abuse.
AP/Matt Rourke
In the wake of new revelations about clergy sex abuse and cover-up in Pennsylvania, civil lawsuits brought by abuse victims may be the only effective way to hold Catholic church officials accountable.
Debates over whether priests should break the confessional seal if they hear reports of abuse in confession are largely symbolic.
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Anthony Foster’s attention to detail and his clarity about the evil perpetrated in the systematic institutional abuse of children was often the object of media analysis.
How can a Pope not believe in God? Jude Law as Pius XIII in The Young Pope.
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