1. Australian Leader Tells Pope to Fire Archbishop Guilty of Hiding Child Sex Abuse, Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has resisted pressure to resign since a judge sentenced him to home detention.
By Rob Taylor and Francis X. Rocca, The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2018, 5:54 AM
Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has appealed to Pope Francis to fire a Catholic archbishop found guilty of concealing child sexual abuse, in an unusual intervention in the church’s oversight of his case.
Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson, one the most senior Catholic Church officials in the world to be convicted of the crime, has resisted pressure from an array of Australian lawmakers and community groups to resign since a judge sentenced him this month to home detention over the conviction.
2. US bishops conference approves project funding for Africa, Eastern Europe.
By Catholic News Agency, July 19, 2018, 12:28 AM
Subcommittees at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have approved more than $6 million for pastoral projects in Africa and Central and Eastern Europe.
The grants partner with local bishops’ conferences and Church organizations in dozens of countries to respond to specific needs within the communities.
“The Catholics of the United States show that we stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Africa and recognize their courageous commitment to peace, justice, reconciliation, and Christian hope throughout the continent,” said Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, who chairs the Subcommittee on the Church in Africa.
3. Chile’s two cardinals become focus of clerical abuse investigation.
By Inés San Martín, Crux, July 19, 2018
Pope’s Francis’s recent about-face on Chile’s clerical sexual abuse crisis, pivoting from strongly defending a bishop accused of cover-up to ordering investigations and summoning bishops to Rome to read them the riot act, appears to have been read as a green light to investigate by Chile’s civilian authorities, who in recent months have conducted multiple raids in several dioceses looking for evidence.
Perhaps fueling those efforts has been Francis’s telling the country’s bishops in May that he had been informed of various crimes surrounding clerical sexual abuse, prominently including the destruction of evidence.
The latest target of regional prosecutor Emiliano Arias is Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, 76, the Archbishop of Santiago. Ezzati first presented his resignation to Francis when he turned 75 and did so again on May 17, together with all of the Chilean bishops.
To date, that resignation hasn’t been accepted.
Ezzati, as well as his predecessor, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, who currently sits on a council of nine cardinals who advise the pope on Vatican reform, is accused of covering up abuse, and Arias is currently seeking evidence to back the allegations.
Beyond raiding the archdiocesan archives twice, Crux has been able to confirm the prosecutor is currently conducting interviews with potential witnesses in Santiago.
Speaking with Radio T13 on Tuesday, Arias said that the case of Santiago’s ex-chancellor, Father Oscar Muñoz, and reports of a pedophile ring in the diocese of Rancagua, could be seen “as a crime of cover-up” by Ezzati.
“The cover-up appears after the crime is committed, and the hypothesis that is being investigated is if the criminals have regularly been favored,” Arias said.
4. Vatican-OK’d journal strikes out again at US evangelicals.
By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, July 18, 2018, 2:19 PM
A Vatican-approved journal has dismissed “prosperity gospel” as a pseudo theology dangerously tied up with the American Dream and President Donald Trump’s politics, launching its second major critique of American evangelicals in as many years.
Two of Pope Francis’ top communications advisers — an Italian Jesuit and an Argentine Protestant pastor — penned “The Prosperity Gospel: Dangerous and Different” for the current issue of the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, published Wednesday.
In the article, the authors note that the “prosperity gospel” and its belief that God wants his followers to be wealthy and healthy has spread throughout the world, particularly in Latin America and Asia, thanks to its charismatic proponents’ effective use of TV and media.
But they point to its origins in the U.S. and its underpinning of the American Dream, and say its vision of faith is in direct contrast to true Christian teaching and Pope Francis’ emphasis on the poor, social justice and salvation.
