Escándalos (Continuación)

De la indignación al chapoteo

EspañaAspectos Generales,

Lo que era ilusión en los inicios de la Transición tuvo su particular ocaso, que se dio en llamar desencanto. La vibrante y limpia indignación del 15-M parece estar derivando hacia su específica y propia forma de ocaso, todavía pendiente de denominación. En ambos casos, fue el aterrizaje en la realidad, esto es, el acceso (o el regreso) al poder, el que terminó por generar en amplios sectores de la izquierda una intensa sensación de decepción, al ver incumplidas, cuando no traicionadas (recuérdese el caso de la OTAN con Felipe González recién llegado al Gobierno de la nación), buena parte de sus expectativas.…  Seguir leyendo »

Is the Catholic Church Beyond Redemption?

InternacionalIglesia Católica,

A few weekends ago, Naka Nathaniel stood up during a Mass in Atlanta and confronted his priest about the Roman Catholic Church’s response to the Pennsylvania sexual abuse cover-up. In an Op-Ed essay last week, Mr. Nathaniel wrote about balancing his already complex relationship with Catholicism with his role as a father raising a 9-year-old son in the Catholic faith. He concluded that the church can no longer be reformed from within. “I’m mad at the church administration”, he wrote. But, he added, “I’m also angry at the congregation. I’m upset with the people who aren’t demanding that every member of the clergy resign”.…  Seguir leyendo »

St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Pittsburgh Diocese. The diocese was rocked this month by revelations of abuse by priests. Credit Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

InternacionalIglesia Católica,

The Roman Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis blankets the globe in darkness. We are at a tipping point — or at least we ought to be.

The unmasking and resignation of the former archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, placed alongside the recent release of an exhaustive grand jury report in Pennsylvania that describes in withering detail more than 1,000 grotesque abuses, has reinforced the growing public sentiment in favor of eliminating the statutes of limitations for child sex abuse. Under current law, a vast majority of victims will receive no justice because of an arbitrary procedural deadline.

To pierce the darkness of clerical knowledge of child sex abuse and to obtain justice for the victims, we need to change the statutes of limitation for these crimes, but that is not enough.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pope Francis at the holy shrine in Knock, Ireland on Sunday. Credit Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

InternacionalIglesia Católica,

Pope Francis must resign. That conclusion is unavoidable if allegations contained in a letter written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò are true. Archbishop Viganò, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2016, says that Pope Francis knew Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had abused seminarians, but nonetheless lifted penalties imposed on Cardinal McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI.

No matter what Francis does now, the Catholic Church has been plunged into all-out civil war. On one side are the traditionalists, who insist that abuse can be prevented only by tighter adherence to church doctrine. On the other side are the liberals, who demand that the church cease condemning homosexual acts and allow gay priests to step out of the closet.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters against clerical sexual child abuse in Ireland, at a rally in Dublin on Sunday. Credit Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York Times

InternacionalIglesia CatólicaEuropaUnión Europea, ,

On Sunday, while the faithful gathered for mass with Pope Francis in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, a large group gathered in the city’s Garden of Remembrance at an event called Stand for Truth. The railings had been hung with dozens of tiny pairs of baby shoes.

Colm O’Gorman, who runs the Irish office of Amnesty International, organized the event. He told the crowd that he had been 13 years old, and deeply religious, when Pope John Paul II visited in 1979 — the last time a pope visited Ireland. “I was in a liturgical group,” he said. “The church was in every part of my life.…  Seguir leyendo »

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images Survivors and activists of Ending Clergy Abuse, a new international organization against the child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Geneva, Switzerland, June 7, 2018

InternacionalIglesia Católica,

The grand jury report of Catholic priests’ predations in Pennsylvania is enough to make one vomit. The terrifying fact that hundreds of priests were preying upon over a thousand victims in that state alone makes one shudder at the thought of how many hundreds and thousands of abusers there are elsewhere in the nation, elsewhere in the world. It is time to stop waiting for more reports to accumulate, hoping that something will finally be done about this. Done by whom? By “the church”? If “the church” is taken to mean the pope and bishops, nothing will come of nothing. They are as a body incapable of making sense of anything sexual.…  Seguir leyendo »

Terry Vine & J Patrick Lane/Blend Images, via Getty Images

InternacionalIglesia Católica,

Last Sunday, I did something that no properly raised Catholic ever does. I stood up in the middle of Mass and called out the priest.

As the priest began his homily, I drew my 9-year-old son closer and asked him to pay close attention. Days before, a Pennsylvania grand jury had released a damning report detailing decades of horrific child sex abuse by clergymen and a church culture that covered it up.

The priest addressed the report. He said he was surprised that people showed up for that day’s service. He said the church had to change. Then he began to move on.…  Seguir leyendo »

El papa Francisco durante una reunión con jóvenes en Roma, el 11 de agosto Credit Filippo Monteforte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

InternacionalIglesia Católica,  

La crisis por los abusos sexuales que cometió el clero católico ha recobrado la misma fuerza que llegó a tener en los peores días de 2002, cuando el tsunami del escándalo proveniente de Boston pareció inundar a toda la Iglesia.

Esta vez, las olas expansivas comenzaron a partir de acusaciones comprobadas sobre abusos en contra de niños cometidos por un muy conocido cardenal estadounidense, Theodore McCarrick, arzobispo retirado de Washington, quien tuvo que renunciar en julio al Colegio Cardenalicio. Después se dio a conocer el informe del gran jurado de Pensilvania, con detalles sobre más de setenta años de terribles abusos cometidos por unos trescientos sacerdotes, la mayoría de dichos abusos facilitados por obispos.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pope Francis arriving onstage to meet Italian youth at the Circo Massimo in Rome last week. Credit Filippo Monteforte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

InternacionalIglesia Católica,  

The Roman Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse crisis has come roaring back to life as if it were the worst days of 2002, when the scandal tsunami out of Boston seemed to inundate the entire church.

The shock waves this time came from substantiated allegations that a well-known cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, a retired archbishop of Washington, had molested boys; he was forced to resign last month from the College of Cardinals. Then came the grand jury report out of Pennsylvania detailing 70 years of horrific abuse by some 300 priests, too much of it facilitated by bishops.

It has all landed on the desk of the current pope, and the scandals have the potential to undermine the Francis pontificate.…  Seguir leyendo »

St. Paul Cathedral, the mother church of the Pittsburgh Diocese, which was one of the six Pennsylvania dioceses included in the state attorney general’s report. Credit Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

InternacionalIglesia Católica,

When I saw the name of the priest who molested me listed in the Pennsylvania grand jury’s report, I thought: I’m gonna be in big trouble. The abuse started when I was about 12 years old, so it’s not a surprise that the language that came to mind was straight out of that period of my life.

I scanned through the nearly 900 pages of the report that was released by the attorney general last week. It detailed abuse in six dioceses over 70 years, listing more than 300 abusive priests. The accounts were horrifying — young victims were given gold cross necklaces to signal to other predators that they were ‘optimal targets’ — and the documentation of what happened is surely a good thing.…  Seguir leyendo »

St. Joseph Catholic Church in Hanover, Pa. Credit Carlos Barria/Reuters

InternacionalIglesia Católica,

I often use a handy metaphor to explain to my students how feminists have historically differed among themselves in their approaches to bringing about change in patriarchal institutions. Some feminists seek a place at the table; others want to reset the table. The former hope to promote gradual progress from within an existing framework of norms and organizational structures; the latter demand nothing less than radical, wholesale reform.

When it comes to the Roman Catholic Church, I have always been a “place at the table” kind of feminist. When asked how to integrate women more fully into the life of the church, I offer reasonable strategies.…  Seguir leyendo »

What Must Survive a Corrupt Catholic Church

InternacionalIglesia Católica,

I have a Catholic friend who lives in an exceptionally bad diocese and who for years has been heaving rocks up mountains to keep his faith strong and his family in church. His resilience has amazed me. Yesterday, after a grand jury report revealed that bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years, my friend, a tough-guy lawyer, wrote to tell me that he wept in his office. He said, “I am at the end.”

Twelve years ago, so was I. My once-fervent Catholic faith had been eviscerated by my covering the scandal as a journalist.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden.Credit Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia, ,

We all love a prize, and a scandal, and a chance to shake our heads when the great and good fall into disgrace. So for the past few weeks, the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, has offered excellent entertainment.

Instead of wondering whether this year’s prize would finally go to Philip Roth, we instead had the excitement of asking whether it would be awarded at all. On Friday, we got the answer: The Academy will postpone the 2018 prize until next year. The real comedy, however, is that it has taken accusations of sexual abuse — directed not at a member of the academy, but at the husband of a member — to call the prize into question.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his finance minister, Taro Aso, over a land sale scandal, Tokyo, Japan, March 16, 2018. Carl Court/Getty Images

MundoAsia,

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, faces a tough two days of meetings when he arrives today in Mar-a-Lago to meet President Donald Trump. Abe has to persuade Trump not to neglect Japan’s interests in the planned summit meeting with Kim Jong-un of North Korea; some officials in Tokyo fear that the US might strike an agreement that would involve Kim’s giving up his long-range missiles while keeping those that can reach Japan. Abe also wants to obtain for Japan an exemption from Trump’s new steel and aluminum tariffs—but without being drawn into a bilateral trade deal to address what Trump perceives as Japan’s unjustified trade surplus with the US.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaSocial,

La primera consecuencia de la revolución democrática que marca los inicios del mundo contemporáneo fue la redistribución social del honor, que dejó de ser patrimonio de unos pocos para convertirse en el anhelo de otros muchos. La contrapartida de este legítimo deseo nivelador fue la eclosión de la calumnia y del abuso verbal como instrumentos de acción política. La denominada «opinión pública», que había servido para deslegitimar una estructura administrativa basada en la corrupción y la arbitrariedad, se convirtió en un instrumento de lucha de terribles consecuencias. La democratización del honor parecía conducir a una democratización de la venganza y la palabrería ligada a lo que algunos estudiosos han denominado «los crímenes de la palabra».…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

South Korea is in an uproar. Crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands have been surging through the streets of Seoul, the capital city. Some of the marchers are celebrating a ruling Friday by the Constitutional Court, which has upheld the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. Others who support the president have been angrily denouncing the court, leading to clashes with police that have resulted in the deaths of two protesters.

All of this turmoil is taking place against the backdrop of ominous gestures from North Korea, which fired off a salvo of four medium-range missiles in a test Monday. The distance traveled by the missiles would have enabled them to hit a U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

A rally in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday calling for the arrest of Park Geun-hye, who was removed from the presidency by the country’s Constitutional Court. Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

MundoAsia, ,

There was no hesitation, no ambiguity. On Friday, all eight judges on South Korea’s Constitutional Court voted to remove Park Geun-hye from the presidency.

The historic vote sent shivers down the spines of many South Koreans. Three months ago, the National Assembly impeached Ms. Park on charges of corruption, breach of trust and dereliction of duty. Ms. Park has denied the charges, but the justices disagreed, saying she abused her authority.

Ms. Park is now an ordinary citizen. Without presidential immunity, she will most likely face criminal charges. It is a rapid fall from grace for a woman who became the first female president of South Korea, and now the first president to be stripped legally of her position.…  Seguir leyendo »

The entrance to the site under investigation at the former Bons Secours home for unmarried mothers in Tuam, Ireland.

EuropaUnión Europea, ,

The dead babies scandal in Ireland has taken a new turn, as investigators have confirmed that significant quantities of human remains in two underground structures, one a decommissioned septic tank. A sampling of the remains suggested that they were from human infants, ranging from foetuses at approximately 35 weeks of development to children 3 years old. These remains seem to date from the 1925 to 1961 period when a Catholic order of nuns, the Bon Secour sisters, ran a home for unmarried mothers on the premises.

Early reports suggested a mass grave for 800 babies

When this scandal first broke in 2014, much reportage, including two stories published by The Washington Post claimed that the bodies of 800 babies had been discovered in a disused septic tank.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

Martin McGuinness has resigned as deputy first minister of Northern Ireland. In doing so he has also, effectively, sacked the first minister, Arlene Foster – for under the Good Friday agreement, neither post is filled without the other. What shocked reporters even more than the announcement yesterday afternoon, though, was the apparent sharp deterioration in McGuinness’s health; yet he was adamant that this did not feature in his decision, despite speculation he is suffering from a heart condition.

To underline the point that the political context has radically changed, he said that the party would not appoint a successor but would trigger an election.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, and, until Monday, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, has resigned, forcing elections in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
It is only eight months since the previous election when his party, Sinn Fein, came second to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose leader, Arlene Foster, became First Minister. Because of McGuinness's decision and the power sharing nature of the Assembly, she also loses her post.

This dramatic event will cause concern for many due to the fragile political situation in Northern Ireland, where the two parties share power, despite having bitterly opposing politics steeped in the country's history of sectarian violence.…  Seguir leyendo »