French bishops kneel in penance over Church’s role in child sex abuse (The Guardian) Senior members of France’s Roman Catholic hierarchy knelt in a show of penance at the shrine of Lourdes on Saturday, a day after bishops accepted the church’s responsibility for decades of child abuse. But some of the survivors of the abuse – and lay members supporting them – said they were still waiting for details of compensation and of a comprehensive reform of the church…
French abuse report puts spotlight on confession (The New York Times) A devastating church-ordered report issued in October by an independent commission on sexual abuse inside the French Catholic Church found that the sacrament of confession itself, in rare instances, had been used to cover up abuse cases. Some victims wishing to report past abuses or expose active abusive priests were told to speak about it during confession, effectively suppressing their revelations and turning the sacrament into a “weapon of silence,” said Laëtitia Atlani-Duault, a member of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church, which wrote the report…
National Vocations Week and the problem of “dissatisfied” priests (Crux) A recent CARA study of over one thousand Catholics priests ordained between 2011 and 2018 was revealing. Of these recently ordained priests — the vast majority of whom entered seminary with the best intentions in the world and longing to give their lives in service of Christ and the Church — fully 1 in 5 reported being unsatisfied in their lives as priests..
Popular “Bible in a Year” podcast to launch Spanish edition (OSV) Ascension Press debuted the podcast last Jan. 2, and it has since generated 142 million downloads that account for 3.3 billion hours of listening worldwide, the company announced at a virtual news conference on Nov. 3. “Bible in a Year” looks to continue to build momentum in the coming year by launching a new Spanish-language version of the podcast with original commentary and a new native-Spanish speaking host on New Year’s Day…
Working to rescue Spain’s ancient pilgrimage route from mass tourism (The New York Times) Most pilgrims walk the Camino’s various routes through the mountains of northern Spain for several weeks before they receive a certificate of a journey completed. But Ms. García-Inés and Mr. Jato have wandered these hills for more than a year and have more radical plans: They want to critique nothing less than the way we travel today by bringing back the lost traditions of an ancient pilgrimage route…
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