News and commentary on Religion, especially Southern religion.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Saint Patrick's Day and the Catholic sex abuse scandal is on screen in Brazil

"St. Patrick must be weeping," Carol Marin writes for the Chicago Sun-Times today. "As we mark this day that bears his name, the sex abuse scandal that scarred the U.S. Catholic Church is shaking Ireland to the core."
Waves of scandal continue to sweep across Europe and have hit Pope Benedict XVI's former archdiocese in Germany. There "the archdiocese that was governed by Pope Benedict from 1977 to 1982 says a priest has been suspended 24 years after he was convicted of sexually abusing children. The German priest was allowed to continue working within the church in 1986 on the condition that he have no contact with minors - an order that he contravened," ABC News reported.
It came to Brazil on television. AFP reported:

The scandal - the first to erupt in Latin America since a wave of predator priest scandals hit several European Catholic churches - reportedly erupted last Thursday when local television in northeastern Araparica aired a video showing an 82-year-old prelate having sex with a 19-year-old youth.
The footage was secretly filmed in January 2009 by a 21-year-old man who charges [Monsignor Luiz Marques] Barbosa had abused him since age 12, the Associated Press reported. Other young men appeared in the televised report saying the had also been abused.
Three priests are involved.
"One was removed from his parish and faces charges in the civil justice system," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said, adding that the other two had been suspended from their duties pending an investigation.
Thus the scandal came to the country with the largest Catholic population in world. About 74 per cent of Brazil's 140 million people identify as Catholics.
The Roman Catholic Church's uncorrected practice of concealment says there is more to come.
What next?

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