Angelqueen.org

USCCB: Abortion Should Guide Voting Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:20 pm (GMT -5) Catholic Bishops Vote for Document Saying Abortion Should Guide Voting by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor November 14, 2007 Link to original Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The nation's Catholic bishops on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted for a new document saying that the abortion issue should guide the voting decisions Catholics make. While the Catholic Church recognizes that a variety of political issues are important, the bishops said pro-life issues take precedence. "The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many," the bishops said in the new document. Titled, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," the document does not tell Catholics which candidates to support but encourages Catholic voters to decide which candidates best promote Catholic views and side with the Church on pro-life topics. In addition to abortion, the bishops said euthanasia, assisted suicide, and embryonic stem cell research should form the panoply of pro-life issues that guide Catholic voters. At the same time, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who led the committee that drafted the document, said it is "a summary of Catholic teaching, not a voter's guide." "It calls us as bishops to help form consciences for political life, not tell people how to vote or whom to vote for or against," he added. The document also says that Catholics should put their pro-life values ahead of devotion to a particular political party and urges more Catholics to run for office. Instead, they should be focused on "the dignity of every human being and the protection of the weak and vulnerable." "As Catholics, we should be guided more by our moral convictions than by our attachment to a political party or interest group," the 47-page draft document reads. "When necessary, our participation should help transform the party to which we belong; we should not let the party transform us in such a way that we neglect or deny fundamental moral truths," it adds. Because the document is aimed towards faithful, churchgoing Catholics it does not address the issue of pro-abortion Catholic politicians who want to receive communion. That has been a contentious political issue and some leading bishops such as St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke have said they would not support giving the sacrament to pro-abortion politicians. It has become a custom that U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops release political guidelines for Catholics every four years in advance of presidential elections. Seven committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops crafted the new document and two-thirds of the bishops must support it for it to be ratified. They will also consider a shortened version that would be placed in church bulletins.

Vatican-Orthodox commission agrees on primacy of Pope Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 6:46 pm (GMT -5) canadianpress.google.com Vatican-Orthodox commission agrees on primacy of Pope; differ on significance 7 hours ago VATICAN CITY - A joint commission working to heal the 1,000-year split between the Catholic and Orthodox churches has agreed the Pope has primacy over all bishops but disagrees over just what that authority permits him to do. The Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue reached the agreement during talks last month in Ravenna, Italy, according to a document being published Thursday. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches were united until the Great Schism of 1054, which was precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the Pope. Tensions remain strained over Orthodox accusations that the Vatican is seeking converts on traditionally Orthodox territories, particularly in eastern Europe - allegations that Rome denies. Pope Benedict has said that uniting all Christians and healing the split is a "fundamental" priority of his pontificate. The theological commission said it agreed in Ravenna that Rome occupied the "first place" in canonical order of the ancient seats of bishops - including Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. The commission said it agreed "that the bishop of Rome was therefore the 'protos' (first in ancient Greek) among the patriarchs." "They disagree, however, on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as 'protos,"' the commission's document said. "While the fact of primacy at the universal level is accepted by both East and West, there are differences of understanding with regard to the manner in which it is to be exercised, and also with regard to its scriptural and theological foundations," the document continued. It said the role of the bishop of Rome - the Pope - in communion with other churches must be studied in greater depth. The Oct. 8-15 meeting in Ravenna was the second since the Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue resumed in 2006 after breaking off for six years. The meeting was marred at the start when delegates from the Russian Orthodox Church walked out over a territorial dispute with a rival Orthodox church. The Russian Orthodox representative who walked out, Bishop Ilarion, posted the commission's final document on his website ahead of the official release Thursday. The Vatican confirmed its authenticity. In his posting, Ilarion noted that the document was adopted without the presence of representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate at the meeting, casting doubt over whether it could be considered to reflect Moscow's view. "The Moscow Patriarchate will analyze the Ravenna document and present its conclusions in due course," the posting said _________________ http://www.geocities.com/demographic_crash

FSSP to Celebrate a Rorate Mass in Hanceville, Alabama Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 5:38 pm (GMT -5) Click Logo To Link Original FSSP to Celebrate a Rorate Mass in Hanceville, Alabama, Will be Televised by EWTN 11/13/2007 - PST FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MEDIA ADVISORY Catholic PRWire DENTON, NE (NOVEMBER 13, 2007) – The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) will celebrate a Solemn High Tridentine Mass at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama on Saturday, December 15, 2007 at 8:00AM EST. The "Rorate" Mass will be televised live by the EWTN Global Catholic Network. The "Rorate Mass," so called because it begins with the words "Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum..." (Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One...), is a votive Mass offered within the season of Advent in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Celebrated by candlelight, and traditionally held before dawn, this beautiful liturgy is esteemed particularly as part of the patrimony of the German-speaking peoples. Very Rev. Fr. John Berg, FSSP, the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity, will travel from the community's headquarters in Switzerland and will serve both as the celebrant and preacher. Priests and seminarians from Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, the FSSP's international seminary in North America, will also travel to Alabama to assist. Pilgrim groups are invited to attend this public Mass, to be offered in the extraordinary form, and should visit the Shrine's webpage (www.olamshrine.com) if information is needed regarding accommodation options. About the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP): Established in 1988 by Pope John Paul II, the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter is an international society of Catholic priests entrusted with the administration of the Catholic Church's ancient Latin liturgical traditions, trains priests in the extraordinary form of the Latin Roman Rite, and has over 120 seminarians preparing for the priesthood in the Fraternity's two seminaries in Bavaria, Germany and Denton, Nebraska. About EWTN Global Catholic Network: Founded by Mother Angelica, a Poor Clare nun, the Eternal Word Television Network is available in more than 140 million television households in 144 countries and territories. With its worldwide short-wave radio station, its direct broadcast satellite service, AM & FM radio network, website (www.ewtn.com) and publishing arm, EWTN is the largest religious media network in the world. _________________ IN CORDIBUS JESU ET MARIÆ SECRETMAN

New VP of USCCB--more of the same Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:56 pm (GMT -5) I am not encouraged by items on the new VP of the USCCB who is also in a bankrupt diocese and --well, read for yourself: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06061406.html Lay Catholics Go After Bishop For Support Of Pro-Abortion Politicians By Hilary White TUCSON, June 14, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a recent op ed in the Arizona Star, the Catholic bishop of Tucson – billed without his title only as Gerald F. Kicanas - listed hunger in Malawi and rebuilding New Orleans and "deep-seated problems of poverty, disease and malnutrition," in the list of works for which US foreign aid should be allotted. The bishop specifically singled out Republican Congressman, Jim Kolbe, who, he said, "has been a good and faithful advocate of assistance to lift up the poorest of the poor." This "good and faithful" Congressional advocate of the poor and downtrodden is also well liked by American abortion organizations. His voting record on abortion has been rated 100% by the National Abortion Rights Action League for his abortion advocacy, including in foreign aid. Kolbe has twice opposed banning partial-birth abortion and has voted in favour of human cloning for reproduction & medical research. He voted yes on allowing human embryonic stem cell research and no on making it a crime to harm a foetus during another crime. In May 2001, Kolbe voted against banning foreign aid funding for abortion and sterilization oriented "family planning". Bishop Gerald Kicanas is among that cadre of US bishops who is himself well liked in Democrat and liberal Catholic communities for his vocal support for left wing and "progressive" peace and justice issues. Kicanas wrote an article for the Jesuit magazine, America titled "Healing Through Bankruptcy" in which he said that the legal proceedings and judge-supervised "reorganization" his diocese had recently undergone had "purified" his local Church. The bankruptcy followed the numerous lawsuit payouts for cases of child molestation by homosexual priests of his diocese. "The Bishop's deafening silence vis-à-vis pro-choice politicians campaigning in locales under his canonical oversight is fuelling this developing scandal," says Kelly Copeland, Director of the Holy Family Society of Tucson No response was made by the diocese or the bishop when local politician, Richard Elias said at that meeting, "I think we also protect a woman's right to choose'; 'I'm Catholic and I'm pro-choice." Copeland asks, "Does the Bishop's tacit consent, and permission given to pro-choice politicians to speak, constitute support for abortion rights and politicians supporting them?" Bishop Kicanas was praised by the aggressively abortion-supporting Governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, for his "softer" approach to pro-abortion politicians using Catholic venues to publicize their positions. Read Matt C. Abbott on Bishop Kicanas and Tucson bankruptcy: http://renewamerica.us/columns/abbott/050429 ------------------------------ http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/184942 Tucson Region Bishop says gays welcomed at church Kicanas asks parishioners to help diocese reach out By Stephanie Innes Arizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.27.2007 Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas says he wants homosexual worshippers to know they are welcome in his Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson. Kicanas writes in this month's edition of The New Vision, the diocese's newspaper: "I am very sensitive to the concerns I have heard from people of same-sex orientation that they feel they have no place in our parishes or in the household of faith. "We need to consider how we as a diocese or how I as bishop may be generating such misunderstanding." Kicanas, who oversees 350,000 Catholics in nine counties and holds the high-ranking executive position of secretary to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is asking parishioners to help the diocese figure out how to better serve the gay and lesbian Catholic population. He said part of his impetus for reaching out was criticism he heard after he and Arizona's other two bishops publicly supported a proposed ban on gay marriage last year. Among the ideas he has heard in early discussions is having a parish where gay and lesbian Catholics could worship in an "accepting environment that would help them live faithfully as Catholics." "I will continue to explore ways that our diocese can make clear to our Catholic people the consistent teaching of the Church that 'the Good News of Jesus Christ is for all people,'" Kicanas wrote, "that each person is created by God out of love and is therefore deserving to be treated with respect and dignity, and that there are no gradations within God's family: All are his beloved daughters and sons." So far he said he's heard about 10 comments, generally thanking him for reflecting on the issue. "More needs to be done," Kicanas said in an interview Friday. "It's a difficult area. Obviously, programs are not as important as communication with people." Critics said Kicanas ostracized gays and lesbians earlier this year when he decided not to extend an invitation to retired Detroit bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton to speak about homosexuality as part of a program sponsored by the local lay Catholic group Call to Action. Call to Action members sent Kicanas a letter of protest signed by 129 people, including 14 nuns. All along, Kicanas maintained that the problem wasn't Gumbleton or the subject matter of his talk. Gumbleton wasn't welcomed by the local diocese because Call to Action promotes messages that go against church teaching, he said. The group holds forums exploring topics such as optional celibacy for priests and allowing women into the priesthood. And Kicanas said it wasn't so much the Gumbleton controversy that prompted his current article about homosexuality in The New Vision, but rather ongoing feedback from parishioners about the church's position on homosexuals and same-sex relationships. That feedback intensified last year when the state's three bishops publicly supported a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have banned gay marriage and also barred governments from giving benefits to employees' domestic partners. Kicanas said several people personally shared their concerns over the bishops' stance with him. Saying she is "pleasantly surprised" at Kicanas' efforts to reach out to the gay and lesbian community, Call to Action vice president Laurie Olson said she hopes Kicanas will continue the dialogue by speaking with the local GLBT — gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender — community, as well as with parents of GLBT children. "I am seeing the church doing the same thing on this as they do with women — they make decisions without ever discussing them with a woman," she said. Olson also wondered how Kicanas will be able to reconcile his outreach efforts with church teaching that gay sex acts are contrary to natural law and that gays and lesbians should remain chaste. The church says "homosexual inclinations" are "objectively disordered," a phrase it defines as "an inclination that predisposes one toward what is truly not good for the human person." Olson said she was reminded of a cartoon where a couple walks by a Catholic church and comments how nice it is that the church is reaching out to gays and lesbians. On the church is a banner that says, "Welcome inherently disordered persons!" Joel Fago, a retired Catholic who lives in Sierra Vista, is also concerned about how Kicanas is reconciling church teachings, which Fago says were missing from Kicanas' New Vision article. Fago understands same-sex relations to be "intrinsically evil," a phrase that has been used in some church documents. "The misunderstanding Bishop Kicanas is generating is in not stating the Catholic position on homosexuality. … How he is doing this is not in keeping with our faith," Fago said. "We do not hate the homosexuals. On the contrary, we do try to reach out to them and explain the Catholic position. But we do love the sinner, hate the sin." The issue has been discussed for many years, including during the tenure of the late Bishop Manuel D. Moreno, who was Tucson bishop between 1982 and 2003. In 1997 Moreno and other U.S. bishops issued a letter titled "Always Our Children" in support of gay and lesbian family members. "Bishop Moreno had a task force looking at the response to people of same-sex orientation but it was put on hold," Kicanas said. "I was in a quandary, really, about what might be a helpful way to move forward." Kicanas recently met with a group of priests and lay leaders to talk about last November's guidelines adopted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, titled "Ministry to Persons With a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care." The guidelines say that while having a homosexual orientation is not sinful, sexual activity between same-sex partners is morally wrong. And they say the church does not support same-sex marriage or the adoption of children by same-sex couple. But the document also says that people with homosexual inclinations "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity." The guidelines condemn all forms of violence, scorn and hatred, whether subtle or overt, against gays and lesbians. --------------------------------------- Communion not issue in diocese http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id= <http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&amp;story_id=070104_bishop_side> 070104_bishop_side <http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&amp;story_id=070104_bishop_side> Denial of the sacrament to a pro-choice Catholic has not occurred in Tucson parishes, Kicanas says. The decision is left to each bishop. SHERYL KORNMAN Tucson Citizen No one in a parish in the Diocese of Tucson has been denied communion because of his or her stance on abortion, Bishop Gerald Kicanas said yesterday. CBS news reported in February that Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis forbade John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, from taking communion while he campaigned in the area. Burke made that decision based on Kerry's stance on abortion and possibly stem cell research, according to CBS. A statement just approved by the nation's bishops, who met in Denver June 14-19, leaves the decision in the hands of the bishops, Kicanas said. "Every circumstance is different. Every individual is different," he said. "And there may be and can be situations where a bishop can deny communion to a Catholic politician or to someone else, for whatever reason." He plans to keep open dialogue with Catholic politicians and all politicians, he said. If someone is "misusing the church or portraying themselves in a way that is contrary to the church's teaching, that will have to be challenged," he said. The Document of the Faith issued in Rome does not offer sanctions for taking a stance in favor of legal abortion, the bishop said. But the document does talk about "a voting pattern which is contrary to life, and the need to challenge Catholic politicians who persistently and consistently vote in opposition to life issues." Kicanas plans to deal with the issue as it arises. "We believe the dignity and respect that is due all life is not a sectarian question. It's part of the natural law of what it means to be a human being," he said. "Any society that does not protect human life at all costs is a society that is moving in a way contrary to human life." ------------------------------------------------------- http://www.cwnews.com/offtherecord/offtherecord.cfm and waiting on deck,.... Posted by: Diogenes - Today 10:40 AM ET USA Let's get acquainted with the new vice-president of the US bishops' conference, since the odds are overwhelming that in another 3 years, he'll be elected president. Bishop Gerald Kicanas now heads the Tucson, Arizona diocese. But he's a native of Chicago: another product of the powerful archdiocese that has already produced 4 presidents of the US bishops' conference (Bernardin, May, Gregory, & George) in the past generation. But now he's in Tucson, and the Tucson diocese has just been through bankruptcy. You'd think that might be embarrassing to the USCCB, but then remember that the outgoing president, Bishop Skylstad, also presided over a bankrupt diocese. So where does Bishop Kicanas stand on the all-consuming issue of sexual abuse? The Chicago Sun-Times caught up with man who was once seminary rector there, to ask him a few questions about the case of Father Daniel McCormack. It turns out, you see, that Kicanas was aware of three different incidents involving sexual impropriety by McCormack prior to his ordination. Did he therefore blow the whistle, and hustle the young man out of the seminary? Guess again. "There was a sense that his activity was part of the developmental process and that he had learned from the experience," Kicanas said. "I was more concerned about his drinking. We sent him to counseling for that." Drinking can be a problem, certainly. Especially if it's not part of a developmental process. Just in case you've missed the headlines, McCormack is now in prison, serving a term for 5 counts of sexual molestation of young boys. But now, looking back from the post-Dallas perspective, surely Bishop Kicanas has second thoughts, right? Wrong. "I don't think there was anything I could have done differently," Kicanas said. They still don't get it.

Southern Poverty Law Center: SSPX is an anti-semitic group Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 2:06 pm (GMT -5) Radical Powerhouse (Link) The Society of St. Pius X, which has chapels and schools across the United States, remains a font of anti-Semitic propaganda. by Heidi Beirich The powerhouse organization of the radical traditionalist Catholic world is a sprawling international order called the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), founded by the late French archbishop, Marcel-François Lefebvre, in 1970. Although there have been recent attempts by the Vatican to pull SSPX back into the Catholic mainstream, the organization, all of whose priests were excommunicated in the late 1980s, has continued to publish anti-Semitic materials, flirt with Holocaust denial and reject any reconciliation with the Catholic Church. (Picture: Associated Press. French Archbishop Marcel-François Lefabvre, who founded the Society of St. Pius X in 1970, is the spiritual father of the radical traditionalist movement.) Lefebvre was always on the hard right. During World War II, he supported the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, a puppet government in the part of France not occupied by the Germans. He lamented the eventual liberation of the country, describing it as "the victory of Freemasonry against the Catholic order of Pétain. It was the invasion of the barbarians without faith or law!" Lefebvre later was on an advisory committee to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which enacted several liberalizing and modernizing reforms within the church. But the archbishop refused to sign the council's final reports on religious liberty and the modern church, the first sign of a rebellion that would only grow in later years. In 1970, he founded SSPX as a seminary in Ecône, Switzerland. In 1974, Lefebvre publicly denounced as heretical the Vatican II reforms and the subsequent adoption of the new Mass, celebrated in local languages instead of traditional Latin. As a result, Pope Paul VI ordered the archbishop to shut down his Swiss seminary. But Lefebvre refused to comply, leading the Vatican to suspend his right to perform priestly functions (a step short of excommunication) in 1976. In 1988, Lefebvre took his most radical step yet, consecrating four bishops in defiance of the Vatican. Pope John Paul II responded by excommunicating Lefebvre and all SSPX priests, and declaring SSPX in formal schism with the church. The following year, police arrested fugitive French war criminal Paul Touvier, who had been hidden for years by the order, at an SSPX monastery in Nice, France. Touvier was later convicted of ordering the execution of seven Jews in 1944. Also in 1989, one of Lefebvre's "bishops," Englishman Richard Williamson, gave a speech to a Canadian church in which he decried the alleged persecution of Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel by the Canadian government. Williams, then rector of SSPX's main North American seminary in Winona, Minn., told his audience: "There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies." The Canadian government reacted by banning all SSPX publications. In the course of his struggle with the Vatican, Lefebvre became a hero to many, emerging as the world's leading critic of church reforms ending the Latin Mass and reaching out to other religions. Already by the mid-1970s, priests ordained by the archbishop were starting chapels and seminaries in the United States. Today, SSPX's American operation, headquartered in Kansas City, Kan., claims 103 chapels and 25 schools, in addition to Kansas City-based Angelus Press. Scholar Michael Cuneo has estimated SSPX has up to 30,000 U. S. adherents. It is in The Angelus, published monthly by the SSPX press, and on SSPX's website, that the radical anti-Semitism of the order is most evident today. One example now on the website is a 1997 Angelus article by SSPX priests Michael Crowdy and Kenneth Novak that calls for locking Jews into ghettos because "Jews are known to kill Christians." It also blames Jews for the French Revolution, communism and capitalism; suggests a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy has destroyed the Catholic Church; and describes Judaism as "inimical to all nations." Another document reproduced on the SSPX's current website is a 1959 letter from Lefebvre's close friend, Bishop Gerald Sigaud, who also rejected the Vatican II reforms. "Money, the media, and international politics are for a large part in the hands of Jews," Bishop Sigaud wrote. "Those who have revealed the atomic secrets of the USA were … all Jews. The founders of communism were Jews." The Angelus Press sells anti-Semitic tomes like Hilaire Beloc's The Jews, which blames Jews for Bolshevism and corrupt financial practices, and Monsignor George Dillon's Freemasonry Unmasked, which purports to explain a centuries-old Judeo-Masonic plot to destroy the Catholic Church. More recent SSPX publications include the 2005 pamphlet Time Bombs of the Second Vatican Council, by Franz Schmidberger, the former superior general of the SSPX. Schmidberger denounces Third World immigration into Western countries as "destroying our national identity and, furthermore, the whole of Christianity," and accuses the Jews of deicide. Other extremists published in the pages of The Angelus (and carried on the SSPX's current website) include the late Father Denis Fahey; John Vennari, head of Catholic Family News (see profile, p. 29); and Robert Sungenis, the particularly virulent leader of Catholic Apologetics International (see profile, p. 28). Through it all, SSPX denies all allegations of anti-Semitism. But even some fellow radical traditionalists have accused SSPX of that and worse. Fidelity, a magazine run by hard-liner E. Michael Jones (see Culture Wars/Fidelity Press profile, p. 29), in 1992 charged a principal SSPX leader in Kansas City of Hitler worship and promoting Nazism to his students. Although the man accused by Fidelity hotly denied the charges, the students quoted by Jones stood by their allegations. In recent months, Pope Benedict XVI has extended an olive branch to SSPX members, inviting them to return to the church. But the sect's leaders rejected the suggestion outright. As a result, Benedict last September approved an institute for French priests who left the movement. The pope's move marked the effective end to efforts by the Vatican to bring the SSPX sect back into the Catholic fold. Intelligence Report Winter 2007 _________________ Cessent iurgia maligna, cessent lites.

"A critical witness" Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:48 am (GMT -5) "A critical witness" Orange diocese's lawyer defends bishop's decision to send former chancellor to Canada in midst of sex-abuse depositions California Catholic Daily November 14, 2007 [url]http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=5829366a- 834d-4550-8d93-5d4ba2671b99[/url] Bishop Tod Brown is "very respectful of the law, but he follows his own conscience… and he's going to do what he believes is right and not what is popular or which may get him off a hot spot," explained Diocese of Orange litigation counsel Peter M. Callahan in the November Orange County Catholic, the diocesan newspaper. Callahan was referring to Brown's decision to send former diocesan chancellor Msgr. John Urell for treatment in Canada at a time when, according to plaintiffs' lawyers, Urell could have given important testimony in a sexual abuse case against the diocese. Last July, Urell was deposed in a civil case involving allegations of sexual abuse by a former Mater Dei High School assistant coach. Disturbed by questions about his handling of sex-abuse complaints as chancellor, Urell walked out of his unfinished deposition, crying. Urell then checked into the Southdown Institute near Toronto, Canada. As chancellor, Urell took part in processing sexual abuse claims against clergy -- a task to which he responded "with compassion, sensitivity, and appropriate action," said Callahan. Urell, however, "had no legitimate involvement" in the Mater Dei case at all. In fact, said Callahan, as chancellor, Urell "had very little involvement in claims of wrongdoing involving lay personnel." When Urell became "distraught" during his deposition, "it was clear both to all of the lawyers involved and the retired judge who was sitting as a referee that he really had little practical knowledge about the facts in that case and was emotionally unable to continue," explained Callahan in the newspaper article. Everyone, including plaintiff's lawyers, agreed that the July deposition need not continue, said Callahan. They would rely instead on what Urell had said thus far and on four days of deposition had given in an earlier lawsuit, he told the diocesan paper. Urell's doctor informed Bishop Brown that the monsignor needed immediate evaluation of his emotional condition, said Callahan. Brown sent Urell to Southdown, which is "one of the foremost facilities in all of North America that specializes in evaluating and treating clergy -- and, most importantly, it had an immediate opening," Callahan told Orange County Catholic. "It was only when the plaintiff's lawyer learned that Monsignor Urell had gone to Canada for treatment that the priest suddenly became 'a critical witness.'" Callahan denied claims of the plaintiff's lawyer that Brown sent Urell to Canada to prevent him from testifying. The contempt of court charge subsequently leveled against Brown, said Callahan, is "'quasi criminal,' meaning that the punishment, should the judge choose to impose one, could include five days in jail or up to a $1,000 fine, or some other consequence." As for the lawsuit, and three others involving non-clergy that have been settled for $6.885 million, school and diocesan officials followed all appropriate procedures in reporting them, according to Callahan. Brown decided to settle the cases in consideration of "the personal emotional impact on parties and the witnesses as well as the financial cost of protracted litigation." He also looked to "the significant amount of erroneous and adverse press coverage that we had received, and the disruption the trial would have caused the high school," Callahan told the newspaper.

You are subscribed to email updates from Angelqueen.org To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner
Inbox too full? Subscribe to the feed version of Angelqueen.org in a feed reader.
If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: Angelqueen.org, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610