Special Interest Glance
With controversy already surrounding Pope Benedict XVI's surprise retirement announcement from earlier this week, another scandal is brewing in Vatican City. Vatican officials have long maintained that no church money goes to funding war, but today they scrambled to address concerns over their newly appointed bank president, who has business ties to a warship builder.
The pope approved German lawyer Ernst von Freyberg to head the Vatican bank (officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion) today, according to a Reuters report. The appointment could be Benedict's last major decision before he retires at the end of the month, and Catholics are counting on von Freyberg to rehabilitate the tarnished image of a bank beset by last year's money laundering scandals. The bank has been without a president since Ettore Gotti Tedeschi's ouster in May 2012.
The Vatican's New Chief Banker Has Financial Ties to Warships
Documents of disgraced Legion of Christ released in RI
Documents related to a disgraced Roman Catholic order called the Legion of Christ were released to the public Friday amid a legal battle over an elderly widow's bequest of $60 million to the organization.
The Associated Press, The New York Times, the National Catholic Reporter and The Providence Journal sought to unseal the documents. A Superior Court judge agreed but gave the Legion time to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. The Rhode Island Supreme Court on Thursday declined to delay the documents' release.
When God Is Not Enough: Religious States Have Highest Rates of Anti-Depressant Use
They say that religion is the opiate of the masses, but it seems that the opiates of the religious are antidepressants.
A study released yesterday confirmed that Mississippi remains the most religious state in the Union, followed by a handful of its southern belt brothers: Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, as well as the Mormon stronghold of Utah. The Gallup poll showed that 58 percent of all Mississippians identify as “very religious.”
Israel foils fifth Palestinian bid to build West Bank tent village
Israeli soldiers and border guards Saturday removed tents Palestinians had set up in an area south of Hebron, in the south of the West Bank, to protest Israeli plans to take over the land.
The tent village named Canaan is the fifth that activists have set up in the last month on land they fear Israel intends to seize to build settlements. Israel has foiled each attempt.
Cardinal Mahony used cemetery money to pay sex abuse settlement
Pressed to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony turned to one group of Catholics whose faith could not be shaken: the dead.
Under his leadership in 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles quietly appropriated $115 million from a cemetery maintenance fund and used it to help pay a landmark settlement with molestation victims.
CIA operating drone base in Saudi Arabia, US media reveal
The US Central Intelligence Agency has been operating a secret airbase for unmanned drones in Saudi Arabia for the past two years.
The facility was established to hunt for members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen.
A drone flown from there was used in September 2011 to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who was alleged to be AQAP's external operations chief. US media have known of its existence since then, but have not reported it.
Priest files reveal disturbing stories of child molestation, coverup
More disturbing stories of priests' molestations of children -- and questionable actions by church leaders -- emerged in 12,000 pages of once-confidential personnel files.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles posted the documents on its website Thursday night, an hour after a Los Angeles judge ended 5-1/2 years of legal wrangling over the release of the files with an order compelling the church to make the documents public within three weeks.
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