Priests in Scotland 'Out of Control Sexually': Ex-Adviser

Alan Draper accuses Church of hiding sex crimes

More bad news for Catholics: A former child-abuse adviser for the Catholic Church in Scotland says its priests have been "out of control sexually" for decades, the Telegraph reports. Alan Draper, an ethics lecturer at Dundee University, says Church leaders were "unwilling" to reveal priests who led "double lives" as far back as the 1980s. "They were very reluctant to do that, and I felt that was totally inappropriate," he said. "The file should be made open to an independent group, preferably chaired by a judge."

But the Church in Scotland said only a "small" number of cases are logged each year and always get reported to the police. And Draper was removed "when others with greater competence were engaged," the Church added. The conflict comes only days after former Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Scotland's most powerful Catholic, resigned and admitted to sexual improprieties with male priests. More allegations have since arisen, and the BBC aired two-week-old footage of O'Brien laughing when asked about child-protection guidelines: "The whole world has changed almost in that length of time and certainly our attitude to child sexual abuse has changed," he said.

http://www.newser.com/story/164159/priests-in-scotland-out-of-control-sexually-ex-adviser.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=united&utm_campaign=rss_3_2

...if the priests had had the common sense to call up a provider. The priest could talk about turning water into wine, and the provider could demonstrate how you turn wine into spluge.

'The will of God is not entirely clear': Cardinal hints at tough task facing church




ROME — An American cardinal in Rome hinted Sunday at the difficulty of deciding who should be the next pope, saying the papal conclave was a time when “the will of God is not entirely clear.”

Chicago’s archbishop, Cardinal Francis George, asked for “help and prayers” as he and 114 other cardinals prepared to enter the papal conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.

“I ask you for your prayer to help the Holy Spirit to be present among us to open our hearts and our minds to what is the will of God  for his people throughout the world," he told reporters after saying mass at the local church assigned to him during his stay in Rome.

He added: "This is a momentous occasion, when perhaps the will of God isn't entirely clear to many of us."

Vatican observers say the choice is wider than it has been in modern memory, with no emerging consensus on who should be the next leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

George, 76, will enter the conclave on Tuesday afternoon along with fellow Americans including Cardinal Tim Dolan, Archbishop of New York and Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston.

In a sign of the speculation that a U.S. cardinal could be the next pope, there was a huge media presence at the Santa Maria della Vittoria where O’Malley appeared to bring star power to Sunday’s mass.

“My goodness, the church hasn't been this full in a long time,” joked one priest. “Did you see that?” whispered one nun to another as O’Malley swept into the church, blessing the congregation with holy water while television crews looked on.

“Let us pray that the holy spirit will give us the guidance to choose the next pope,” he said, before expressing gratitude to the congregation and gesturing to the church’s chief attraction – a Bernini sculpture, “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa,” which was featured in Dan Brown’s novel “Angels and Demons.”

But it was the media-savvy Dolan who had the best lines for reporters outside his assigned local church, Our Lady of Guadalupe in the blue-collar district of Monte Mario


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