The Christian Century

Vatican critic Hans Küng has warned against “condemning the church and its priests wholesale” for the current spate of sexual abuse allegations. “It would be a bad generalization to place the whole clergy and Catholic Church under suspicion,” the Roman Catholic priest said in an interview with the European, a Berlin-based online news service.

The drumbeat of news about clergy sexual abuse began in Ireland last year. This year, the stories spread—to Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Norway. The drumbeat got louder.

E-mails across the ocean continued to pour into the Chicago and St. Louis offices of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). By March, SNAP decided to respond.

The leader of the global Anglican Communion has been forced to apologize for claiming that the Catholic Church in Ireland had lost “all credibility” over the clerical child abuse scandal.

“This an epic moment in the life of the church,” exuded Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, the most populous U.S. Catholic archdiocese. The prelate was speaking of his projected successor to lead 4.18 million Catholics in heavily Hispanic southern California.

About 2,000 Canadian members of a breakaway Anglican group and a small group of U.S. Anglican dissidents said in March that they have accepted the offer made by Pope Benedict XVI last October that permits disaffected congregations to defect to Rome while keeping many Anglican traditions, including married priests.

American victims of clerical sexual abuse protested at the Vatican after a New York Times article detailed letters and documents suggesting that Pope Benedict XVI, before becoming pope, personally mishandled the case of a Wisconsin priest who molested up to 200 deaf boys more than 35 years ago.

The archdiocese of Washington’s social service branch will stop offering benefits to spouses of new employees in a bid to balance the District of Columbia’s new same-sex marriage law with Catholic opposition to homosexuality.

A group of “traditional Anglicans” in Australia has voted to accept the invitation of Pope Benedict XVI to convert to full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, while retaining their membership in the Anglican Church.

The New Jersey state senate has voted down a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, prompting a promise from gay-rights advocates to take their campaign to the courts. The final tally on January 7 was 20–14 with three abstentions. It reflected a dramatic shift in the state’s political landscape since gay-marriage supporter Gov.