Salesian Leaders Deny Report
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 22 — Leaders for the Salesians of Don Bosco have denied reports they moved priests accused of sexual abuse from country to country to avoid legal repercussions.
In a statement posted on its website June 22, the order said it “categorically denies such behavior and condemns every kind of abuse of minors,” the Associated Press reported.
The Dallas Morning News reported June 20 it had conducted a yearlong investigation into the movement of priests even after the 2002 sex-abuse scandal broke in the Church. The newspaper said hundreds of priests were moved around and allowed to continue to minister in other countries.
Kerry Advisers Tell Him Not to Discuss Religion
, June 18 — Advisers to presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., are telling the candidate to “keep cool” on talking about religion.
The advice comes after Kerry received warnings by several bishops not to partake in Communion if he was still going to support policies contrary to Church teaching, the Washington Times reported. His campaign's new director of religious outreach also was criticized in mid-June for espousing left-wing causes.
“The mood now is to shut up about it,” said Jesuit Father Robert Drinan, who teaches at Georgetown University Law Center and serves as an adviser to the campaign on religious matters.
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights found that the religious outreach director, Mara Vanderslice, spoke at a rally co-sponsored by the homosexual group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power.
Not All Reagans Are for Embryonic Research
CAGLE.COM, June 21 — Not all of late president Ronald Reagan's family support embryonic stem-cell research.
Writing in a column on Cagle, a cartoonists’ news website, Reagan's son Michael noted that “the truth is that two members of the family have been longtime foes of this process of manufacturing human beings — my dad, Ronald Reagan, during his lifetime, and I.”
“The media should keep in mind that we are also members of the Reagan ‘family,’” Michael Reagan wrote June 21, the same day Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry vowed to lift federal restrictions on funding stem-cell research if he becomes president, “and my father, as I do, opposed the creation of human embryos for the sole purpose of using their stem cells as possible medical cures.”
Reagan went on to note that no embryonic research as of yet has led to a cure for Alzheimer's disease, from which his father suffered, yet progress had been made on adult and other, ethical stem-cell research.
Most Powerful Mel
, June 18 — Forbes magazine has listed Passion of the Christ director Mel Gibson as No. 1 on its annual compilation of the 100 most powerful celebrities in the world.
“Start with money. Add fame. Mix. We rank the relative star power of actors, athletes, singers and talking heads — how much they earn and how many people are paying attention,” the magazine said of its methodology for the list.
The magazine said Gibson made the top 10 in every category it measured: money ($210 million), press clippings (21,935), Web presence (2.09 million hits) and TV/radio presence (814 appearances).