Celibacy is Not the Issue, Glendon Argues

THIS WEEK, Feb. 24 — A married priesthood is not the solution to the problem of priestly pedophilia, said Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon.

Glendon made the assertion during a debate with Boston College theology professor Thomas Groome on the Sunday morning ABC News program.

Glendon, a member of the Boston Archdiocese's Social Justice Commission, cited a study by Penn State historian Philip Jenkins that concluded that the incidence of pedophilia is at least as high and perhaps greater in other denominations with married clergy.

“If we look at the example of other churches that have opened the priesthood to women and married clergy, we see that their memberships have declined precipitously,” Glendon added.

She agreed with Groome that a solution must come from a “serious renewal,” including a renewal of seminaries, making them “places where young men would happily go and where parents would happily send their sons.”

“If we look at the Legionaries of Christ, for example ... their seminaries are overflowing, their vocations are flourishing,” Glendon said, referring to the order founded in 1941 and which publishes the Register.

Rabbi Stands Up for Pius XII

COLUMBIA, February —David Dalin, a rabbi and historian, called Pope Pius XII “the closest Jews had come to having a papal supporter” in an article reprinted in the Knights of Columbus magazine.

A new film, “Amen,” by Franco-Greek director Constantin Costa-Gavras accuses the late Pope with silence in the face of the Nazi holocaust. Dalin writes that many of the attacks on Pope Pius constitute “an abuse of the Holocaust that must be rejected.”

“More than any other 20th century leader, Pius fulfilled that Talmudic dictum,” Dalin said, that “whosoever preserves one life, it is accounted to him by Scripture as if he had preserved a whole world.”

Fetal Heart Surgery in Boston Offers Hope

THE NEW YORK TIMES, Feb. 25 — A boy born last November became the first baby in the United States to be cured prior to birth of a fatal heart condition, thanks to a pioneering fetal surgery technique, the New York daily reported.

The doctors, who performed the surgery at Children's Hospital in Boston, believe that by opening a pinched valve during the 23rd week of pregnancy, they prevented hypoplastic left heart syndrome.

The disease causes the left ventricle, the heart's main pumping chamber, to stop growing and becomes scarred and useless.

An estimated 600 to 1,400 children a year are born in the United States with the condition.

Faced with the prospect of three expensive heart operations soon after birth, with a 30% death rate, some couples simply let the children live as long as they can or opt for abortion, according to the Times.

The Boston doctors believed the fetal surgery might be successful if done soon after diagnosis, before the damage was irreversible.

Through a needle inserted in the mother's abdomen, they inserted the same kind of balloon used to dilate blocked arteries in adults.

The boy might need more procedures as he grows, but doctors expect him to grow up normally, with no restrictions.