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Father Jerome "Jerry" Kaywell, a Grammy award-winning musician, had been placed on leave amid claims of sexual misconduct before his accuser apologized and said the accusations were based on a "false memory." / Credit: Jerry Kaywell YouTube pageCNA Staff, Mar 19, 2024 / 14:30 pm (CNA).A Grammy award-winning Florida priest has been cleared of allegations of sexual misconduct after his accuser recanted his claims and said the accusations had been the product of a "false memory."In a letter obtained by CNA, Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Florida, last week told parishioners of Sacred Heart Parish in Punta Gorda there was "no evidence to support" the allegations that Father Jerome Kaywell had committed sexual misconduct in 2013 and 2014. Dewane had informed parishioners in January that the diocese had "received notification from a law firm of an allegation of sexual misconduct" regarding Kaywell. The incident "allegedly occurred in the winter...
null / Addie Mena/CNACNA Staff, Mar 19, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The Supreme Court rejected without comment this week an Indiana Catholic husband and wife's petition over a dispute involving custody of their transgender-identifying son. Mary and Jeremy Cox refused to accept their son's self-declared female identity in 2019 and instead sought therapy to address what they saw as underlying mental health concerns. The government subsequently removed their son from their home, placing him in another home that "affirmed" his transgender beliefs. The state government eventually dropped its abuse allegations against the couple, though it ultimately refused to return him to their custody, claiming that the child had developed an eating disorder due to the dispute. Multiple court decisions upheld the state's order. The couple, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court last month. On Monday the Supreme Court decl...
The flag of Vatican City. / Andreas Duren/CNA.CNA Staff, Mar 19, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).Pope Francis has laicized an Ohio priest after the clergyman received a life sentence in prison for the sexual abuse of minors, the Diocese of Toledo said this week. Michael Zacharias, 57, was convicted on five counts of sex trafficking by a federal jury in the Northern District of Ohio last May. His crimes, committed between 1999 and 2020, involved three victims, two of whom were minors when Zacharias began abusing them.Upon his conviction, he faced a minimum of 15 years in prison. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in November that the then-priest received a life sentence for the crimes. In a press release on Monday, the Diocese of Toledo said that following Zacharias' convection, diocesan officials "had transmitted the case to the Holy See along with the request to the Holy Father to impose the penalty of direct dismissal from the clerical state.""The diocese was rece...
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Asked to reminisce about his life and where he was at key moments in history, the 87-year-old Pope Francis obliged, but also used the opportunity to talk about the lessons the events hold today and his hope for the future.The book, "Life: My Story Through History," written with Italian journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona, begins with Pope Francis explaining that while he was only 3 years old when World War II started, he remembers his parents talking about a "monster" -- Hitler -- and his family and neighbors sharing letters from relatives still in Europe."Even though it happened more than 80 years ago, we must never forget the moments that devastated the lives of so many innocent families," the pope said in the book."War eats you up inside," he said, before adding, "You see it in the eyes of young children who no longer have any joy in their hearts, only terror and tears." Since Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he has spoken often of meeting Ukra...
The Vatican on March 16, 2024, determined that nothing prevents the opening of the cause for canonization of Niña Ruiz-Abad, a 13-year-old girl who died in 1993 in the Philippines and whose grave has become a place of pilgrimage. / Credit: Diocese of Laoag/Public Domain via Wikimedia CommonsACI Prensa Staff, Mar 18, 2024 / 16:05 pm (CNA).The Vatican has determined that nothing prevents the opening of the cause for canonization of Niña Ruiz-Abad, a 13-year-old girl who died in 1993 in the Philippines and whose grave has become a place of pilgrimage.On March 16, the Vatican news agency Fides reported that the Vatican has granted the "nihil obstat" ("nothing stands in the way") for the cause of canonization to begin for Ruiz-Abad, who is now considered a "Servant of God," the first step toward sainthood. If the Filipina girl is declared a saint, she will be one of the youngest in history.The news was announced with a circular from the bishop of Laoag, Renato Mayugba, that was read...
Stephen Colbert and Pope Francis. / Credit: Montclair Film, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Vatican MediaWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 18, 2024 / 17:00 pm (CNA).The Catholic late-night talk show host and comedian Stephen Colbert is one of the narrators for the English audiobook version of Pope Francis' upcoming autobiography, which comes out on Tuesday, March 19.Francis' book, titled "Life: My Story Through History," documents the most significant moments of the pontiff's life from his childhood until the present day. The publisher, HarperCollins, lists "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" host, along with Franciscan Father John Quigley, as the narrators for the English-language audiobook version of the autobiography.The book discusses Francis' upbringing, his time in the seminary, and his service as a priest, bishop, and ultimately pope. It does not shy away from the controversial elements of his papacy but rather addresses his detractors and defends his efforts t...
Pope Francis on March 18, 2024, accepted the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Ramón Benito Ángeles Fernández of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. / Credit: Archdiocese of Santo DomingoACI Prensa Staff, Mar 18, 2024 / 17:30 pm (CNA).Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of an auxiliary bishop of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, Ramón Benito Ángeles Fernández, who turned 75 on March 17. In February the archdiocese denied that he was under investigation for the alleged abuse of a minor in 1994, as the Infovaticana website had reported."The Holy Father has accepted the resignation of the position of auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) presented by H.E. Ramón Benito Ángeles Fernández, titular bishop of Febiana," the Vatican Press Office reported March 18 without giving further details about Pope Francis' decision.The pontiff accepted the prelate's resignation just one day after his 75th birthday, the age at which bishops present their lette...
Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller, MSpS, of San Antonio. / Credit: Veronicamarkland, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 18, 2024 / 18:00 pm (CNA).San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller has restricted a local priest and a ministry known as the Mission of Divine Mercy (MDM) for disobedience and for spreading "false teachings," presented as prophecies, against Pope Francis. The apostolate and priest who was sanctioned, meanwhile, are defying the archbishop's disciplinary measures and have held at least one unsanctioned Mass. Garcia-Siller's disciplinary action follows MDM's publication of several messages on its website in which the group claimed "God the Father" told one of its members that the pope is a "usurper" and an "enemy of the Church." In response, García-Siller said in a March 15 statement that the group's "status as a Catholic apostolate of the Archdiocese of San Antonio has been suppressed and revoked by official decre...
Katie Mahoney, Rev. Pat Mahoney, Peggy Nienaber of Faith and Liberty, and Mark Lee Dickson of Right to Life East Texas pray in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 21, 2023, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesCNA Newsroom, Mar 18, 2024 / 12:55 pm (CNA).The U.S. bishops are calling for a nationwide prayer campaign ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court's hearing next week that could affect the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone.The court last year said it would review a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling decided in August 2023 that imposed restrictions on the abortion pill based on safety concerns. The Supreme Court's ultimate decision could curtail the shipping of the drug through the mail. The hearing is scheduled for March 26. In a letter this month, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) president Archbishop Timothy Broglio and USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities chairman Archbishop Michael Burbidge said they we...
null / Credit: Vadim Sadovski/ShutterstockACI Prensa Staff, Mar 18, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).Two priests and cosmologists from the Vatican Observatory have made further progress in developing a new mathematical method to understand the Big Bang theory, which describes the first moments of the universe.In a 2022 article published in the prestigious journal Physical Review D, Fathers Gabriele Gionti, SJ, and Matteo Galaverni introduced the new and promising mathematical tool. They have recently published a new article in the European Physical Journal C, a publication that presents novel research results in theoretical physics and experimental physics."It really is fascinating to try to understand the physical laws in the early moments of the universe. The search for new physical laws and the effort to fully understand them is a process that fills our minds and hearts with great joy," the priests said in a Vatican Observatory publication released March 14.The observatory's statement ...
