</s>Pope Francis has called on Chinese bishops to show respect and loyalty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party as faithful “members of the Chinese people.”

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published an article Sunday in Italian, English, and Chinese, saying that the pope has invited “all the Bishops to renew their total adherence to Christ and to the Church.”

At the same time, “as members of the Chinese people, they are obliged to show respect and loyalty to the civil authorities.”

The article stated that this is how the bishops are to understand the words of Jesus: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22:21).

The state-run Chinese newspaper, Global Times, called the statement the pontiff’s “latest goodwill gesture toward Beijing.”

Pope Francis “has called on seven Chinese bishops, whose pastoral duties were made public on Sunday, to show ‘respect and loyalty to civil authorities’ while adhering to their faith,” the article stated.

“The announcement shows that the Vatican is calling on all the clergy and the faithful, including those who regard themselves as from the ‘underground churches,’ to be in solidarity and to support the bishops’ pastoral duties,” said Wang Meixiu, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, according to the Global Times.

The former bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen, told Breitbart News in an interview last week that Catholics in China are suffering “huge confusion” because of the recent deal between the Vatican and the Communist Party of China (CPC), which yielded some authority to the government over the naming of Catholic bishops.

“The provisional agreement between the Holy See and the Chinese government is a secret deal,” the cardinal said, “and no one knows exactly what it specified.”

“Government officials are trying to pressure all Catholics to join the Patriotic Association,” Zen said, “but this has not been mandated by the Vatican. There has been no merger between the Catholic Patriotic Association and the underground church.”

Still, he said, “the communists are taking advantage of the confusion to try to force Catholics to join.”

“We need to study our history,” the cardinal said. “Why are there two Catholic communities in the first place? There was a reason. The Catholic Patriotic Association teaches against Catholic doctrine and this has not changed.”</s>ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis has sought to lower expectations from his big sex abuse prevention summit next month.

Francis told reporters returning from Panama on Sunday that he wants the Feb. 21-24 meeting to essentially be a catechism class for bishops about sex abuse. He said he wanted to sensitize church leaders around the globe to the pain of victims, instruct them how to investigate cases and develop general protocols for the entire hierarchy to use.

“Let me say that I’ve sensed somewhat inflated expectations,” he said. “We have to deflate the expectations to these three points, because the problem of abuse will continue. It’s a human problem.”

Francis’ lowering of expectations will likely not go over well in the United States, where rank-and-file Catholics are withholding donations and demanding accountability from their bishops after the hierarchy’s repeated failures to protect children were exposed again last year.

The crisis began in early 2018 when the Argentine pope strongly defended a Chilean bishop accused of cover-up. It intensified when a prominent U.S. ex-cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, was accused of sexually abusing minors and adults, and then reached crisis point when a grand jury in Pennsylvania detailed allegations of 70 years of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses in the state.

Francis himself was implicated in the McCarrick scandal when a former Vatican ambassador accused him of rehabilitating McCarrick from sanctions despite knowing of his penchant to sleep with seminarians. Francis, who removed McCarrick as a cardinal when the allegations of abusing a minor were lodged, is expected to soon decide whether to defrock him.

Francis in September summoned the presidents of bishops conferences for the summit after realizing that church leaders in some parts of the world still didn’t “get it.” In fact, more than 30 years after the scandal first erupted in Ireland and Australia and 20 years after it hit the U.S., bishops in many parts of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia either deny the problem exists in their regions or downplay it.

Just last year, for example, Italian bishops began developing protocols for handling cases and accompanying victims.

Expectations for the February summit grew in part because the head of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, claimed that the Vatican had cited the need to wait for the meeting’s outcome before adopting U.S. protocols to address the scandal last year. In fact, the Vatican blocked the U.S. vote on the protocols because the U.S. conference had withheld the legally problematic proposals from Vatican review until the last minute.

The U.S. bishops had wanted to create a reporting mechanism to hold themselves accountable that would have involved a lay-led commission receiving accusations when bishops themselves were accused of misconduct. An alternate proposal called for the accusations to be fielded by the metropolitan bishops who have regional responsibilities over other bishops.

Francis suggested that idea could figure into the general protocols under consideration, saying the protocols would discuss “what bishops, the metropolitans and the president of the conference must do.”

Francis entertained a wide range of questions during his 45-minute in-flight press conference. In addition to abuse he

— ruled out a blanket relaxation of priestly celibacy but expressed a willingness to consider letting older, married men serve as priests in remote communities where priests are in short supply. The proposal for so-called “viri probati” is expected to figure into debate at a big meeting of bishops later this year from the Amazon, where the faithful can go weeks or months without a Mass.

— called abortion a “terrible drama” that can only really be understood in the confessional. He said when he is hearing the confession of a woman who has had an abortion, he urges her to speak to her child, “sing him the lullabies you didn’t have a chance to sing to him.” ”Here you have a path of reconciliation of the mother with the child, and with God. God will forgive.”

— said schools should by all means provide sex education to children, but without imposing an ideology in the process. Francis has frequently lashed out at what he calls “ideological colonization” of students with school books and programs promoting gender theory, abortion and other teachings about sex that go against Catholic teaching.

— said he has refrained from picking sides in Venezuela’s political debate because he is pastor to all Venezuelans. Francis said if he followed other countries in endorsing one leader over another — “I would place myself in a role that I don’t know. It would be pastorally imprudent and I would do harm.” Francis on Sunday called for a “just and peaceful” solution to the crisis that respects human rights and avoids suffering. But he didn’t say if the Holy See would recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido in his claim for the presidency over Socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

Copyright © 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.</s>Pope Francis has for the first time publicly acknowledged that priests and bishops sexually abused nuns, the latest scandal to hit the Roman Catholic Church.

Speaking to reporters while returning home from the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, Francis said, "It's not that everyone does this, but there are some priests and also bishops who have done it."

"And I think that it's continuing because it's not like once you realise it that it stops. It continues. And for some time we've been working on it," he said.

The February issue of "Women Church World", a supplement distributed with the Vatican's Osservatore Romano newspaper, warned that nuns have been silent over abuse for decades for fear of retaliation.

It said the Vatican received reports of priests abusing nuns in Africa in the 1990s.

"If the Church continues to close its eyes to the scandal - made even worse by the fact that abuse of women brings about procreation and is therefore at the origin of forced abortions and children who aren't recognised by priests - the oppression of women in the Church will never change," editor Lucetta Scaraffia wrote.

Francis said the mistreatment of women is a problem in society at large, where women are still considered "second-class citizens."

"It's a cultural problem. I dare say that humanity hasn't matured," he said, adding that in some parts of the world, the mistreatment gets to the point of feminicide.

The issue hit the headlines last year after an Indian nun accused a bishop of repeatedly raping her in a case that triggered rare dissent within the country's Catholic Church.

Bishop Franco Mulakkal was arrested on September 21 in the southern state of Kerala on suspicion of raping the nun in question 13 times between 2014 and 2016.

Pope Francis suspended him the day before his arrest, appointing another bishop in his place.

Mulakkal, 53, who headed the diocese of Jalandhar in the northern state of Punjab, denied the allegations.

The nun first spoke out in June but police only started formal questioning in September, as fury over the case mounted.

Five nuns - in a rare public show of dissent within the Indian Church - and dozens of supporters staged days of protests.

Francis said Pope Benedict XVI had taken action against a France-based order after some of its religious sisters were reduced to "sexual slavery" at the hands of the priest who founded the order and other priests.

Francis credited Benedict, pope from 2005-2013, with having had the courage to tackle the problem, saying the popular impression that he was somehow weak was completely wrong.

He said Benedict took action against the French congregation "because a certain slavery of women had crept in, slavery to the point of sexual slavery on the part of clergy or the founder," he said.

"Sometimes the founder takes away, or empties the freedom of the sisters. It can come to this," Francis said.

The pope has summoned the heads of some 110 national Catholic bishops' conferences and dozens of experts and leaders of religious orders to the Vatican on February 21-24 for an extraordinary meeting on the sexual abuse crisis.

Victims of clerical sexual abuse are hoping that the meeting will finally come up with a clear policy to make bishops themselves accountable for the mishandling of abuse cases.</s>UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Pope Francis admitted Tuesday that priests and bishops in the Catholic church had sexually abused nuns.

"There are some priests and also bishops who have done it," the pontiff said in response to a journalist's question on the abuse of nuns, speaking on the return flight from his trip to the United Arab Emirates.</s>Vincenzo Pinto, AFP | Pope Francis speaks to reporters aboard a plane on his way to Abu Dhabi on February 3, 2019.

Pope Francis admitted Tuesday that priests and bishops in the Catholic Church had sexually abused nuns.

“There are some priests and also bishops who have done it,” the pontiff said in response to a journalist’s question on the abuse of nuns, speaking on the return flight from his trip to the United Arab Emirates.

The papal admission followed a rare outcry last week from the Vatican’s women’s magazine over the sexual abuse of nuns by priests and religious sisters feeling forced to have abortions or raise children not recognised by their fathers.

The issue hit the headlines last year after a nun accused an Indian bishop of repeatedly raping her in a case that triggered rare dissent within the country’s Catholic Church.

Francis said the problem could be found “anywhere” but was prevalent in “some new congregations and in some regions”.

“I think it’s still going on, because it’s not something that just goes away like that. On the contrary,” he added.

He said the Church has “suspended several clerics” and the Vatican has been “working (on the issue) for a long time”.

“I don’t want to hear it said that the Church has not got this problem, because it has.

“Must we do more? Yes! Do we want to? Yes!” he said.

The February issue of “Women Church World”, a supplement distributed with the Vatican’s Osservatore Romano newspaper, warned that nuns have been silent over abuse for decades for fear of retaliation.

It said the Vatican received reports of priests abusing nuns in Africa in the 1990s.

“If the Church continues to close its eyes to the scandal made even worse by the fact that abuse of women brings about procreation and is therefore at the origin of forced abortions and children who aren’t recognised by priests the oppression of women in the Church will never change,” editor Lucetta Scaraffia wrote.</s>On Tuesday, February 5th, Pope Francis offered his first public comments on what the Associated Press called a “global and pervasive” scandal that has quietly plagued the Roman Catholic Church for decades — the sexual abuse of nuns by bishops and priests. Last year, the Vatican refused to comment on an AP investigation which found allegations by religious sisters against Church clergy in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia were met with inaction by local Church leaders and the Vatican. However, according to the Washington Post, an article published last week by the Vatican’s women’s magazine, Women Church World, denounced the abuse as a “condition of the oppression of women,” who hold second-class status within Church hierarchy, saying nothing will change so long as the Vatican “continues to close its eyes.”

“It is true … there have been priests and even bishops who have done this,” Pope Francis said, according to Reuters, when asked about the article. “I think it is still going on because something does not stop just because you have become aware of it. … I can’t say ‘this does not happen in my house.’ It is true. Do we have to do more? Yes. Are we willing? Yes.”

While he acknowledged that the sexual abuse of nuns was an ongoing problem, Pope Francis claimed it was largely contained to “certain congregations, predominantly new ones,” and that the Church is “working on it.”

“It’s a path we’ve been on,” Francis said, noting that certain members of the clergy have been suspended. He went on to acknowledge his predecessor, Pope Benedict, for having “the courage to dissolve a female congregation which was at a certain level … slavery, even to the point of sexual slavery, on the part of clerics or the founder.”

Alessandro Gisotti of the Vatican press office told the New York Times that Pope Francis was referring to the Community of St Jean, which was based in France and dissolved in 2005. It wasn’t until eight years later, in 2013, the Community of St Jean disclosed that several women in the order had been treated “in ways that went against chastity” by Catholic priests.

According to Women Church World editor Lucetta Scaraffia, the scandal is “made even worse by the fact that abuse of women brings about procreation and is therefore at the origin of forced abortions” — particularly galling given the Catholic Church’s vehement opposition to abortion — “and children who aren’t recognized by priests.”

According to the AP and Women Church World, many of the victims feared retaliation against themselves and their orders if they reported the abuse – even after the Church was forced to publicly reckon with the ever-growing scandal of predatory priests sexually molesting children.

“The priests and even more, the bishops, have a huge power, not just over a single nun but over a whole congregation,” Scaraffia told the AP. “So if an abused nun goes to her superior general and says that she has been abused, she will be told ‘Keep quiet because if you don’t this bishop will turn against us.’”

The sisters who are now speaking out about the abuse, according to Scaraffia, have been empowered by the #MeToo reckoning and a growing movement of women within the Church demanding a greater distribution of power.</s>ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis has for the first time publicly acknowledged the scandal of priests and bishops sexually abusing nuns, and says he is committed to doing more to fight the problem.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Francis said: “Should we do something more? Yes. Is there the will? Yes. But it’s a path that we have already begun.”

Francis noted that Pope Benedict XVI had taken action against a French order after some of its religious sisters had been reduced to “sexual slavery” at the hands of priests or their founder.

The issue has come to the forefront amid the Catholic Church’s overall reckoning with the sexual abuse of minors and the #MeToo-inspired acknowledgement that adults can be victims of abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship.</s>ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) - Pope Francis has for the first time publicly acknowledged the scandal of priests and bishops sexually abusing nuns, and says he is committed to doing more to fight the problem.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Francis said: "Should we do something more? Yes. Is there the will? Yes. But it's a path that we have already begun."

Francis noted that Pope Benedict XVI had taken action against a French order after some of its religious sisters had been reduced to "sexual slavery" at the hands of priests or their founder.

The issue has come to the forefront amid the Catholic Church's overall reckoning with the sexual abuse of minors and the #MeToo-inspired acknowledgement that adults can be victims of abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship.

Pope Francis receives a gift from a journalist during his flight from Abu Dhabi to Rome, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019. Pope Francis has concluded his historic visit to the Arabian Peninsula with the first-ever papal Mass in the birthplace of Islam. (Luca Zennaro/Pool Photo via AP)</s>(VATICAN CITY) — The Vatican on Wednesday clarified comments by Pope Francis about a case of what he called “sexual slavery” within a French congregation of nuns, saying he was referring to an abuse of power that was reflected in instances of sexual abuse.

Francis cited the case when responding to a question about the sexual abuse of nuns by clergy during a press conference Tuesday returning home from the United Arab Emirates. It was the pope’s first-ever public acknowledgment of the problem of priests and bishops sexually abusing nuns. He stressed that the Vatican had been confronting the issue for some time and vowed to do more.

Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said Wednesday Francis “spoke of ‘sexual slavery’ to mean ‘manipulation’ or a type of abuse of power that is reflected in a sexual abuse.”

The Community of St. Jean admitted in 2013 that its late founder had behaved “in ways that went against chastity” with women in the order, according to the French Catholic newspaper La Croix. The Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI ultimately dissolved an offshoot of the congregation.

The issue has come to the fore amid the Catholic Church’s overall reckoning with the sexual abuse of minors and the #MeToo-inspired acknowledgement that adults can be victims of abuse whenever there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. In the past year, The Associated Press and other media have reported on cases of abused nuns in India, Africa, Europe and South America — evidence that the problem is by no means limited to a certain geographic area.

In November, the organization representing all the world’s female Catholic religious orders, the International Union of Superiors General, publicly denounced the “culture of silence and secrecy” that prevented nuns from speaking out and urged sisters to report abuse to their superiors and police. And just last week, the women’s magazine of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano identified the clerical culture of the all-powerful clergy as the culprit.

The magazine, “Women Church World,” noted that the scandal involves a corollary: nuns being forced to abort the priests’ children or bear children that the priests refuse to recognize.

Francis’ acknowledgement of the problem comes as he prepares to decide the fate of the disgraced American ex-cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, who is accused of abusing minors as well as adult seminarians.
Pope Francis makes a public statement acknowledging that some priests and bishops in the Catholic Church have been sexually abusing nuns.