CLERICAL SEXUAL ABUSE REACHES THE TOP BOOKENDS McCarrick and Pell – two Cardinals who climbed to the peak of power within the Catholic Church are now reaping the results of sexual abuse of minors and will live for the rest of their days in shame and humility. The 89-year-old McCarrick is in a friary …
Rock-star priests and dancing nuns, shimmering skyscrapers and stinking chemical toilets, juvenile prisoners with tattoos and rosaries and Vatican staffers in Panama hats…those are just a few of the things I experienced covering the Pope last week in Panama. I sat on a bus with photographers and camerapersons and tried to edit video while helmeted …
My brother Stephen and I, walking awkwardly on snowshoes, tramp across a large snow-covered field. At the end of the expanse of white are woods of snow-laden pine trees and, above it, the sky is turning pink, yellow and violet as the sun sets. Animal tracks interrupt the smooth surface of snow and we stop …
Dear Blog Readers – Last week I spent bouncing around Burkina Faso, most of the time in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle with seven people, a ram, several chickens and huge bags of peanuts. We shot over potholes, barely missing pigs wallowing in the mud, spent hours on vertebrae-crushing rural dirt roads with orange-colored dust caking itself …
Dear Blog Readers, I spent four days in Ireland last week for coverage of Pope Francis’ visit there and it was probably the most eye-opening trip I have ever taken with a Pope. I was shocked and appalled by the horrifying treatment of women and children by the Catholic Church in Ireland for decades. I …
Dear Blog Readers – I traveled to the southern Italian city of Bari this weekend to cover a summit called by Pope Francis with Orthodox Patriarchs and leaders of Eastern Christian churches to discuss peace in the Middle East and the persecution of Christians in that region. Bari, a port city that is roughly at …
Doves, Candles and Prayers for Mideast Peace in Bari Read More »
Dear Blog Readers – Italian Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, certainly one of the most extraordinary and awe-inspiring woman I have ever met, spoke to journalists from Rome’s Foreign Press Association this week about her experiences during nearly seven months in space from November 2014 to June 2015. Forty-year-old Cristoforetti—known to many as Astro-Samantha– gave birth to …
Dear Blog Readers – It has been a rocking and rolling week in Italy as the new populist government decided to take a tough stand on migration or “raise our voice” according to Italy’s new Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. The new policy is to block any ships that are not Italian from disembarking migrants in …