Catholic Church

Only one religious order refused to join the $660-million settlement the Los Angeles Archdiocese reached with hundreds of sexual abuse victims last summer: the Salesian Society. Across the country, the Roman Catholic order of priests has aggressively fought legal culpability for mishandling predatory priests, victims' advocates say. They continue to fight accusations as a civil lawsuit heads to trial over alleged abuse in the 1960s at St. John Bosco High School, a Salesian school in Bellflower.

Most California schoolchildren learn the basic facts about the state's mission history in the fourth grade. Established from 1769 to 1823 by Franciscan monks from Spain to spread the Roman Catholic faith among the area's Native American population, the series of strategic-religious outposts spanned 650 miles of California coastline, from San Diego to Sonoma, providing Spain with a powerful presence on the Pacific frontier.

An evangelical pastor who backs John McCain tried to put his controversial remarks about the Catholic Church behind him, apologizing to the head of the Catholic League and expressing "deep regret for any comments Catholics found hurtful." Pastor John Hagee, who heads the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, said in a letter made public Tuesday that he now knew the terms he used to describe the church, such as "the great whore," were "rhetorical devices long employed in anti-Catholic literature."

Considering that they had come to hear a forbidden Roman Catholic speaker, the people at the UC San Diego faculty club didn't look like rebels. They were mostly older, conservative in dress, sedate in manner. At a reception before the speech Tuesday evening, as they sipped French roast coffee and nibbled cheese cubes, they professed their continuing love of the Catholic religion -- but also deep turmoil and anger about sexual abuse by priests.

They thought the years of painful legal battles were over. Instead, three men who received a combined $11.5 million as part of last year's historic settlement of clergy sex abuse cases involving the Los Angeles Archdiocese find themselves preparing to go to court once again. This time, Salvador Tenerelli and brothers Stephen and Michael Trerotola have filed a lawsuit alleging that they were defrauded by the financial brokers who invested their settlement money.

Pope Benedict XVI said at a Mass today that he was "deeply sorry" for the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy in Australia, describing the offenses as evil and a grave betrayal of trust. "I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country," Benedict said. "I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured.

Pope Benedict XVI chose this land of majestic natural beauty to condemn the squandering of the planet's resources. He used a gathering of tens of thousands of Catholic youths to warn against sterile materialism and the exploitative manipulation of mass media and the Internet. But, as in his spring visit to the United States, one theme loomed over Benedict's weeklong pilgrimage to Australia: the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.

Pope Benedict XVI ended his pilgrimage here today after meeting with two men and two women who were sexually abused as children by priests. The pontiff prayed and spoke with the four in the last hours of his nine-day visit to Australia for the Roman Catholic Church's global youth festival. The abuse scandal was a sour undertone to the trip for World Youth Day, which is supposed to be a celebration of faith that inspires a new generation.

An activist group hoping to pressure the Roman Catholic Church into dropping its prohibition barring women from the priesthood says it has ordained three women. The group known as Roman Catholic Womenpriests held the ceremony at the Church of the Covenant, a Protestant Church in Boston. The group said the three women -- Gloria Carpeneto of Baltimore, Judy Lee of Fort Myers, Fla., and Gabriella Velardi Ward of New York -- were responding to a call to serve the church. The Archdiocese of Boston issued a statement decrying the ceremony.

In the 1960s and '70s, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange picketed with farmworkers and marched with Cesar Chavez, even serving jail time for the cause. In the 1980s, the Catholic nuns rallied behind janitors trying to unionize. Long known as friends to labor, today the sisters are on the other side of the picket line, locked in a clash with a union that wants to organize at a chain of hospitals the nuns operate throughout California.