Catholics

Often considered the most popular entertainer of the 20th century--his extravagant performances set still-unchallenged attendance records--Liberace (dubbed "Mr. Showman" in tribute to his flashy theatricality) sued a London columnist in 1956 for implying he was gay. He won.

After months of controversy, the owner of St. John's Health Center said it plans to sell the landmark Santa Monica hospital to Catholic chain Providence Health & Services. The hospital has been at the center of an intense competition that featured bids from UCLA Health System, other Catholic hospital chains and Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. After weighing the offers, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System in Denver said Friday that it was entering exclusive negotiations with Providence, which owns St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank and four other Southern California hospitals.

Bill Donohue, the scourge of anti-Catholicism real and mostly imagined, has weighed in on the controversy over a statement by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo about the vile anti-Muslim film "Innocence of Muslims. " Not surprisingly, Donohue, the head of the Catholic League (not an arm of the church), took a line similar to Mitt Romney's. Donohue  wrote: "It is hardly surprising to learn that many young Muslim men in the Middle East react like barbarians when insulted by a movie, but it is rather incredible to learn of the way the Obama administration initially reacted to the release of the anti-Muslim film.

Re "A posthumous fall from grace," May 12 On the one hand, men like Cardinal Roger Mahony and the late Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes, who was accused posthumously of sex abuse, seemed to be just the men to act in the best interests of the Los Angeles archdiocese at a time of a rapid expansion of the Catholic population. On the other, they were unable to resist profound moral pitfalls while working to meet those needs. Mahony is trying to reinstate himself as a moral leader after having been exposed as a protector of sexual predators.

Re "Europe is slipping away from Vatican," March 11 What we Catholics need in Europe and elsewhere is not influence or dominance. Nor do we need the pomp and ceremony of the Vatican. We need a modest organization that shows the way with simplicity, integrity and transparency. Our great symbols are the cross, the sacraments and the Gospels of the Bible as preached everywhere. What we believe in most deeply has little to do with cardinals, the pope and splendid ceremonies. Give me the Mass said routinely, with quiet dignity, in my parish church by a priest who knows me, and who knows the power of prayer.

The Times reports a margin of error of 4% in the poll on Catholics. I think error is much greater. The Times states the poll includes in the Catholic statistics non-practicing Catholics. People who are baptized Catholics, but are "non-practicing" have willingly and deliberately rejected the beliefs of the Catholic faith and their opinions should not be included in the statistics to totally misrepresent Catholic opinion. Pope John Paul II did not just recently create the issues that he preaches about and all practicing and non-practicing Catholics know it!

Re "Mahony bans Holocaust denier," March 4 I admit that I, along with all Catholics, am in need of redemption. In fact, that is why I am a Catholic. Although I have never known any Catholics who have denied the Holocaust, I am not surprised to hear that they exist. However, I was never taught that believing in the Holocaust (as I do) was essential to being a Catholic. Is that in the creed? Cardinal Roger M. Mahony is absolutely within his rights in prohibiting Bishop Richard Williamson from acting as a priest or bishop in his archdiocese.

Most postmortems of the 2012 elections have focused on its implications for the future of the Republican Party, the rise of the Latino vote or the continued polarization of the country by party and region. But here's a takeaway you probably haven't encountered: Catholics are coming on strong. This is from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: “Catholics have seen the biggest gains among the 533 members [of Congress] who are scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 3. Catholics picked up seven seats, for a total of 163, raising their share to just over 30%. Protestants and Jews experienced the biggest declines in numerical terms.

Jimmy Clausen is best known these days as the Carolina Panthers' third-string quarterback -- in other words, we haven't heard much about him lately. Until recently, when the former Notre Dame quarterback tweeted a photo of a T-shirt touting the upcoming BCS championship game between the Fighting Irish and Alabama as "Catholics vs. Cousins. " It's a play on the classic Notre Dame vs. Miami matchup in 1988, dubbed "Catholics vs. Convicts. " In this case, the "cousins" would be the Crimson Tide because apparently everyone in Alabama is related.

In a major new study of post-baby boom Roman Catholics ages 20 to 39, researchers have found that 9 in 10 people who were confirmed as adolescents have kept the faith of their youth, and 3 in 4 said they could not imagine belonging to any other church. The findings, reported at the recent annual joint meeting of the Religious Research Assn.

KAMPALA, Uganda - He is a celebrity across eastern and central Africa, a gospel music star known to many as the "Dancing Priest. " But for years he also was a keeper of painful secrets - his own and many others'. In going public, Anthony Musaala has forced the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda to confront a problem it had insisted didn't exist. And he may stir a debate far beyond Africa's most Catholic of countries. The Ugandan priest has been suspended indefinitely by the archbishop of Kampala for exposing what he calls an open secret: Sex abuse in the Catholic Church is a problem in Africa as well as in Western Europe and North America.

Looks like the Boston Globe's yearlong investigation into the Catholic Church's coverup of its pedophile priests in Massachusetts will be turned into a feature film. Dreamworks Studios and Participant Media announced Tuesday that they have acquired the life rights to the Boston Globe's "Spotlight Team" of reporters and editors who spent a year interviewing victims and reviewing thousands of pages of documents, discovering years of coverup by Catholic Church leadership. Their reporting lead to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law and led to other unveilings of church coverups around the world.

An old friend,  a graduate of a Jesuit high school, called my attention to this story about the decision by McQuaid Jesuit High School in Brighton, N.Y. , to allow two gay  students to attend the  school's  Junior Ball as a couple. My  friend commented: "Of  course it's a Jesuit school. Humaneness is in the S.J. DNA.” But then  I learned from another friend that a school operated by the De La Salle Christians Brothers, who taught me, also allowed a male couple to attend a prom.  In both cases the reasoning was that the school doesn't presume that a couple who come to a prom together are engaging in sexual relations.

A Catholic group is speaking out against a new Broadway play by Irish novelist Colm Toibin that offers an alternative interpretation of the life of the Virgin Mary. "The Testament of Mary," starring Fiona Shaw, began preview performances this week at the Walter Kerr Theatre.  The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property published a lengthy statement on its website in which it called the play "blasphemous. " "The Irish writer gives free rein to his imagination when expressing his contempt for the Gospels, Christian tradition, and Mary Most Holy," the group wrote.

The two conferences growing out of the old Big East are moving forward. Butler, Creighton and Xavier will join the so-called Catholic 7 schools in the new basketball conference keeping the Big East name, a person familiar with the situation said Tuesday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement will not take place until Wednesday, when it will be made in conjunction with a news conference on the league's broadcast deal with Fox. Georgetown, St. John's, Villanova, Seton Hall, Providence, Marquette and DePaul left to form a new league for next season.

VATICAN CITY - Few people were more shocked at the choice of a Jesuit as pope than the Jesuits. There had never been a Jesuit pope before Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected last week, and he was the only Jesuit among the 115 cardinals who voted in the papal conclave. (The only other one, from Indonesia, was too ill to attend.) Pope Francis, who will be installed formally Tuesday before more than 100 heads of state and foreign delegations, including Vice President Joe Biden and what will undoubtedly be an adoring crowd, has already shown himself to be a different kind of pope.

Re "Argentina's 'dirty war' wounds still raw," March 15 That Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the person I now have to address as Pope Francis is a very disturbing proposition for a person like me who survived Argentina's 'dirty war.' I wasn't surprised when the cardinals chose someone who has the conservative views of his predecessor, but it is astonishing that they selected a man who at best remained silent when Argentina's military kidnapped, tortured...

Very few Argentines were on hand for the proceedings, for the white smoke followed by the traditional proclamation, Habemus papam - "We have a pope. " But on the other side of the world, the people of Buenos Aires erupted with jubilation when they learned that the new pontiff, Pope Francis, was Argentine. The celebration was more about national pride than religious pride, however. At the moment that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has become the face of Catholicism in the Southern Hemisphere and the world, his own country is becoming far less religious.