Priests

The monks of St. Michael's Abbey lead a cloistered life. Rising early, they gather at 5:45 a.m. to sing Gregorian chants in Latin. Later they eat a modest lunch in silence. And after evening prayers, the white-robed priests observe silence until bedtime. "It's an ancient thing," says Father Vincent Gilmore, the abbey's spiritual director who, like the other priests there, lives under a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. "We've come together to live a common religious life; it's countercultural.

GIVERNY, France - When James Priest is asked to strike a Claude Monet pose and stroll under the famous arched trellises lining the pathway of the painter's world-renowned garden, he becomes almost giddy, his excitement melting into a grin. "Compare me to Monet?" asks the 54-year-old gardener, standing between the lush strokes of yellow, pink and red tulips - nature's spring palette - that glow in the midday light in this preserved village 45 miles northwest of Paris. To Priest, no compliment could be higher, and, as he quickly insists with playful charm, undeserved: "Nobody can fill his shoes.

A scandal-weary Catholic cleric tells me he thinks twice about going out in public wearing the black collar. A disgusted Catholic university graduate calls to say he's short-arming the donation basket on Sunday at his Northridge parish, "because I refuse to pay the cost of silence." A ticked-off Catholic school teacher e-mails me this query: "If the Los Angeles Archdiocese can afford payouts of MILLIONS of dollars to people who've been sexually abused by priests, why can't they pay me a DECENT SALARY?

The first Catholic Church official to go on trial for allegedly covering up sexual abuse of children by predator priests was described by prosecutors Monday as more concerned with protecting the church than children. Prosecutors in Philadelphia told jurors in opening statements that Monsignor William J. Lynn, who was in charge of reviewing complaints about abusive priests, tried to save the church from scandal by covering up child sexual abuse. "You can't protect the church without keeping the allegations in the dark," said Assistant Dist.

The world may not end two years from now, despite Internet predictions and this week's blockbuster disaster movie, "2012." On screen, the final day in the 5,126-year Maya calendar brings global destruction, and Los Angeles slides inexorably into the sea. Here in the cradle of Maya civilization, however, shaman/priest Calixta Gabriel said Mother Earth -- Madre Tierra -- would suffer "hunger, wind and thunder," but rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated....

Father Louis Vitale has lost track of how many times he has been arrested. More than 200, he figures, maybe 300. The gaunt Franciscan friar figures he's spent a year and a half behind bars. At 76, he is ready to go to jail again. Last month, he appeared before a federal magistrate in Santa Barbara.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese knew for three decades about 1967 child abuse accusations against Father G. Neville Rucker, a retired priest living at Corpus Christi church in Pacific Palisades until his April 23 removal. Rucker was ordered to move from the Corpus Christi rectory and permanently leave the ministry as Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other prelates met last month at the Vatican to discuss the growing sex abuse crisis.

The first Catholic Church official to go on trial for allegedly covering up sexual abuse of children by predator priests was described by prosecutors Monday as more concerned with protecting the church than children. Prosecutors in Philadelphia told jurors in opening statements that Monsignor William J. Lynn, who was in charge of reviewing complaints about abusive priests, tried to save the church from scandal by covering up child sexual abuse. "You can't protect the church without keeping the allegations in the dark," said Assistant Dist.

A retired federal judge overseeing clergy sexual abuse cases involving the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said Thursday he was inclined to publicly release most priests' personnel files, but said the names of church officials who dealt with the claims of abuse should be kept from disclosure. "I've tried to balance the interests of everybody," Judge Dickran Tevrizian told a phalanx of attorneys during a hearing at a private mediation firm in downtown Los Angeles. "I don't want to have what is considered to be collateral damage to anyone other than the accused priests or former priests.

The church bells rang all afternoon. Archbishop Rafael Romo Muñoz was on his way to say a Mass marking the transfer of Father Raymundo Figueroa, the beloved priest at Santisimo Sacramento parish. Hundreds of men, women and children answered the call of the bells. But they weren't there to greet the bishop. They chained the gates and locked the doors. They hung signs. "This church belongs to the people; not the church," read one. When Romo stepped out of his SUV, 20 robed priests from the Tijuana diocese tried to form a procession, but burly men blocked their way. The archbishop tried to say a prayer, but the crowd drowned him out with bullhorns and bells.

Singing, strumming guitars and trying to shield themselves from a searing sun, tens of thousands of Mexican Catholics came together Saturday nearly 24 hours before an open-air Mass with Pope Benedict XVI. They walked miles and took up positions in Bicentennial Park, a short distance from a hilltop monument that honors the 1920s Cristero War by Catholic counter-revolutionaries. But as religious fervor was on display in Silao, in central Mexico's Guanajuato state, a sexual-abuse scandal involving a notorious Mexican priest threatened to cast a pall over the pope's first visit to the Spanish-speaking Americas.

No taco stand was too small for Juan Arturo Vargas, alias "The Rat. " Every week, Vargas would shake down the businesses in Nicolas Romero, a working-class town an hour outside the Mexican capital. His take: anywhere from $25 to several hundred dollars. His leverage: Pay up, or your kids will get hurt. The Rat, police and prosecutors say, worked at the low end of a vast spectrum of the fastest-growing nonlethal criminal enterprise in Mexico: extortion. From mom-and-pop businesses to mid-size construction projects to some of Mexico's wealthiest citizens, almost every segment of the economy and society has been subjected to extortion schemes, authorities and records indicate.

Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, who was accused by local prosecutors during his 15-year tenure as head of the Philadelphia archdiocese of ignoring sexual abuse of children by hundreds of priests, has died. He was 88. The Roman Catholic archdiocese announced that Bevilacqua died in his sleep Tuesday night in his apartment at a seminary in a Philadelphia suburb. Bevilacqua, known for his regular visits to all 302 parishes in the archdiocese and for his strong stands against racism and anti-Semitism, was also sharply critical of homosexuals and refused for several years to close Catholic churches and schools on the Rev. Martin Luther King's birthday.

For years, Msgr. Kevin McAuliffe lived something of a double life. He was widely admired by his flock at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, which he helped build into one of the largest Roman Catholic parishes in the Las Vegas area. But at the same time, he was stealing money from the church. Over nearly a decade, he pocketed about $650,000. His motive was all too familiar in Nevada. McAuliffe was a gambling addict. On Friday, U.S. District Judge James C. Mahan judge waved off the defense's request to give McAuliffe probation.

From humble beginnings in southwest Mexico, Gabino Zavala entered the priesthood and embarked on a remarkable journey that landed him squarely in the corner offices of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. An auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he oversaw the church's vast San Gabriel region, a diverse community considered vital to the future of the church. Then, from his pulpit, he became a forceful champion for social and economic justice. Popular and approachable, Zavala was widely known by his first name.

The first time I arrived in Patmos, I was actually leaving. At noon, I had boarded a ferry in Piraeus for a 12-hour sail to small, hilly Patmos, one of the Dodecanese, or Greek islands. I watched from the stern as we glided away from the Athens port city across a calm sea, dodging hulks of rusty and dismantled old wrecks. I would be working on a book and staying at the Monastery of St. John the Theologian, which would later become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On this voyage, I shared a cabin with a likable young Saudi named Shurief.

This is in response to the letter ("Jailings Criticized," Oct. 22) written by the 26 priests of the Escondido Deanery. If these priests read the paper, they should have known that these violators went to jail for violating the law. Free speech was not the issue. Violation of the law was the issue. There are other alternatives to getting your point across, and violating the law is not one of them. I'm sorry I disagree with the priests. They've got the wrong perspective. LORAN WON Oceanside

The underlying point of "Priests Divide Their Time" (Oct. 31) is that the scarcity of priests has led to the loss of service to the faithful. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has reverted to the status of the California missions of the 19th century. Not mentioned, however, is that the dearth of priests has also caused millions of the faithful to have "fallen away." The 4 million nominative Catholics in L.A. who may remain are not well served, just as the millions who have drifted away over the last three decades through the lack of priests to minister to them were not. Southern California has hundreds of priests who left the active priesthood to marry in the '60s and '70s who would be more than eager to return to the ministry they left as younger men, if they were invited.

Tens of thousands of Dutch children were sexually abused by priests and other Roman Catholic religious figures in the last 65 years, but church officials failed to take adequate action or report problems to police, an independent commission said Friday. Many of the victims spent part of their childhood in Catholic institutions such as schools and orphanages, where the risk of abuse was twice as high as in the general population, the commission said. But complaints were often ignored or covered up by authorities who were more intent on protecting the church's reputation than providing care for abuse victims.

You Will See Fire A Search for Justice in Kenya Christopher Goffard W.W. Norton: 317 pp., $27.95 The body of John Kaiser, an American Catholic priest, was found in a ditch outside the Kenyan market town of Naivasha on Aug. 24, 2000. A gunshot had blown off the back of Kaiser's head. He was 67, and for years he'd been a thorn in the side of Kenya's violent and corrupt ruling regime. A supposedly thorough FBI investigation concluded that Kaiser, with a history of manic depression, had killed himself.