WORLD
January 22, 2010 | By Joe Mozingo
The night was filled with voices, murmuring then gathering together then rising into hymns and chants that carried far in the balmy air. This was the time for God and for spirits. On a road next to the central cemetery, residents of a small slum were lying on mattresses and pieces of cardboard set out on the broken pavement. A woman started to hum a Christian song, and soon rallied a chorus, singing and dancing and clapping for rhythm. " K em kontan Jesus renmem, aleluya ," they sang -- joyously, not mournfully.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 31, 2009 | By Ruben Vives
Anthony Martinez Garduno, a 51-year-old church leader who was shot three months ago during a burglary attempt at his church in Home Gardens, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of selling drugs from his church, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said. Authorities say that on Dec. 21, deputies from the Jurupa Valley Station responded to a call of an alleged sexual assault at Our Lady of Tepeyac church in the 13400 block of Magnolia Avenue in Home Gardens, an unincorporated area of Riverside County.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 24, 2009 | By Richard Winton and Victoria Kim
The former vicar of clergy for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles testified under a grant of immunity last week before a federal grand jury investigating the church's role in sexual abuse by priests, according to a person familiar with the matter. Msgr. Richard Loomis, whose responsibilities as a high-ranking aide to Cardinal Roger Mahony included overseeing sexual-abuse cases against fellow priests, testified Dec. 16 under "use immunity," meaning his testimony cannot be used against him in a criminal prosecution, said the source, who asked not to be named because grand juries are confidential.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 21, 2009 | By Richard Marosi
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.
WORLD
November 27, 2009 | By Janet Stobart
Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Dublin engaged in a widespread cover-up of abuses by clergy members for decades, a "scandal on an astonishing scale" that even saw officials taking out insurance policies to protect dioceses against future claims by the victims, a commission reported Thursday after a three-year investigation. The commission, which investigated how the church and state agencies handled three decades of endemic child abuse by priests in the Irish capital, also criticized police and social and health authorities who, with a few exceptions, it said, ignored complaints or simply referred allegations back to the church hierarchy.
OPINION
November 13, 2009 | By Mary Jo McConahay
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....
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 24, 2009 | By Carla Rivera
Members of a support group for victims of alleged clergy abuse distributed leaflets in front of St. Columbkille Catholic Church in South Los Angeles on Sunday, urging parishioners and church employees who have information about sex crimes to speak out. St. Columbkille is the former parish of defrocked priest Michael Stephen Baker, who in 2007 was sent to prison for sexually abusing two boys, and who authorities have identified as a prolific child...
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 21, 2009 | By Elaine Woo
Father Eleutherius Winance, a longtime Claremont Graduate University philosophy professor and the last of the founding monks of St. Andrew's Abbey in Valyermo, has died. He was 100. Winance, an exceptionally vigorous centenarian, died Saturday at Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster after a heart attack, said Father Damien Toilolo, the prior administrator of St. Andrew's. Winance had maintained a full schedule of prayer, study and preaching -- including celebrating Mass at a juvenile hall and a convalescent home -- in the week preceding his death.
NATIONAL
July 3, 2009 | By P.J. Huffstutter
In a small room above the crowds of Terminal 2, the Rev. Michael G. Zaniolo prepared to deliver his airport version of Mass. In other churches it can take an hour or more. But as an American Airlines pilot strode into the chapel with his luggage, Zaniolo was ready to deliver it a bit quicker -- 30 minutes or less. His homily, a thoughtful sermon with messages of hope, was whittled to 1 minute, 46 seconds. "People have to rock and roll," said Zaniolo, a 50-year-old Catholic priest.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 9, 2009 | By Richard C. Paddock
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.