INQUIRER: Mayor Nutter and Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on Monday formally announced plans for Philadelphia to host the World Meeting of Families, a Catholic gathering expected to bring the next pope here in 2015. It was the first question to Chaput at a midmorning news conference: Will the new pope, expected to be chosen in March, come to the city? “I can’t imagine that he won’t, but I can’t promise that he will,” Chaput said at the Philadelphia Archdiocese in Center City. “We’re going to plan as though he’s going to come.” MORE
CBS NEWS: As soon as Benedict announced his resignation, the Italian press erupted with tales of scandal, infighting and sexual misconduct supposedly revealed by the Church’s own investigation into the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal. A report by three 
cardinals appointed by the pope to look into the theft of documents by his personal butler, and their subsequent publishing by an Italian journalist, was widely reported to have contained information on purported sex scandals inside the Vatican. Lurid tales of a “gay lobby” of homosexual clerics were splashed across newspapers and on TV. The Vatican press office went on the offensive, deriding what it termed, “a diffusion of news that is often unverified, unverifiable and actually false, with serious damage to people and institutions.” A Vatican source said the unprecedented reaction was intended “to call the bluff” of the Italian media, and in fact, there was no rebuttal from the news organizations after the Vatican’s counter-punch. The report into Vatileaks is said to run to up to 600 pages. It will be kept secret, left for Benedict’s successor to deal with as he sees fit. However, the three cardinals who compiled it — all of whom are over the age of 80 and therefore will not take part in the conclave — may be allowed to answer specific questions about it from cardinals who will be participating. The conclave itself is turning into far more than the traditional secret gathering of the so-called “Princes of the Church” in the ornate confines of the Sistine Chapel. The sexual abuse scandal prompted calls from some U.S. Catholics for Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles to be excluded from participating in choosing the next pope. The cardinal has said he intends to cast his vote, in spite of the pressure. At least two other U.S. cardinals, as well as one from Ireland and a European cardinal were also cited as being men who should recuse themselves over their handling — or mishandling — of the priests’ abuse of minors. MORE
THE GUARDIAN: The future pope Joseph Ratzinger dragged the Catholic church into the poisonous American presidential campaign of 2004, through a memo about denying pro-choice politicians communion. Its target was John Kerry, a sincere Catholic who nonetheless believed that the law should not dictate to women on abortion, and went on to lose to George W Bush (before popping up in London as President Obama’s secretary of state). Three years later, in an outburst that also suggested abortions were resulting in “two Dunblane massacres a day”, Cardinal Keith O’Brien attempted to unleash American-style culture wars on the UK, by questioning whether MPs supporting abortion rights should continue receiving communion. It is only one expression of a notably unreflective priest’s desire to build a narrow church – there was also, for example, the intemperate likening of embryology research to Frankenstein. Another manifestation – and one that seems poignant in the aftermath of the Observer’s disclosure of allegations about “inappropriate acts” with younger priests, which prefigured his departure on Monday – was his trenchant denunciation of reforms to advance gay rights. After having opposed civil partnerships in the past, the cardinal – who was the archbishop of Edinburgh and St Andrews, and the leader of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland – last year pledged fresh funding for propaganda against gay marriage. There is no Catholic monopoly on sexual scandal – as current events within the atheistically led Liberal Democrat party underline. It is also important to acknowledge that despite having been “resigned” (or, more precisely, “prematurely retired”) by the Vatican, Cardinal O’Brien has contested the allegations, which is what the claims reported by the Observer remain. But, stepping back from the specifics of this case, one cannot brush off the evidence that Rome has a special problem with sex. In the Vatican itself, even if one discounts innuendo about Pope Benedict XVI’s own proclivities as he hangs up his cassock, that cleric – who has denounced both homosexuality and masturbation as moral disorders – has indubitably been weakened by the perception that he looked away in some cases where priests abused boys. MORE