For four years, prosecutors in Rome have been making a renewed attempt to get at the truth behind the disappearance in 1983 of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee.

They are trying to ascertain whether she was seized by a notorious band of Roman criminals, and whether this has any bearing on the fact that the leader of the gang was buried in a Vatican basilica normally reserved for cardinals and other illustrious prelates.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/mystery-of-the-missing-girl-the-vatican-and-gangsters-burial-20120413-1wysf.html#ixzz1tVigVmW7

I know who killed Roberto Calvi – but they will never be brought to justice'

One month before the 30th anniversary of one of London's most enduring murder mysteries, the mafia godfather at the heart of the case has spoken for the first time about why he believes the real killers of Italian financier Roberto Calvi will never be brought to justice.

Calvi, dubbed "God's banker" because of his work with the Vatican, was found hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars bridge in London on 18 June 1982. Bricks had been stuffed in his pockets and he had more than £10,000 in cash on him. In the months before his death he had been accused of stealing millions being laundered on behalf of the mafia.

His death was originally ruled a suicide but later judged to be murder. In July 1991, Francesco "Frankie the Strangler" Di Carlo, a mafia godfather who had lived in England since the late 1970s, was named as Calvi's killer by a supergrass. Di Carlo has since become a supergrass himself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/12/roberto-calvi-blackfriars-bridge-mafia

...

Fine ideals, one might say, but not workable. But I am increasingly convinced that economic systems that ignore the fundamental tenets of Catholic Social Teaching - based on a profound understanding of human nature - and which do so for the sake of pursuing the alleged greater efficiency and hence profitability of pure free-market systems, are ultimately unsustainable and self-destructive.

Clifford Longley is leader writer and columnist for The Tablet, and a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day and a panellist on The Moral Maze. In 1996 he was consultant to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales for the drafting of "The Common Good and the Catholic Church's Social Teaching"; in 1998 for "The Catholic Church and Human Rights"; and in 2010 for "Choosing the Common Good." This is an edited version of his address to the St Thomas More forum in Canberra on 2 May 2012.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/05/12/3501282.htm?WT.svl=featuredSitesScroller

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Gus: That's a bit rich from an outfit that gave you tenets like "blessed are the poor" and chased the merchants from the temple... Yep... This fellow may have published oodles of books and columns but he is off the planet... 

"... blessed are the poor, hungry, weeping, excluded, and persecuted.  The pitiable are the rich, full, sated, and popular...."

That paradigm won't work in a capitalist system that demands growth and profit... Most reasonable secular humanists would see much better ways to "fix" capitalism without destroying its power.

Capitalism needs to be more social and needs to understand the limits of the planet, for sure... but catholic???? No way... 

Author who turned Georgetown University into a horror scene in “The Exorcist” plans to sue the school in church court, charging that his alma mater has strayed so far from church doctrine that it should no longer call itself Catholic.

William Peter Blatty, who graduated from Georgetown in 1950, says the “last straw” was the university’s speaking invitation to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/exorcist-author-william-peter-blatty-to-sue-georgetown-university-in-catholic-court/2012/05/18/gIQA90GIZU_story.html?hpid=z3

The president of the Vatican bank has effectively been ousted after receiving a unanimous vote of no-confidence from bank overseers for having leaked documents and failed to do his job at a critical time in the Holy See's efforts to show financial transparency, the Vatican and officials said.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi has been a polarizing figure ever since he was named president of the bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR, in 2009. He is under investigation for alleged money laundering by Italian magistrates, but the investigation isn't believed to have factored into the decision since the Vatican considers the probe to be motivated by outside political interests.

One of the Pope's butlers has been detained by the Vatican, accused of leaking secrets about the Holy See.

The Italian media is reporting the Pope's butler has leaked confidential documents and letters from the pontiff's study to the press.

The leaks have described alleged corruption, mismanagement and internal conflicts among top officials in the Holy See.

The so called 'Vatileak' scandal is said to have enraged the Vatican.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-26/pope27s-butler-arrested-for-spilling-holy-secrets/4034768

See toon at top...

Meanwhile the no condom rule is being relaxed by the Vatican but expertise is still lacking...

The Vatican has declined to comment on documents purportedly leaked after the arrest of the papal butler, who was suspected to be the source of the embarrassing leaks about the Church.

The Rome newspaper La Repubblica reported receiving the documents despite the recent arrest – suggesting there might be an accomplice at large. Repubblica said one of the newly leaked letters was a prelate's complaint that he had not been consulted about the approval of a liturgy for Catholics in Spain, while two other letters reportedly bear the signature of the Pope's personal secretary.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/papal-letters-still-leaked-after-arrest-7814817.html