At least 9 wounded as suspected suicide bomber targets Indonesian church

JAKARTA  - A suspected suicide bomber blew themselves up outside a Catholic church in the Indonesian city of Makassar on Sunday, wounding nine people on the first day of the Easter Holy Week, police and a witness said.

The congregation had been inside the church on the island of Sulawesi at the time of the explosion and the lone attacker was the only fatality, police said.

Father Wilhemus Tulak, a priest at the church, told Indonesian media that the suspected bomber tried to enter the church grounds on a motorbike, but had been stopped by a security guard.

Security camera footage showed a blast that blew flame, smoke and debris into the middle of the road.

Police did not say who might be responsible for the apparent attack and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Police blamed the Islamic State-inspired Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) group for suicide attacks in 2018 on churches and a police post in the city of Surabaya that killed over 30 people.

Boy Rafli Amar, the head of the country's National Counterterrorism Agency, described Sunday's attack as an act of terrorism.

Makassar Mayor Danny Pomanto said the blast could have caused far more casualties if it had taken place at the church's main gate instead of a side entrance.

Makassar, Sulawesi's biggest city, reflects the religious makeup of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country with a substantial Christian minority and followers of other religions.

"Whatever the motive is, this act isn't justified by any religion because it harms not just one person but others, too," Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, Indonesia's religious affairs minister, said in a statement.

Gomar Gultom, head of the Indonesian Council of Churches, described the attack as a "cruel incident" as Christians were celebrating Palm Sunday, and urged people to remain calm and trust the authorities.

Indonesia's deadliest Islamist militant attack took place on the tourist island of Bali in 2002, when bombers killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists.

In subsequent years, security forces in Indonesia scored some major successes in tackling militancy, but more recently there has been a resurgence of militant violence. 

Agence France-Presse

US bishop accused of sex abuse cover-up steps down

VATICAN - A New York state bishop who had been at the center of a sex abuse crisis stepped down on Wednesday after learning the conclusions of a Vatican investigation, becoming the latest high-ranking prelate toppled by the decades-old scandal.

Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo, New York, and named Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, to administer the Buffalo diocese until a new bishop can be appointed.

Malone, 73, who has been under pressure to resign for years, stepped down two years before bishops' normal retirement date.

A long line of priests and bishops have been toppled by the Roman Catholic Church's abuse crisis, which exploded onto the international stage in 2002 when the Boston Globe newspaper revealed priests had sexually abused children for decades and church leaders had covered it up.

Patterns of widespread abuse of children have since been reported across the United States and Europe, in Chile and Australia, undercutting the 1.2 billion-member Church's moral authority and taking a toll on its membership and coffers.

Malone, who met with the pope last month, has been accused of covering up or mishandling the abuse of dozens of minors by priests in his diocese in western New York.

Last year, a whistleblower in his office released documents to WKBW, a New York news channel, indicating that Malone withheld scores of priests' names from a list his office published of clergy accused of sexual abuse.

He has denied the accusations.

His diocese is facing more than 200 child sex abuse lawsuits, according to the New York Times. A new state law this year temporarily waived statutes of limitations for people who were victims of sexual abuse as children, allowing hundreds of people to sue over decades-old crimes.

Malone acknowledged "tremendous turmoil" in his diocese in a statement on Wednesday.

He said he had made mistakes in not addressing what he described as personnel issues more swiftly. He said the conclusions of the Vatican investigation, which have not been published, were a factor in his decision but that he was resigning "freely and voluntarily."

In September, a poll by the local newspaper, The Buffalo News, showed that about 85% of Roman Catholics or lapsed Roman Catholics in the area said he should resign.

Scharfenberger said he supported Malone's resignation.

"I think he made a prudent decision to withdraw as he did at the time that he did," he said in a news conference.

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Fil-Am allegedly abused by Pinoy priest sues LA Archdiocese

LOS ANGELES – A 34 year-old Filipina has sued the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in what is believed to be the first civil suit against the country's largest Catholic diocese since California passed a law last month that extends the statute of limitations for child abuse survivors.

Aimee Galicia-Torres said she was only 8 years old when a Filipino priest who was also a family friend molested her at an aunt’s house. The sexual abuse went on for four years.

According to the suit, the LA's Archdiocese was negligent in the hiring and supervision of Galicia-Torres’ alleged abuser - Father Honesto Bismonte - and that there could have been a cover-up when church leaders knew about his actions.

Galicia Torres said that by speaking up, she felt a sense of hope she hasn’t felt in a long time.

“I felt like a huge weight was lifted off me. Finally, my voice was being heard. I want him, my abuser, to know I’m the one doing this to him. I want to take back my power that I lost when he abused me,” she said.

Ordained in the Philippines in 1954, Bismonte came to California in 1981 and served in churches in Los Angeles, Gardena and Pomona. 

In 2002, Bismonte was removed from the ministry after being arrested and charged with molesting two young girls more than 50 times.

He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery and ended up serving two years of informal probation.

According to the updated 2018 Archdiocese Report to the People of God that lists priests who had been publicly accused of sexual abuse, the 90-year old Bismonte has been retired with no faculties to minister.

While the lawsuit does not specify any dollar amount, this Filipina wants answers.

“Why was he allowed to transfer from the Philippines knowing that he had some sort of relationship with some underage kid? I want to know how he was transferred from the Philippines to the United States, how many people knew about it and how and if this could’ve been prevented,” she said.

The California’s Child Victims Act extends the statute of limitations allowing more sexual abuse survivors to come forward with lawsuits.

In a statement, the Archdiocese of LA said it was not yet aware of the lawsuit filed against them, however they reiterated they took appropriate actions against Bismonte after his 2002 molestation case. The Archdiocese also stressed that Bismonte remains out of the ministry and is now living privately in an assisted living facility. 

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Pope Francis begins visit to Thailand as faithful jostle for selfies

BANGKOK -- Pope Francis arrived in Thailand on Wednesday to meet with its small but devoted Catholic minority on a seven-day Asian trip that will include a family reunion in Bangkok and take his anti-nuclear message to Japan.

Waiting for a glimpse of the pontiff, excited Catholics thronged around the Vatican's Bangkok embassy and St. Louis Hospital to take selfies.

"Once in a lifetime, I want to see him and be able receive prayer from him," said 60-year-old Orawan Thongjamroon outside the Vatican embassy, where she had been waiting since early morning for the papal motorcade.

Catholics are a tiny minority in mostly Buddhist Thailand, accounting for less than 2 percent of the population.

The pope's plane touched down outside Bangkok around midday and he descended to a red-carpet airport welcome from church leaders for a visit that coincides with the 350th anniversary of the first papal mission in Siam, the former name of Thailand.

Among those welcoming him was his cousin and childhood friend from Argentina, 77-year-old nun Sister Ana Rosa Sivori, who has worked in Thai schools for more than 50 years and will be the pope's personal translator in Thailand.

The pair, whose grandfathers were brothers, beamed as they made their way over the tarmac through crowds of clergy, children and government officials to a waiting motorcade.

"Dear friends in Thailand and Japan, before we meet, let us pray together that these days may be rich in grace and joy," read a message on the pontiff's official Twitter account before he left the Vatican.

At Bangkok's St. Louis Church, a Thai Catholic woman proudly showed photographs of her and Pope Francis from a visit she made to the Vatican with her husband.

"I never thought that I would have another chance to see him again," said Nuchnaree Praresri, 49.

But when she was invited to be a cleaner at St. Louis Church for the papal visit, she seized the opportunity.

"This might not be an important role for others, but I'm very proud," she said.

Catholicism first arrived in Thailand in the mid-1500s with Portuguese missionaries and traders, and Catholics have over the years built respected schools and hospitals.

Pope Francis begins his official program on Thursday when he is scheduled to meet King Maha Vajiralongkorn as well as the supreme Buddhist patriarch before offering mass at the National Stadium.

He will hold another mass at Bangkok's Assumption Cathedral before leaving on Saturday for Japan, where he will visit the nuclear ground zeros of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

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Pope goes to Africa

Pope Francis waves as he boards an aircraft on his way to Maputo, Mozambique, in Rome's Fiumicino International airport on Wednesday. Pope Francis heads this week to the southern African nations of Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius, visiting some of the world's poorest countries in a region hit hard by some of his biggest concerns: conflict, corruption and climate change. 

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Pope fears for Amazon, the planet's 'vital lung'

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis on Sunday voiced concern for the Amazon rainforest, a "vital" lung for the planet, as the worst blazes in years have sparked a global outcry.

"We are concerned about the vast fires that have developed in the Amazon," the pope told the faithful at the Vatican.

"That forest lung is vital for our planet."

He urged the world's 1.3 billion Catholics to pray for the fires to be extinguished as quickly as possible.

Official figures show 78,383 forest fires have been recorded in Brazil this year, the highest number of any year since 2013.

The Argentine pope, who will gather bishops for a conference on the Amazon in October, met Brazilian indigenous leader Raoni in 2013 when he toured Europe warning of the dangers of deforestation.

The pope denounced the exploitation of the Amazon by "huge international economic interests" in a 2015 encyclical.

In January 2018 he visited Puerto Maldonado village in the Amazonian jungle of southeastern Peru where thousands of tribespeople had gathered, including from neighboring Brazil and Bolivia.

The Catholic Church acknowledges the bloody history of the spread of Christianity through South America and that it has not always respected Amazon tribes. Today it is committed to numerous projects to support indigenous populations.

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Anglican Church of Canada rejects same-sex marriage

MONTREAL - The Anglican Church of Canada -- which has more than 500,000 members -- has rejected a motion to modify its definition of marriage to embrace same-sex unions.

The motion heard at the church's general assembly, called a synod, would have changed its marriage canon to remove references to unions between a man and a woman.

To pass, the proposal required a two-thirds majority from each of three groups of delegates: lay people, clergy and bishops.

But though lay delegates and members of the clergy voted largely in favor of the move late Friday in Vancouver, they did not meet the two-thirds threshold among the bishops.

The motion had been approved in a first vote at the last general assembly three years ago, but it needed to be validated at two meetings in a row.

Many in the church, which has nearly 1,700 parishes, were disappointed.

Bishop Andrew Asbil of Toronto, Canada's largest city, said the vote was "devastating news to our LGBTQ+ community, families and friends."

"I share in that sense of devastation," Asbil added.

Another motion passed at the Vancouver meetings did leave the church some room to maneuver, as it recognizes that each diocese can choose to handle same-sex marriage in their own way, meaning they can perform gay weddings.

Some dioceses have performed same-sex marriages since 2016, and many of them intend to keep on doing so, Meghan Kilty, the church's director of communications, told the CBC.

Canada legalized gay marriage in 2005.

ps/sst/wd

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Pained Pope pays tribute to Notre-Dame firefighters

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis on Wednesday thanked rescuers who put their lives at risk to salvage the medieval Catholic cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris from a devastating blaze and said he was eager to see it restored.

"The gratitude of the entire Church goes to those who did everything in their power to save the basilica, even risking their lives," he told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square for his general audience.

Notre-Dame's spire was destroyed and its roof gutted but the bell towers were still standing and many valuable art works were saved after more than 400 firemen contained Monday's blaze.

Addressing French pilgrims and visitors in Rome, the pontiff told them he felt their pain.

"May the Virgin Mary bless and support the work of reconstruction. May it be a harmonious work of praise and glory to God," he added.

The Vatican has said it is willing to offer restoration know-how to help rebuild the fire-damaged landmark.

"We have many relationships with the Louvre, other museums and other institutions of French Christianity. Clearly, we are willing to do anything we can to help," Barbara Jatta, the head of the Vatican Museums, told Reuters.

Jatta and her staff of art historians and restorers have worked on such stone masterpieces as Michelangelo's Pieta and his Sistine Chapel frescoes.

Father Enzo Fortunato, a Franciscan at the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi who was inside that church when the roof collapsed in a 1997 earthquake, also offered words of encouragement to the French.

"Notre Dame is like Assisi. It will rise again. Our experience showed that through pain and hard work, but above all with solidarity, life can come from destruction," he told Reuters. "Prayer was the weapon that allowed us to never lose hope."

Fortunato and other survivors emerged covered in white dust from the collapse, which killed two monks and two city workers.

The Assisi basilica reopened after two years of painstaking restoration that included piecing together thousands of pieces of ceiling frescoes.

"Assisi and Notre-Dame are both symbols of Christian identity and national identity. Precisely because of this, they offer the strength and courage to be reborn," he said.

France hopes Notre-Dame can be restored in five years. 

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Palm Sunday at the Vatican

Pope Francis walks along Cardinals holding palm fronds across St. Peter's square as he celebrates the Palm Sunday Mass in the Vatican. The pope marked the moveable feast by blessing the palm fronds of Catholic faithful before celebrating Mass.

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Pope gives Rome homeless Christmas gift of new clinic in Vatican

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has given the homeless a Christmas gift of a new clinic in St. Peter's Square where they can get free medical help, the Vatican said on Saturday, announcing his latest move to help Rome's destitute.

The Rome Catholic charity Caritas estimated late last year that there are more than 16,000 homeless in Rome and their number congregating near the Vatican has grown visibly in recent years, especially at night when they cluster under arcades to sleep.

The new clinic with 3 visiting rooms will be open 3 days a week and will be staffed by volunteer doctors from the Vatican medical services and Rome hospitals.

Foot specialists will be available once a week. Charities say homeless people suffer particularly from foot ailments because they rarely remove their socks and shoes, and also wear ill-fitting shoes, causing ailments such as fungal infections, blisters and calluses.

The new clinic replaces an older temporary one nearby, also set up by the 82-year-old Francis. He has also opened facilities where the homeless can bathe and get haircuts.

When it is not serving the homeless, the new clinic, built on the premises of the old Vatican post office, will serve as a first aid station for pilgrims and tourists.

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Gay man says pope told him: 'God made you this way' - paper

MADRID - A Chilean man who suffered clerical sexual abuse has said Pope Francis told him in a private conversation that God had made him gay and loved him that way, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

The Vatican declined to comment on the report but, if confirmed, it would be a striking statement of tolerance towards homosexuality, which the Church has condemned as an immoral disorder if it is actively practiced.

In an interview published on Sunday, abuse victim Juan Carlos Cruz told El Pais that Pope Francis had told him during a meeting this month: "The fact that you are gay does not matter."

Cruz said Francis had also told him: "God made you this way and loves you this way, and it doesn't matter to me. The pope loves you this way, you must be happy the way you are."

Cruz was one of 3 Chilean victims who were invited by the pope to Rome this month in the wake of a scandal in Chile over priestly sexual abuse and efforts by the Church hierarchy there to hush it up.

After attending a crisis meeting with Francis about the cover-up last week, all of Chile's bishops offered to resign.

Since his election in 2013, the pope has dramatically shifted the language the Church has used about homosexuality, which was once seen as a taboo subject.

"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" he said on his first overseas trip in 2013. In 2016, he said had ministered to people with unfulfilled homosexual tendencies as well as homosexuals who were not able to remain chaste, as the Church asks them to.

"When a person arrives before Jesus, Jesus certainly will not say: 'Go away because you are homosexual'," he said.

Francis's predecessor, Pope Benedict, wrote in 2005 that homosexuality was "a strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil". 

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Catholic church agrees to buy pope statue in Poland row

RENNES, France - French town councilors have agreed to sell the Catholic Church a statue of late pope John Paul II that sparked a diplomatic row with Poland. 

The bronze statue has stood in a car park since a Russian artist gifted it to the small northwestern town of Ploermel in 2006. 

But in October France's highest administrative court ordered town authorities to remove the cross overhanging it, on the grounds that it breaks a 1905 secularism law.

The decision sparked debate over France's tradition of secularism, or "laicite", which tightly restricts the public display of religious symbols and is fiercely defended by many French.

The laws regularly prompt public debate over issues affecting Muslims such as the wearing of the veil, but is also sometimes invoked in debates over Christian symbols, such as Christmas nativity scenes.

Last year, tens of thousands of people signed online petitions protesting the removal of the cross and Poland's then prime minister Beata Szydlo offered to have the statue of the Polish pope shipped there to "save it from censorship".

Local mayor Patrick Le Diffon's solution was to sell the statue, which looms 7.5 meters (25 feet) tall over the car park, to the Catholic Church for 20,000 euros ($24,000).

It will be moved a few dozen meters down the street onto a piece of Church-owned land next to a Catholic school, where it will still be visible to the public.

Secular activists challenged the statue through the courts even before it went up, and have hailed the October court ruling as a victory.

"It's what should have happened from the start," said Andre Le Beherec, head of the local Freedom of Thought association which took town authorities to court.

Even the rightwing former mayor who put the statue up, Paul Anselin, said ahead of the vote that he backed the sale simply as a means of ending the saga.

"We have to move on from this situation," said the 87-year-old former paratrooper.

But he regretted the fact that the town was selling off a statue that had been offered as a gift.

"Selling presents, it just isn't done," he said.

aag/kjl/cb/klm

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Pope Francis says may consider making married men priests

BERLIN - Pope Francis said in an interview published Thursday that the church may consider ordaining married men who could potentially then work in remote areas faced with a shortage of priests.

"We must think about whether viri probati are a possibility," Francis said referring to older, married men who are already involved in church business.

"Then we have to decide what tasks they can take on, for example in remote communities," he added in the interview with German weekly Die Zeit.

Many in the church believe, given the lack of priests in many places, that a new path to ordination should be opened.

They think that in addition to priests who take a vow of celibacy, older, married men with a long commitment to the church could also be considered.

Pope Francis said in May 2014 that "there are married priests in the Church" citing married Anglican ministers who joined the Catholic Church, Coptic Catholics and the priests of some Eastern churches.

The church, and notably the current pope's predecessor Benedict XVI, had previously said that celibacy was not a matter of inflexible church dogma unlike, for example, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

However, Francis said allowing priests in training to choose whether or not to be celibate was "not the solution".

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Pope Francis says 'wait and see' on Trump

MADRID - Pope Francis on Sunday said he would not make an opinion on Donald Trump until he first had a chance to see the specific policies the new U.S. president would implement.

On Friday, as Trump was taking office, Francis urged him to be guided by ethical values, saying he must take care of the poor and the outcast during his time in office.

"I think that we must wait and see. I don't like to get ahead of myself nor judge people prematurely," the Pope told Spanish newspaper El Pais in an interview.

"We will see how he acts, what he does, and then I will have an opinion. But being afraid or rejoicing beforehand because of something that might happen is, in my view, quite unwise. It would be like prophets predicting calamities," he said.

Francis also warned Europeans against populism. The Pope said Europe should not repeat the same mistakes of the 1930s when nations turned to "saviors" to resolve economic and political crises only to end up at war.

"Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933... A people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened," the Pope said.

"In times of crisis, we lack judgment, and that is a constant reference for me... That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another," he added. (Reporting by Julien Toyer; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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McDonald's riles cardinals with branch near Vatican

ROME - McDonald's is dishing up "hallowed" hamburgers after the Vatican backed it in a fight with cardinals over a new outlet at the foot of the tiny city state in Rome.

Big Macs were being scoffed with glee Tuesday at the US fast food giant a stone's throw from Saint Peter's Square.

Cardinals had warned the Vatican against supping with that symbol of Western consumerism, including a group of the red-hatted "Princes of the Church" who live above the Vatican-owned site.

One even wrote to the pope slamming a commercial decision which is reportedly to bring 30,000 euros ($33,000) a month into the Vatican's coffers, but which locals fear will ruin a historical area.

Their protests fell on deaf ears and the new McDonald's branch opened Friday after the site, which covers 538 square metres (5,800 square foot), was rented to the restaurant chain by ASPA, the authority in charge of the Vatican's real estate.

While it lies outside the Holy See's walls, those popping in for a burger and chips have a good view of the papal apartment windows.

It's a panorama Angelo Tosti used to show off to tourists at his restaurant "Da Marcella", which has been in his family for three generations -- and now sits directly across the street from the fast food behemoth.

"What amazes me most is that the pope rises up against the multinationals, and then they give a Vatican property for rent" to McDonald's, Tosti said sadly. "It will ruin the whole area".

'ENOUGH TRADITIONAL RESTAURANTS'

Pope Francis has criticized multinationals in the past for food waste, poor nutrition and financial speculation. Others had argued that the space near the heart of the Roman Catholic Church should go to entities which help the needy, not the Golden Arches.

"When you come to Rome you should eat Roman food," Tosti told AFP, showing off a menu with specialities of the capital, from Carbonara to fried artichokes.

Fellow critics had decried as madness a move to pack more people into an area considered at high risk of a terror attack.

But not all were turning their backs on a "Big Vac" calorie fest after a lengthy trek around the Sistine Chapel and museums.

"It's next to the monuments, the service is fast and it's more convenient," said one young Australian tourist named Brooke.

And it got the seal of approval from passing Italian nun Sister Francesca, who said there were "enough traditional restaurants in the area" to satisfy pasta-happy gourmands.

It is not McDonald's first run-in over a branch location in Italy.

It made headlines in November after filing a $20-million lawsuit against Florence for blocking a proposed outlet in the city's most revered square.

The chain wanted to open a branch in the historic Piazza del Duomo, one of the most visited places in Europe.

Florence's center-left mayor Dario Nardella said while McDonald's "has the right to submit an application... we also have the right to say no".

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Gays cannot enter Catholic priesthood, insists Vatican

VATICAN - A decree on training for Roman Catholic priests published on Wednesday stresses the obligation of sexual abstinence, as well as barring gays and those who support "gay culture" from holy orders.

"The Church, while deeply respecting the people concerned, cannot admit to a seminary or into holy orders those who practise homosexuality, show deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support what is called gay culture," said the document.

The new comprehensive guide to the training of Catholic clergy, which runs to about 100 pages, was approved by Pope Francis and published by the Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official journal.

It updates a previous version dating back 30 years. But the barring of people who present homosexual tendencies was already stipulated by the Catholic Church in 2005.

The new decree does however allow an exemption for "homosexual tendencies which may only be the expression of a transitory problem, such as for example that of adolescence which is not yet complete".

The document also says it would be "seriously imprudent to admit (to holy orders) a seminarian who had not reached a mature, settled and free emotional state, chaste and faithful in celibacy," while saying that future priests also need to understand "the feminine reality".

The document broaches several other issues including the digital revolution.

"One must be prudent in the face of inevitable risks of frequenting the digital world, including different forms of dependency which can be treated with adequate spiritual and psychological means," it notes.

At the same time it recommends that "social media form part of daily seminary life," because they offer "new possibilities of interpersonal relations (and) to meet other people," added the document by the Vatican, which has come to use social media widely.

cm/mt/pvh

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Pope Francis declares Mother Teresa a saint

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis on Sunday declared revered nun Mother Teresa a saint in a canonization mass at St. Peter's Square.

"For the honor of the Blessed Trinity... we declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (Kolkata) to be a saint and we enroll her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole Church," the pontiff said in Latin.

The elevation of one of the icons of 20th century Christianity came a day before the 19th anniversary of her death in Kolkata, the Indian city where she spent nearly four decades working with the dying and the destitute.

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Mother Teresa to be made saint at Vatican ceremony

VATICAN CITY -- Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a Nobel peace laureate known as the "saint of the gutters" during her lifetime, will be made a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday.

More than 100,000 pilgrims are expected to attend a service led by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican to honor the tiny nun who worked among the world's neediest in the slums of the Indian city now known as Kolkata.

Her legacy fits neatly with Francis's vision of a poor church that strives to serve the poor, and the ceremony will be a highlight of his Holy Year of Mercy which runs until Nov. 8.

Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity (MoC) order have been criticized both during her life and since her death in 1997, but many Catholics revere her as a model of compassion.

Thousands attended a papal audience on Saturday in the Vatican, where a large canvas of the late nun in her blue-hemmed white robes hung from St. Peter's basilica.

"Her testimony makes us reflect and transform...and make a better world," Brazilian priest Carlos Jose Nacimento said.

Critics say she did little to alleviate the pain of the terminally ill and nothing to tackle the root causes of poverty. Atheist writer Christopher Hitchens made a documentary about her called "Hell's Angel."

She was also accused of trying to convert the destitute in predominantly Hindu India to Christianity, a charge her mission has repeatedly denied.

But Pope John Paul II, who met her often, had no doubt about her eligibility for sainthood, and put her on a fast track to elevation two years after her death instead of the usual five.

The Church defines as saints those believed to have led such holy lives they are now in Heaven and can intercede with God to perform miracles -- two of which are needed to confer sainthood.

She is credited with healing an Indian woman from stomach cancer in 1998 and a Brazilian man from a brain infection in 2008.

The canonization will also be celebrated in Skopje, the capital of modern Macedonia where Mother Teresa was born of Albanian parents in 1910 and became a nun aged 16.

In Kolkata, where the first MoC mission was set up in 1952, there will be prayers, talks and cultural events, but no major ceremony.

Delegations from at least 15 national governments are expected at the Vatican.

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Pope 'doubts' sex abuse case vs Australian cardinal

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE - Pope Francis said Sunday there were "doubts" over the case being made against Vatican finance chief George Pell, Australia's most senior Roman Catholic, for alleged child abuse.

"There are doubts. 'In dubio pro reo'," he said using a Latin expression meaning that a defendant may not be convicted by the court when doubts about his or her guilt remain.

"We must avoid a media verdict, a verdict based on gossip," he told journalists aboard the papal plane during the return trip from Poland, where he had headlined a Catholic youth festival.

Explosive allegations emerged against the Australian cardinal last week with two men now in their 40s saying Pell had groped them during the 1970s.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation which aired their claims also alleged Pell was naked in front of three young boys, believed to be aged eight to 10, in a Torquay surf club changing room in summer 1986-87.

Pell, 75, has denied the allegations and suggested there was a conspiracy against him.

The allegations come just months after Pell admitted he "mucked up" in dealing with paedophile priests in Victoria in the 1970s, while giving evidence to a national inquiry into institutional responses to child sex abuse.

He was accused of historic sex abuse claims when he was the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney in 2002, but was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

Pell was ordained in Rome in 1966 before returning to Australia in 1971 and rising to become the nation's top Catholic official.

He left for the Vatican in 2014 after being hand-picked by Pope Francis to make the Church's finances more transparent, although his powers were reined in earlier this month.

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Bishops face sack for child abuse 'negligence': pope

VATICAN CITY - Catholic bishops guilty of negligence in child abuse cases can now be dismissed from office, Pope Francis said Saturday in a move hiking pressure on the Church's hierarchy.

The move was announced just two weeks after the pope came under fire for meeting a top French cardinal accused of covering up for a paedophile priest in a scandal that has shaken France's Catholic Church.

The decision, which will also apply to other senior Church officials, was unveiled in a papal decree which said such cases would now fall under existing canon law allowing for prelates to be sacked for "serious reasons".

"The Church, like a loving mother, loves all her children, but treats and protects with special affection the smallest and most helpless," the papal decree said.

Pope Francis came to power promising a crackdown on cover-ups and a zero tolerance approach to abuse itself, but victims' groups have expressed discontent with his record on ridding the Church of the taint of paedophilia.

Known as an Apostolic letter, the text stresses the need for "special diligence" in caring for minors and vulnerable adults, with those who demonstrate negligence in tackling cases of abuse facing the threat of dismissal.

That diligence is required even "without grave moral culpability" on the part of the bishop involved, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in an explanatory statement.

"For removal from office, in the case of abuse of minors, it is 'sufficient for the lack of diligence to be grave' while in other cases a 'very grave' lack of diligence must be demonstrated," he added.

A "college of legal experts" -- cardinals and bishops -- has been set up to assist the pope reach a decision arriving at a definitive decision in a particular case.

The new approach will take effect from September 5, Lombardi said.

- The Barbarin case -

A string of historic paedophilia cases in North America and Europe has unleashed widespread criticism of the Catholic hierarchy, including allegations that in some cases bishops were aware of sexual predators among the priesthood but failed to curb them.

Last month, Francis held a surprise meeting with French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the under-fire Archbishop of Lyon who is suspected of covering up for a pedophile priest.

The meeting came just days after the pope was quoted as saying it would be "nonsensical and imprudent" to seek Barbarin's resignation at this stage.

It was not immediately clear whether the papal decree would impact on the Barbarin case.

French examining magistrates are currently carrying out two preliminary investigations to decide whether to pursue charges against the archbishop for his handling of the allegations against Bernard Preynat, a priest in his diocese who has been charged with sex abuse.

Police this week raided the offices of Nicolas de Boccard, a clerical judicial adviser to the Lyon diocese, sources close to the case said Saturday.

Barbarin will be questioned by shortly, the sources told AFP.

- 'Sceptical' -

A US group representing victims of paedophile priests suggested that the Vatican's initiative on Saturday sought to put a brake on efforts to stop abusers and bring them to justice.

"We're extraordinarily sceptical," David Clohessy, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a statement.

"Popes and bishops have long had the power, but not the will, to oust those who protect predators and endanger kids. They refuse to do this, and the consequences are devastating," Clohessy said.

"When it's advantageous to move quickly, Catholic officials move quickly. When they want to move slowly, or not at all, they set up commissions and 'processes' and the like."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com