Catholic News Service's Julie Asher has a new article on what led to the writing of "Pope Benedict XVI and the Sexual Abuse Crisis: Working for Reform and Renewal."

Here's how it opens:

Greg Erlandson decided to write a book on the clergy sex abuse crisis because the secular media kept raising questions about Pope Benedict XVI's handling of cases in their coverage of a new wave of clergy sex abuse in dioceses around the world.

For him, there was a "genuine curiosity about...

This looks like vindication for observers (like us) who were slow to interpret Pope Benedict XVI's decision not to accept the resignation of two Irish auxiliary bishops as a "rebuff" to Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.

Irish media are reporting, some with a degree of surprise, that this week the archbishop received a hero's welcome at a massive gathering of lay faithful in Italy, and that sources in the Vatican say he's been in regular, extensive contact with Pope Benedict XVI on the clerical sex abuse crisis.

 As Canadian Cardinal Marc Oullet heads to Rome to head up the Congregation for Bishops — arguably one of the most important Vatican offices to renewing the Church after the clerical sex abuse scandal — he's pledging transparency and an approach that offers greater recognition to the harm done to abuse victims.

Here's the salient section from a television interview he did with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

Don't miss this Rome Reports video interview with the authors of this blog and the book described by some as "essential reading" to understand facts of Pope Benedict XVI's handling of the clerical sex abuse crisis:

Jeffrey Epstein is probably glad he's not a Catholic priest. He is a billionaire who got a sweetheart deal with the government and a slap on the wrist for child sexual abuse, and nobody but thedailybeast.com seems to have noticed. Now other defense attorneys want the same sweetheart deals for their clients.

A French intellectual and Jewish convert to Catholicism says the clerical sex abuse crisis has damaged the Church's worldy reputation but "the Church is not a cover girl. She does not live on her image in the media."

In a recent interview, Fabrice Hadjadj, a 39 year-old French convert from Judaism twelve years ago and former atheist and anarchist, told the French newspaper Le Figaro that the current crisis lived by the Church is not unprecedented.

By now, the Associated Press should know that its coverage of the role of Pope Benedict XVI -- then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a top Vatican official -- in the awful case of the child-abuser and former Oakland, Calif., priest Stephen Kiesle was ill-informed and based on a faulty understanding of basics about the Catholic Church.

And yet, five months after its first report on the case, it is repeating the same gross error.

One of the abuse victim plaintiffs whose lawyer dropped their suit in Kentucky against the Vatican last week has reconciled with the Church -- after 80 years.

The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal has the story:

In the end, (James) O'Bryan reconciled with the church because of the actions of a priest — the same reason he said he left in the first place.

O'Bryan, now 89 and living in northern California, was one of three plaintiffs who sued the Vatican in 2004, alleging that the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church had orchestrated a cover-up of sexual abuse through centuries of secret policies. He said he was sexually abused by a Louisville priest in 1928.

If the Irish episcopate was not already racked with controversy, now comes word that Pope Benedict has not accepted the resignations of two Irish auxiliary bishops that were given to the Holy See last December at the height of the sex abuse crisis in Ireland. The surprising news was announced in a letter to the clergy of Dublin sent by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin Aug. 10.

The criticism of Pope Benedict, ostensibly connected to the sexual abuse scandals, has hit a new low. The latest allegation, unencumbered by fact but rife with prurient innuendo, is that Pope Benedict is gay. And, as with other in-house Catholic controversies, both extremes of left and right seem to be allies of convenience in casting aspersions.

The gossip site TMZ August 9 reported the comments of Mel Gibson’s 91-year-old father, a schismatic traditionalist who has been accused of various other failings, including anti-Semitism....