{"id":87,"date":"2010-04-22T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-22T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html"},"modified":"2010-04-22T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-22T16:00:00","slug":"pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html","title":{"rendered":"Pope Watch: British Clergy Apologize to Abuse Victims, Request Prayers for Pope Benedict"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/english_and_welsh_bishops_issue_apology_over_sex_abuse\/\">Catholic News Agency reports that <\/a>British and Welsh bishops have apologized for their handling of the Catholic Church&#8217;s clergy sex abuse scandal, while also asking Catholics to pray for Pope Benedict during the four Fridays of May. Those Friday prayers will be observed in a spirit of &#8220;reparation and atonement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The message seems aimed at the protests against Pope Benedict&#8217;s planned&nbsp;trip to England in September, which include calls for his arrest by <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-protesters-target-pontiffs-travel-plans-threaten-arrest.html\">well-known atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens <\/a>for &#8220;crimes against humanity,&#8221; despite his diplomatic immunity.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-Vatican sentiment&nbsp;also&nbsp;continues to fester&nbsp;in other parts of Europe plagued by clergy abuse revelations, but in Spain, which may be getting a papal visit in November,&nbsp;the Catholic majority seems to have rallied around the pope. Check out this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/bishops_of_spain_support_pope_benedict_amidst_media_attacks\/\">recent statement of support from that country&#8217;s bishops<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Check back for updates and share your thoughts in the Comments section below.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Catholic News Agency reports that British and Welsh bishops have apologized for their handling of the Catholic Church&#8217;s clergy sex abuse scandal, while also asking Catholics to pray for Pope Benedict during the four Fridays of May. Those Friday prayers will be observed in a spirit of &#8220;reparation and atonement.&#8221; The message seems aimed at&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pope Watch: British Clergy Apologize to Abuse Victims, Request Prayers for Pope Benedict - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pope Watch: British Clergy Apologize to Abuse Victims, Request Prayers for Pope Benedict - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Catholic News Agency reports that British and Welsh bishops have apologized for their handling of the Catholic Church&#8217;s clergy sex abuse scandal, while also asking Catholics to pray for Pope Benedict during the four Fridays of May. Those Friday prayers will be observed in a spirit of &#8220;reparation and atonement.&#8221; The message seems aimed at&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-22T16:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pope Watch: British Clergy Apologize to Abuse Victims, Request Prayers for Pope Benedict - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pope Watch: British Clergy Apologize to Abuse Victims, Request Prayers for Pope Benedict - Belief Beat","og_description":"Catholic News Agency reports that British and Welsh bishops have apologized for their handling of the Catholic Church&#8217;s clergy sex abuse scandal, while also asking Catholics to pray for Pope Benedict during the four Fridays of May. Those Friday prayers will be observed in a spirit of &#8220;reparation and atonement.&#8221; The message seems aimed at&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-04-22T16:00:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html","name":"Pope Watch: British Clergy Apologize to Abuse Victims, Request Prayers for Pope Benedict - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-04-22T16:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-04-22T16:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/pope-watch-british-welsh-bishops-apologize-to-clergy-sex-abuse-victims.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pope Watch: British Clergy Apologize to Abuse Victims, Request Prayers for Pope Benedict"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}