Word: priestly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...areas. As recently as 1990, more than 80% of Irish people said they attended Mass at least once a week. But the country's relationship with the church began to change dramatically in the mid-1990s. When Ireland's economy took off, disaffection replaced devotion among young people. The priest sex-abuse scandals didn't help. Criticism over the handling of the case of Father Brendan Smyth - a priest who sexually abused children for more than 40 years - even led to the collapse of the Irish government in 1994, when Prime Minister Albert Reynolds delayed extraditing Smyth to Northern Ireland...
...that allowing married or female clergy won't solve the problem. "They're easy solutions on paper but the crisis is deeper," says Rushe, who points out that the Anglican Church, which permits both married and female clergy, is also facing a shortage of new blood: "[Becoming a priest] is a lifetime commitment and a sacrifice. I think that's what's putting people...
...crooner on a cruise line, and who christened his party Forza Italia after a national football chant. He's anything but gray. "When [former Prime Minister Romano] Prodi was on TV, I had to turn the sound way up," snorts one middle-aged Berlusconi supporter. "Prodi speaks like a priest." Ask an Italian what they think of their current leader, and chances are they'll chuckle - but most go on to say they voted for him. For many of his countrymen, Berlusconi's appetites are central to his appeal: "He is a real Italian," shrugs Alessio de Mitri, a youth...
...flurry of violent crimes in churches has shaken the image of houses of worship as safe havens. In October a priest in New Jersey died after being stabbed 32 times in his parish rectory. In May an abortion provider was shot in the head inside a Kansas church. A Maryland woman was killed in February by her spurned husband in her church's parking lot. And that was all just this year. After a gunman killed two people and wounded seven others at a Tennessee church in the summer of 2008, conservative Christian outlet OneNewsNow polled 4,000 churches...
...mundane and even more startling is the fact that, according to the U.N. report, a host of religious groups and charities have knowingly given money to Congolese operatives and their associates several times in recent years. Those funneling money to the rebels include charitable groups in Spain, a Catholic priest in Italy and another Catholic priest in Tanzania, Brother Constant Goetschalckx, whose refugee education organization won the $1 million Opus Prize in 2007. The prize, the world's largest for faith-based entrepreneurship, is meant to "recognize unsung heroes" working to fight poverty. (See pictures of the fallout in Congo...