“IT’S nothing short of miraculous,” Don Franco Ottonelli says as he admires his brainchild, a modern, new apartment complex for immigrants and the homeless near the centre of Acqui Terme, a town in north-west Italy.

Disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien should stay away from Scotland for the good of the Catholic Church, according to his successor.

Pope Benedict XVI will be known as “emeritus pope” in his retirement and will continue to wear a white cassock, the Vatican announced, again fuelling concerns about potential conflicts arising from having both a reigning and a retired pope.

GAA rivalry has long pitted parish against parish and turned county against county, but it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe at the funeral of Dublin football hero Kevin Heffernan.

“A clean pair of hands” is how the retired bishop of Derry, Dr Edward Daly, summed up Monsignor Eamon Martin, the future head of the Catholic Church in Ireland — a reference to the fact that the young prelate isn’t tainted by the abuse scandals and is a valued director of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Pope Benedict XVI has returned to the Vatican after three months on holiday to find his former butler on trial in one of the most damaging scandals of his pontificate: the leaks of stolen papal correspondence detailing power struggles, defamation campaigns and allegations of corruption at the highest level of the Catholic Church.

A prestigious humanitarian award, which honours an heroic Cork-born priest and was initially introduced for individuals, now includes organisations and teams.

The Vatican has been hit by further controversy with an Italian newspaper publishing documents claiming that Pope Benedict’s butler was not the only person in possession of confidential correspondence.

As plans to erect a monument in Killarney to renowned humanitarian Mgr Hugh O’Flaherty progress, a trip to Rome is being organised for devotees of the war hero.

A TEENAGE girl who alleges that she was abused by Fr Ronat said he claimed the Holy Spirit was descending upon her as he touched her body.

DESPITE the complaints mounting against Fr Ronat, the diocese considered promoting him in 1995, and again in 2005 — which the Commission described as “shocking”.

A PRIEST charged with interviewing a woman who had been abused for four years by Fr Ronat wrote in notes afterwards that he thought she may be some kind of latterday “Ophelia of Hamlet”.

FR RONAT had an “obsessive and unhealthy” relationship with a teenage boy whom he used to take to sporting events but was also taking into his bed.

THE child protection tsar in Cloyne wrote to clerical abuse victims to tell them he had done everything he could to help them obtain justice — even though the Cloyne report revealed the opposite to be true.

THE administrator of the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne has issued what amounts to a gagging order on its former child protection officer, Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan, as it emerged a local priest is receiving text messages from women who claim he molested them.

THE former child protection delegate in the Diocese of Cloyne has attempted to explain his failure to report complaints of child sex abuse by saying the accused priests were often aged or sick.

BISHOP John Magee’s bid to cover the cost of child abuse claims was bolstered by two controversial takeover deals for local radio services in the county.

CLOYNE Diocese used the profits from a community radio windfall to help pay its abuse bills.

VICTIMS of clerical sex abuse in Cloyne have said Bishop John Magee and Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan should be stripped of their titles by the Vatican.

In 2008, Bishop John Magee and his cohort asserted their commitment to child protection. After the release of the Cloyne report, his words seem insincere, writes Claire O’Sullivan

THE Cloyne Diocese hierarchy spent 10 times more on legal fees and advice than it did on counselling services for abuse victims who came forward.

THE cleric condemned for his failure to implement child protection guidelines in the beleaguered Diocese of Cloyne queried how he had failed the victims when asked if he accepted he had let them down.

A WOMAN who was sexually assaulted in an industrial school by the priest who referred her to the institution was denied money towards counselling because Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan was afraid of giving “compensation by subterfuge”.

THE Diocese of Cloyne failed to adequately investigate claims by an elderly stroke patient that he was abused as a child in a priest’s home after confession.

BOTH Mgr O’Callaghan and the Department of Education are criticised in the case of two priests in a diocesan college.

IN 2007 a sacristan told a priest of concerns about Fr Zephan, who is a serving priest in the diocese, arising from an incident around 1990 when she saw him leave the altar servers’ room followed by a distressed child.

A PARISH priest admitted abusing three children for a number of years and when he was younger, he said fondled up to six girls.

THE report deals with one of only two cases where the complaint was made concerning a person who was still a child.

THE victim called Philip informed Bishop John Magee in March 2002 that he had been abused by the priest in about 1936 when he was aged 12.

THE commission criticised the make-up of an inter-diocesan case management advisory committee set up in 2005 by the Diocese of Cloyne in conjunction with the Diocese of Limerick.

ARCHBISHOP Dermot Clifford said he’d have been “very happy” if Bishop John Magee was standing in front of the press responding to questions on the Cloyne report instead of him.

BISHOP John Magee bears “primary responsibility” for the “inadequate and inappropriate response” to complaints of clerical child sex abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne.

MONSIGNOR Denis O’Callaghan — the senior cleric charged with investigating complaints of child sexual abuse against priests in the Diocese of Cloyne — opposed the Catholic Church’s own child protection guidelines.

BISHOP John Magee last night stood accused of lying to the state over child protection procedures in the Cloyne Diocese, where he and his senior assistant failed a succession of victims of clerical sex abuse.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter expresses "sorrow and profound apology" to any child in Cloyne failed by the State.

Fr James Good admires Jennifer Sleeman’s stand on women, but sees no purpose in a Mass boycott, he tells Dan Buckley.

CANON Stephen Neill is wrong to suggest the Vatican has equated women’s ordination with paedophilia (Letters, July 20).

THE VATICAN has issued a new document making it easier to discipline priests who abuse children, and also made the possession or distribution of child pornography a canonical crime for the first time.

Roman Catholic Church officials said the recently created first synthetic cell could be a positive development if correctly used, but warned scientists that "only God can create life".

The Vatican today tried to defuse growing anger over remarks by the pope's top aide that the paedophile priest scandal was caused by homosexuality and not the church's celibacy rule.

THE Catholic Church has silenced a senior cleric who claimed priests did not have to answer to the law on the reporting of child abuse.

YESTERDAY’S refutation of Mgr Maurice Dooley’s outrageous statement — he said Cardinal Seán Brady was not obliged to report claims of child abuse to gardaí when he was made aware of them in 1975 — by Archbishop Dermot Clifford of Cashel is very welcome.

THIRTY-SIX men are due to begin studies this year to enter the Catholic priesthood – the highest number in over a decade.

LAWS banning the sale of pre-signed Mass cards have come into effect to end a multi-million euro commercial activity which some Church leaders said had no spiritual value.