Knights of Columbus

The Pilot. America's oldest Catholic newspaper

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   Cardinal Pell at 80
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   Fifteen months ago, it looked as if Cardinal George Pell might spend his 80th birthday in prison. A malicious trolling expedition by the police department of the State of Victoria in his native Australia had led to the cardinal's indictment on manifestly absurd charges of "historic sexual abuse." His first trial ended with a hung jury heavily in favor of acquittal; but because of a court-imposed media blackout on the trial, the public did not know that the defense had shredded the prosecution's case by demonstrating that the alleged crimes couldn't have happened how, when, and where the complainant said they'd happened. The cardinal's retrial ended in an incomprehensible conviction, which was followed by an even more incomprehensible (and feckless) rejection of the cardinal's appeal. Happily -- for the sake of an innocent man's liberty and the reputation of Australia's justice system -- the country's High Court unanimously quashed the guilty verdict on April 7, 2020, and entered a judgment of "innocent" in the case of Pell v. The Queen.
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   What will Breyer do?
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   What is Breyer going to do? As the Supreme Court nears end of its 2020 term, many court-watchers ask that with an urgency that equals or even surpasses their eagerness for the results of several high-visibility cases due to be announced in the next couple of weeks.
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   The stories we tell, the lessons we learn
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   When I have reunions with my brothers and sisters, at some point we start telling stories about growing up. Invariably, we will remember events, good and bad, from different perspectives. We each tell the same story slightly differently. In the retelling, we sometimes get a fuller picture of what happened. Or we realize that as children, we didn't fully understand at the time what was taking place.
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   Pray for Satan?
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   Q. Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Satan is our enemy. Should we love Satan, perhaps by praying for his redemption? Is it possible that, through our prayers, Satan could repent and be reunited with God? (Woodbridge, Virginia)
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   Breaking out of the prison of self-invention
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   For the past many years, I have been maintaining an internet ministry that allows me, through comment boxes, to listen in on the questions, complaints, and pontifications of thousands of people in regard to religion. I have noticed that these commentaries sort themselves out in fairly predictable ways, centering around issues of God's existence, the problem of suffering, the uniqueness of Christianity among the religions of the world, and the whole range of the Church's sexual teachings.