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9 February 2012

Presseurop (English)

The best of the European press

Feed Catholic church

Netherlands
Go your way

20 December 2011
De Volkskrant Amsterdam
Poland
Palikot power transforms national politics

“Palikot’s revolution”, headlines Wprost weekly on the movement which garnered over 10 percent of the vote in the recent Polish election, making it the third […]

18 October 2011

Presseurop
Wprost
Austria
Devil keeps faith alive

Worried by what is a growing trend in Austria, Falter headlines: "Patients visited by exorcist." Having established that "the chief exorcist in the […]

28 September 2011

2

Presseurop
Falter
Religion
Pope oversees a dwindling church

“The Church dies in Europe,” headlines Tygodnik Powszechny on the occasion of Benedict XVI’s visit to Germany starting September 22. Statistics published […]

22 September 2011

Presseurop
Tygodnik Powszechny
Spain
Muscular Christianity

18 August 2011
Süddeutsche Zeitung Munich
Spain
Madrid kicks off World Youth Day

“Welcome to Spain, a country with Christian roots,” headlines ABC, in the wake of a mass in Cibeles Square, which launched the beginning of a […]

17 August 2011

Presseurop
ABC
Ireland
Taoiseach lambasts the Pope

“Kenny accuses Pope of playing down rape, torture of children,” headlines the Irish Independent. Just a week after the publication of the Cloyne report on […]

21 July 2011

Presseurop
Irish Independent
Croatia
Pope: EU good for the soul

“Croats, fear not the European Union (EU)!” Paraphrasing the cry launched by John Paul II to peoples under the communist yoke, Vecernji list sums up […]

6 June 2011

Presseurop
Večernji list
Poland
Pious rhetoric could kill John Paul II cult

“Blessed” – so runs the headline in today’s Gazeta Wyborcza after the beatification ceremony for pope John Paul II before a gathering of around a […]

2 May 2011

Presseurop
Gazeta Wyborcza
Poland
Shortcut to heaven

“How we love John Paul II” reads Polska The Times’ headline ahead of the beatification ceremony for the late pope on May 1, which may […]

29 April 2011

Presseurop
Polska The Times
Contemporary art
Fundamentalists attack Christ artwork

“Whackos hammer Piss Christ,” headlines Libération, in the wake of the destruction of a photograph showing a plastic crucifix submerged in urine by […]

18 April 2011

Presseurop
Libération
Poland
Priest reveals sins of the Polish Church

“The guilt of my church”, reads the headline on Gazeta Wyborcza’s frontpage. It refers to the letter to the Vatican’s nuncio in Poland, archibishop Celestin […]

14 December 2010

Presseurop
Gazeta Wyborcza
Religion
Pope on the ropes

In attacking Spanish legislation he deems hostile to traditional family values and lamenting the decline of Catholicism in Europe, the Pope has added further fuel to the debate on religion. The European press is less than convinced.

8 November 2010
Presseurop
Czech Republic
Fewer believers, but church coffers swell

In Europe’s most atheistic society, “the number of believers is on the wane, but steady growth in the ranks of the clergy will mean that […]

24 September 2010

Presseurop
Lidové noviny
United Kingdom
A Catholic and a German

The Independent calls Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain a Mission Improbable. Even without the gaffe by Cardinal Kasper, who compared touching down in multicultural London […]

17 September 2010

1

Presseurop
The Independent
Steve Bell, The Guardian (London)
Pope hails Britain

16 September 2010
Poland
Warsaw’s cross row

“Bring down the palace, it obscures the view of the cross!” and “Move the cross to church, Poland is a secular country!”, these slogans could […]

10 August 2010

Presseurop
Gazeta Wyborcza
Belgium
Police open crypt in child abuse inquiry

“Raid in houses of God”, headlines Brussels newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. As part of an investigation into child abuse in the Belgian Catholic church, the […]

25 June 2010

Presseurop
Het Laatste Nieuws
Portugal
Austerity and His Holiness

At a time when Portugal is preparing to welcome the Pope for a four-day visit, the Portuguese press examines details of austerity measures currently under […]

11 May 2010

Presseurop
Público
Sexual abuse
Irish Cardinal to consult Holy Spirit

In the wake of child sexual abuse allegations that have rocked the Irish Catholic church to its foundations, the primate of all Ireland is […]

18 March 2010

Presseurop
The Irish Times
Church Affairs
Diplomat to lead Czech Catholics

"First the fighter, now the diplomat," announces Lidovay Noviny upon the appointment of Dominik Duka as Archbishop of Prague. The Vatican has decided that the […]

15 February 2010

Presseurop
Lidové noviny
Germany
Church banged by sexual abuse scandal

An unprecedented scandal has hit the German Catholic Church and its “sanctimonious hypocrites”, as Der Spiegel calls them on this week’s cover. After revelations that […]

8 February 2010

1

Presseurop
Der Spiegel
Belgium
Poles, Africans, Gays – begone!

Although there is a dramatic shortage of clergymen in Belgium, the bishop of Bruges and the new (and already controversial) archbishop of Brussels do not […]

4 February 2010

Presseurop
Trouw
Italy
From hope trips to death trips

In the past, the Italian media was moved by "hope trips" – stories of people travelling abroad seeking medical treatment unavailable at home. Today, medical […]

29 January 2010

Presseurop
La Stampa
Religion
European Court bans the Cross

Yesterday’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which has ordered the removal of crucifixes in Italian schools on the basis that they constitute […]

4 November 2009

Presseurop
La Repubblica
Catholic Church
Vatican says Marx is good dope

Karl Marx, who coined the phrase “Religion is the opium of the people”, may well be spinning in his grave at Highgate cemetery, London, with […]

22 October 2009

Presseurop
The Times
Czech Republic
Pope in the land of the Godless

The Godless Czechs are more likely to believe in astrology than in religion, and their reputation as the most atheistic people on the planet is […]

28 September 2009

Presseurop
Lidové noviny
Czech Republic
Condoms to accompany Pope's visit

Lidové Noviny's front-page carries a photo of the Pope wearing a condom on his head instead of a mitre. The Prague daily reports that this slightly […]

23 September 2009

Presseurop
Lidové noviny
Obituary
So farewell then Leszek Kolakowski

Gazeta Wyborcza pays homage to Leszek Kolakowski, the most influential Polish philosopher of the XXth century who died on Friday. “He started and won the […]

20 July 2009

Presseurop
Gazeta Wyborcza
Rehabilitation
St Peter shortly to admit Oscar Wilde...

As The Times ironically observes, "in life, he was about as likely a Catholic hero as Pontius Pilate," but now "Oscar Wilde has been claimed […]

17 July 2009

Presseurop
The Times
Poland
It was 20 years ago today...

As Poland celebrates 20 years of political independence, feelings are mixed. While Gazeta Wyborcza raises a glass to a free Poland, “shared by all”, Pawel Lisicki, in Rzeczpospolita laments “a time of ‘amnesia and a weakening of the sense of civic duty.”

4 June 2009

1
Presseurop
Slovakia
A skeleton in the sacristy

Will the archbishop of Bratislava be forced to disclose his links with the communist secret police? In the wake of revelations in the press, Slovakians are about to lift a veil of secrecy on the troubled past of the Catholic hierarchy.

2 June 2009

2
Lidové noviny Prague
Ireland
Bad education

A nation is reeling from the findings of the Child Abuse Commission in which rape and sexual molestation were "endemic" in Irish Catholic church-run industrial schools and orphanages. Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times wonders how a society could have consigned children "to a system of terror."

25 May 2009

4
The Irish Times Dublin