Gloria.TV News on the 19th of May 2014

Tragic End: The reasons behind last Monday’s suicide of 56-year-old Tampa priest Vladimir Dziadek have been disclosed. Fr Dziadek hanged himself with a leather belt after parishioners discovered he had embezzled about $200,000 and gambled them away. Liquor bottles and casino vouchers were found in his room. A spokesman for the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, said the diocese finance office was about to complete an investigation when the suicide happened. Dziadek will be buried in Poland.

Adopt A Priest: Adopteuncuré.com is a fundraising-website with an 48-second video launched last week. It encourages Catholics to “adopt a priest”. The video targets young donors with its parody of a popular French dating site, adopteunmec.com (adopt a guy). It shows an actor playing a young priest. A soft female voice says that his dynamism is “impossible to resist”. Quote: The priest is “100% divine, and needs you.”

Nazi Germany is Back: The German socialist Martin Schulz is a lapsed Catholic and a candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission, likely to become the next – quotation marks – President of Europe. Last Thursday he stated in a TV debate that crucifixes and religious symbols should be removed from public spaces and schools. The Nazis were the last regime to order the removal of crucifixes from the German schools.

The famous American novelist Alice McDermott has spoken this Saturday during the Gaithersburg Book Festival. Fifteen years ago, when she told interviewers she was a practicing Catholic, she could feel them thinking, “Oh, I thought you were an intellectual. Well, I guess not.” Nowadays, she finds much less of that condescension — possibly because of the influence of Pope Francis. Quote: “It’s getting a little bit more hip to be Catholic.” And: “For me, having characters who are part of a faith allows me to talk about how that faith either works or fails them without having to attack the institution.”