The artwork titled "Eggs Benedict" was created by Niki Johnson to spark a discussion about sexual health.

She said it was inspired by comments made by Benedict during a 2009 visit to Africa in which he suggested that the use of condoms could exacerbate the spread of AIDS.

But Ms Johnson denied she intended to offend Catholics with the artwork.

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki blasted the decision by the museum to display the piece as insulting and callous.

In a blog he questioned whether the museum would accept art depicting Mahatma Gandhi sporting an uzi, Abraham Lincoln in Klu Klux Klan garb or Adolf Hitler with a yarmulke reading the Torah, all in the name of art.

The museum acknowledged it has fielded about 200 complaints.

The museum acquired the portrait from local philanthropist and gay rights advocate Joseph Pabst, who bought it for about US$25,000 and donated it to the institution.

It will go on display when renovations at the museum are complete.

Museum board of trustees president Don Layden said: "This was never intended to be derisive, mocking or disrespectful of the pope."

"It was to have a conversation about AIDS and AIDS education. And my hope is when the piece appears in the museum that will be the focus of the discussion."

Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for Archbishop Listecki, called that explanation "a smoke screen".

"What's at play here is either an intentional attack on a faith tradition and its teachings or a publicity stunt for the artist," he said.

"And we would be opposed to any faith tradition or religious leader being attacked in such a way."

Sources

• Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
• Daily Caller
• Image: The Guardian

Fr William Brennan, 94, died in a rest home in Wisconsin.

A Jesuit for 75 years and a priest for 63 years, he was a former missionary in Belize and make social justice his life's work.

Joining a November 2012 eucharistic liturgy celebrated by Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a woman ordained in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests movement, caused him to be sanctioned by the Jesuits and the Milwaukee archdiocese, where he lived.

His priestly faculties were suspended, and he was prohibited from leaving Milwaukee without permission and from appearing as a Jesuit at any public gathering, including protests and rallies.

He was also ordered not to contact the media "through phone, email, or any other means".

Fr Brennan later said he could not see why the issue of women priests should not be discussed.

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Cardinal Dolan, now the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, was formerly archbishop of Milwaukee.

Cardinal Dolan's successor in Milwaukee, Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said the documents describe "some terrible things", with graphic descriptions that require spiritual preparation to read.

One repeatedly abusive priest engaged in sexual activity with a young boy, the child's mother and her female friend.

The documents were made public as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court between the archdiocese and victims suing it for fraud.

They show that whereas previous archbishops had covered up evidence of abuse and shuffled accused priests to new parish assignments, then-Archbishop Dolan pressed for prompt and decisive action against priests guilty of abuse.

He urged Vatican officials to respond promptly to requests for laicisation, and insisted that candour was essential to restore the damaged credibility of the Catholic hierarchy.

But lawyers for abuse victims complained that Dolan paid accused priests to accept laicisation and established a new cemetery trust fund to shield money from creditors.

Dolan, who said these were "old and discredited attacks", said priests were paid to discharge the canon law obligation of dioceses to provide financial support for clergy; and the $NZ73 million placed in trust was always earmarked for cemetery care.

A 2011 deposition by former Archbishop Rembert Weakland said bishops in the 1980s dealt with priests who abused minors in much the same way as those who were alcoholics or had money problems.

Bishops viewed paedophilia as an "afflication", Weakland said. "We were probably all of us naive in thinking that it was a question of willpower and a question of self-discipline. I handled cases [in the 1980s] thinking, hoping, praying that it would be the last one I would have to deal with."

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

National Catholic Reporter

Associated Press

Image: CathNews USA

The acknowledgement was prompted by a document made public by abuse victims' advocates from the archdiocese's bankruptcy that references a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to "unassignable priests" who accepted a return to the laity. The policy was crafted under then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is now a cardinal and head of the archdiocese in New York.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests characterizes the payments as a payoff and bonuses to priests who molested children. The archdiocese disputes that characterization, saying the payments were in part to more quickly move those men out of the priesthood. Continue reading