Departing IRS head cites need to restore trust in agency

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Steven Miller, who resigned on Wednesday as the acting head of the Internal Revenue Service, said in a message to colleagues that there is a "strong and immediate need" to restore public trust in the nation's tax agency.

Miller resigned after the IRS became embroiled in a controversy over the agency's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

"It is with regret that I will be departing from the IRS as my acting assignment ends in early June," Miller said in an internal message that was released by the IRS. "This has been an incredibly difficult time for the IRS given the events of the past few days, and there is a strong and immediate need to restore public trust in the nation's tax agency."

(Reporting By Karey Van Hall; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Jury cites 'greed factor' in abortion doc's case

Jurors who found Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell guilty of first-degree murder for killing three new born infants said today that his "greed" was a major element in their verdict.

The jurors spoke after Gosnell, 72, was sentenced to a third life sentence. They are to be served consecutively, ensuring that he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The doctor was accused of routinely carrying out late term abortions, but was convicted of "snipping" the spinal cords of three babies who were born alive.

Jury foreman David Misko explained today outside the courthouse what made the jury decide on first degree murder.

"The premeditation of it," he said. "It was just business as usual with him, he snipped the necks no matter what happened, so it seems that was what it was the premeditation of the babies."

Juror Joseph Carroll emerged from the courthouse to explain the jury's deliberations.

"Most of us felt it came down to a greed factor. The services … it was like a machine. They came in, he gave them a service, and bam, the women were gone," Carroll said.

Juror Sarah Glinski said today that the hardest part of the trial was viewing the images of the lifeless new borns.

"Seeing those photos and just having to say to myself, 'This did happen to those kids. There were children that died at the hands of this man.' That was what was hard for me. To admit that that kind of evil exists in this world," she said.

Gosnell was handed two life sentences Tuesday after a deal was struck with prosecutors which spared him a potential death sentence. The third sentence was handed down today. Gosnell was also sentenced to 2.5 to 5 years in prison for the 2009 overdose death of a female patient.

He was cleared of the "snipping" death of a fourth infant.

The guilty verdicts against Gosnell came on Monday, the jury's 10th day of deliberations.

The Philadelphia clinic run by Gosnell has been described as a "pill mill" for drug addicts by day, and an "abortion mill" by night. When Gosnell aborted the fetus of a teen who was nearly 30 weeks pregnant, he allegedly joked the baby was so big it could "walk to the bus."

For two months, the jury heard often grisly testimony, including from members of Gosnell's staff. Eight staffers have pleaded guilty to several crimes. Prosecutors said none of the staff were licensed nurses or doctors.

Gosnell ran the Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia for decades until February 2010, when FBI agents raided his clinic looking for evidence of prescription drug dealing.

Instead they found, as reported in a nearly 300 page grand jury report released in 2011, a filthy, decrepit "house of horrors."

Blood was on the floor, the clinic reeked of urine and bags of fetal remains were stacked in freezers. The clinic was shut down and Gosnell's medical license was suspended after the raid.

Despite repeated complaints to state officials over the years -- as well as 46 lawsuits filed against Gosnell -- investigators said in the report that state regulators had conducted five inspections since the clinic had opened in 1979.

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Pa. woman sues church, shrine, cites priest abuse

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A new priest-abuse lawsuit accuses church and local authorities of letting a Philadelphia-area priest flee to Poland during a stalled investigation.

The lawsuit says the priest assaulted a woman last year while counseling her at a Roman Catholic shrine in Bucks County.

The woman volunteered at Our Lady of Czestochowa (CHEST'-uh-HOV'-uh) in Doylestown.

The Associated Press is not naming the accused priest because he could not be reached for comment.

He belongs to the Pauline Fathers, a religious order at the shrine. A woman who answered the phone Wednesday said the Pauline supervisors were "in prayer" and not available for comment.

The lawsuit also accuses Bucks County prosecutors and Philadelphia Archdiocese officials of failing to pursue the complaint and letting the priest flee.

Neither office immediately returned phone messages.

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New pope cites grandma's folk wisdom at his first Palm Sunday

By Philip Pullella

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (Reuters) - A reigning pope and a former pope faced each other for the first time in at least 600 years on Saturday when Pope Francis travelled south of Rome for lunch with his predecessor, pope emeritus Benedict XVI.

Francis, who was elected on March 13, flew by helicopter to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, where Benedict has been living since he abdicated on February 28.

Footage released by the Vatican showed the two men, both dressed in nearly identical white clerical garb, including white skull caps, embracing shortly after the helicopter landed at the large estate.

The only difference in garb is that Francis also wears a short white cape over his cassock and a white sash around his waist - both symbols of his authority. On Saturday Benedict, who often suffered from chills, even indoors, wore a thick white vest over his cassock.

They then rode in the same car to the residence where they prayed together, spoke alone for about 45 minutes and then had lunch accompanied by their two secretaries. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the atmosphere for the entire visit, which lasted just under three hours, was "family-like".

When they went to pray in the chapel, Benedict offered the place of honor, a kneeler before the altar, to Francis, who declined, saying, "We are brothers, we pray together," Lombardi said. Footage showed the two men praying at the same pew.

Asked about the health of Benedict, who became the first pope in 600 years to resign instead of ruling for life, citing diminishing strength, Lombardi said: "It is normal, he is an old man."

Benedict has been living temporarily in the summer residence in the Alban Hills and will move back to the Vatican after the restoration of a convent where he is expected to live for the rest of his life.

Shortly before his resignation, Benedict, now 85, said he would be "withdrawing into prayer" and would live out his remaining days "hidden from the world".

In February, on the last day of his nearly eight years as leader of the Catholic Church, Benedict pledged his unconditional obedience to whoever would succeed him. Lombardi said the meeting "gave Benedict the opportunity, through his gestures" to renew his pledge personally.

While Lombardi said there would be no statement on what the two discussed, it was likely that the conversation included problems of Vatican administration.

LEAKS SCANDAL

Before he resigned, Benedict left a secret report for Francis on the so-called "Vatileaks" scandal in which sensitive papal documents were stolen from the pope's desk and leaked to the media by his butler.

Last year, the butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and sentenced by a Vatican court to 18 months in prison but Benedict pardoned him and he was freed last Christmas.

The presence of a reigning pope and a pope emeritus is new for the Church in the modern era, but experts say it should not cause difficulties unless Benedict tries to influence Francis's decisions, something he has promised not to do.

Some Church scholars worry that in the event that Francis undoes some of Benedict's policies while he is still alive, the former pope could become a lightning rod for conservatives and polarize the Church.

"Benedict XVI could turn into a shadow pope who has stepped down but can still exert indirect influence," Hans Kung, a dissident Swiss theologian who has clashed with Benedict in the past, told a German magazine.

Francis, who inherited a Church riven by problems such as the sexual abuse scandal in many countries, has indicated in his first few days that his papacy will be more austere.

He wants the Church to be poorer and to be closer to the poor and suffering. In this vein, he has decided to hold Holy Thursday service next week in a juvenile jail on Rome's outskirts rather than in the Vatican or in a Rome Basilica, where it has been held by all his predecessor in living memory.

(Additional reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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