Amplify’d from www.wayneindependent.com

Priest convicted of child porn

By Dale Ann Deffer

Wayne Independent

Milford, Pa. — A local Catholic priest, Father Robert M. Timchak, 44, was sentenced to 6-to-72 months at a Pennsylvania State Prison for 17 felony counts of child pornography by Judge Joseph F. Kameen on Wednesday, according to the Pike County District Attorney’s Office. Charges were originally filed in October 2009 when an anonymous letter was mailed to The Scranton Diocese, according to information released by CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 log, which initially grabbed national attention last year. The Diocese turned the letter over to the District Attorney’s Office, which began its investigation. “After seizing his desktop and laptop computers, investigators said they found graphic files containing young males in sexually explicitly poses and/or acts. The graphic files contained nude or partially clothed young males,” according to CNN. Timchak was a priest at St. Vincent de Paul from July 2007 to April 2009, said Father Paul Mullen, who is now the priest at the church. The church is located on Route 739 in Dingman Township. As part of the parish, there is a pre-school on the grounds. Timchak also pleaded guilty to criminal use of a communication facility and tampering with evidence. Judge Kareem additionally ordered him to pay a fine, submit a DNA sample and to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law. According to information released from the Pike County District Attorney Raymond Tonkin, when Timchak knew the police were close on his heels, he tried to delete the images from his computer, but he was unsuccessful. The average age of the young male children was 11. Timchak has served with the Scranton Diocese since 1992, starting in Wilkes-Barre at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception. Bishop Joseph Bambera, who is in charge of the Diocese, issued a formal statement which stated, “The Catholic Church considers child pornography to be a serious moral and criminal offense. The Vatican recently revised its procedures for handling priestly sex abuse cases, streamlining disciplinary measures and defining child pornography as an act of sexual abuse of a minor. The Diocese of Scranton adheres to this protocol and all civil and ecclesiastical laws. It reads further, “Father Timchak has been on a leave of absence and residing at a treatment facility outside the Diocese since April 2009. He has not been allowed to publicly celebrate Mass, hear confessions or administer any other sacraments. The strict limitations already imposed on him by the Diocese remain in effect. “Now that the legal proceedings have been completed, the future of Father Timchak as a priest is a matter for the Holy See to decide,” according to the Diocese. In layman’s terms now that he has been convicted and sentenced to prison, his fate as far as the Catholic Church is concerned is up to the Vatican.   Read more at www.wayneindependent.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.israelnationalnews.com

US State Dept: Israel Similar to Iran, Iraq and Sudan

� by Chana Ya'ar

The U.S. State Department under Secretary Hillary Clinton claims that Israel violates religious freedom at the same level as Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and China.

“Religious freedom can be restricted in a variety of ways, from the overt to the subtle,” explains the department's annual International Religious Freedom Report on 198 countries and territories surveyed by its foreign service personnel, released Wednesday for the period July 1, 2008 - June 30, 2009. A wide spectrum of efforts are used to undermine such rights, extending to multilateral, regional and global arenas, the report continues.

Part I of the Executive Summary discusses overall conditions during the reporting period in countries where “violations of religious freedom have been noteworthy.”�Israel is listed among 30 nations selected for this category -- including Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen -- due to the emphasis of the Jewish State on maintaining the status quo with regard to respect for Jewish legal standards. �

Israel's adherence to specific Jewish legal (halakhic) strictures are the basis for some of the American claims, though the State Department report does not note that non-adherence to these would violate Jewish religious freedoms. (For��last year's State Department denunciation of Israel and responses, click here.)

The report complained, for instance, that three Messianic Jews were denied the right to immigrate to Israel during the reporting period.�Other issues of contention included Israel’s unwillingness to recognize conversions performed in the country which do not meet criteria under Torah law, identification cards (Teudot Zehut) that differentiate between Jews and non-Jews, and the authority over marriages and burials exercised by the Chief Rabbinate, which is Orthodox.

All religions have freedom of worship in Israel -- unlike the other countries mentioned above.�

In addition, the report erroneously claimed that Israel extends protection only to Jewish holy sites, rather than to all holy sites as is mandated under the law.�“The 1967 Protection of Holy Sites Law applies to holy sites of all religious groups within the country and in all of Jerusalem, but the Government implements regulations only for Jewish sites,” complained the report. “Non-Jewish holy sites do not enjoy legal protection under it because the Government does not recognize them as official holy sites."

Outright Lie In fact, this last is an outright lie. Government security forces often prevent Jews from even approaching the Temple Mount, and numerous Jews have been arrested�-- including a young bride and her father at one point -- for infractions as spurious as simply "moving their lips" on the site, because the area has been designated an official holy site for Muslims, where the Al-Aqsa mosque is located.

All Islamic sites are controlled by the Waqf, also known as the Islamic Religious Authority – due to the preference of the imams themselves, and under a special arrangement. Much damage has been caused and thousands of priceless artifacts from the First and Second Temple eras have been destroyed due to damage caused by construction near the Dome of the Rock mosque – which rests on the Temple Mount, where the Jewish Holy of Holies is located -- authorized by the Waqf.

Likewise the churches, which each fall under the authority of their own religious groups. For example, the Vatican controls its own churches, convents and monasteries, and even other properties. Israel has been involved in delicate talks with the Vatican over the issue of sovereignty of some 21 disputed properties in the Land of Israel for more than 11 years – and in fact, the Holy See has not even paid taxes on most of the properties.

To read the 2009 International Report on Religious Freedom's specific section on Israel, click here.

To read the U.S. State Department's full 2009 International Report on Religious Freedom, click here.

Related Links: ►International Journalists Union Expels Israel ►Israel ‘Destroyed’ Gaza Hospital that Never Existed ►ZOA: Clinton Owes New Yorkers An Apology ►House Majority to Clinton: Calm Down on Israel ►Actor Turns 'Conscientious Objector,' Gives Up Anti-IDF Role ►Foiled Again: Pro-PA British MP Still Banned from Canada Read more at www.israelnationalnews.com

 

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Losing faith in Catholic Church's direction

Amplify’d from www.koreatimes.co.kr

Losing faith in Catholic Church's direction

By Bonnie Erbe

There's a raging debate about the state of the Catholic Church in America. Some Church officials still cling to the hope that massive influxes of recent immigrants will fill the pews left empty by more educated, fallen-away parishioners. But clearly the church has receded as a religious and cultural force, like a steroid-pumped bicep to a withering muscle. The New York Times reports that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn plans to close two churches, fold six parishes into three and impose strict budget constraints on every one of its 198 parishes. This comes after a half-dozen waves of closings and mergers that left only about half as many Catholic elementary schools operating in Brooklyn as there were in the mid-1990s. Clear signs point to an institution on the wane, with parishes going bankrupt nationwide. Those that continue face a shortage of leaders. The Reuters news agency reported in September that a sign outside St. James Church in the affluent Boston suburb of Wellesley summed up Catholicism's deepening struggles in the United States. "Still searching for a priest," it reads. Another sign affixed to its thick doors pleads: "Save St. James." Facing dwindling congregations, shifting demographics and a drain on cash from settling sexual abuse lawsuits, Roman Catholic churches are shuttering at a quickening pace in a traditional stronghold, the Northeast. It's tempting to blame the priest pedophilia scandal and the Vatican's response to it for the church's collapse. Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate reports nationwide 850 parishes have shut down since 1995. And the scandal has cost the church $2 billion in settlements with more to come. Dogmatic, dictatorial churches do not resound with today's spirituality, and young people are not clamoring to join them. So sending a message that says, in essence, "Follow my rules or go to hell" might be a good way of retaining older parishioners used to such harsh boundaries. But as elderly parishioners die off, they take the church's message with them. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt said, "a shrinking Roman Catholic Church is no reason to consider a more liberal stance." He just announced his diocese would "close 21 churches to reflect churchgoers' move from urban areas to suburbia, declines in regular church attendance and an expectation of fewer new priests to replace those who retire or die." At the same time, he defended his mailing anti-gay marriage DVDs to the area's 800,000 church-going Catholics, a tactic that angered many of them. Machiavellian diplomacy has never won followers. In case the church hierarchy has not already noticed, it's too late to return to the Middle Ages. Church leaders blame shrinking parishes on a shortage of priests, in some cases. But making that argument is like blaming the hen for the egg. There would be no shortage of priests (or nuns, for that matter) if there weren't a shortage of congregants. And the nun shortage is particularly egregious, because their formerly free or cheap labor held down the price of the fabulous education provided by Catholic schools. Fewer children in Catholic schools will ultimately result in fewer adults staying with the Church. Is it too late for the Church to turn around? As long as the Vatican forces priests to remain celibate, it will have an ever-greater shortage of priests in educated countries. And since Pope Benedict clearly looks to the past for spiritual guidance instead of referring to the past but simultaneously peering into the future, people who have choices will choose to leave. Bonnie Erbe, a TV host, writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. Contact her at bonnieerbe@compuserve.com.Read more at www.koreatimes.co.kr

 

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Speaker: Respect other faiths without compromising beliefs

Amplify’d from www.thericatholic.com

Speaker: Respect other faiths without compromising beliefs

BY BRIAN FRAGA, Rhode Island Correspondent

SMITHFIELD — Christians have lived side by side with other religions since the days of pagan Rome. The challenge for believers has always been witnessing to Christ and evangelizing while showing respect toward their non-believing neighbors, said Dr. Sandra Keating during a recent “Theology on Tap” presentation entitled "The Problem of Religious Diversity: What's a Catholic to Think?"

"When we think of the pluralistic society, we shouldn't look at the church amid a sea of darkness. We should look at the church as a sacrament in the world," said Keating, an associate professor of theology at Providence College. She has also been a consultor to the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims. Keating told the audience of about two-dozen adults who attended the Nov. 9 Theology on Tap presentation at UNO Chicago Grill that the reality of living in a pluralistic society should encourage them to reflect on their own faith and determine why they believe in the Gospel. Entering into dialogue with people of other religions is important, but Christians must also resist the temptation to fall into relativism or to be intimidated to compromise their beliefs in Jesus Christ. "The question is really 'What should my relationship be with other religions? Adversarial? Witness? How do I present the Gospel?'" said Keating, who noted those were questions Christians faced in the first centuries after the Resurrection. "We need to remember that from the very beginning, Christians have lived side by side with other religions," said Keating, who cited the Christian community in India as an example. Christians are still a minority in that mostly-Hindu country, which has forced them to reflect deeply on their faith and the reality of other religions.

Christians in India have come to see the pluralism of religions as a part of God's plan, even mirroring salvation history.

"It showed how God was working outside the church," said Keating, who quoted St. Justin Martyr, a second century philosopher who said the seed of the Word was sprinkled outside the church. She also recommended that Catholics read "Nostra Aetate," the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions that came out of the Second Vatican Council.

John Berry, a parishioner at St. Mary Church in Providence, said he was struck by Keating's emphasis on the importance of witnessing to the faith while respecting other religious traditions.

"I don't think that our focus should be primarily on coercion, in the negative sense of the word, but rather that we should have an open attitude, especially towards Muslims and Jews because we have a faith tradition in common," Berry said.

The dilemma facing believers today who might have grown up in intact Catholic neighborhoods is figuring out who to enter into conversations with non-Christians.

Keating said the Catholic Church emphasizes dialogue and witnessing to the faith, with one aspect being more appropriate than the other in certain situations.

"We can use the encounter with other religions to deepen our own faith," she said.

"The negative side of pluralism is that it can be intimidating. Rather than entering into conversations and debating, we can decide to go along to get along or adopt a 'live and let live' mentality.' It can force us to be quiet about our beliefs."

Keating added that it is not Christian to coerce or force people to believe the faith. She said people often need to be drawn into it, especially by an authentic example of Christian holiness. Read more at www.thericatholic.com

 

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ADL Calls On Catholic Leaders To Repudiate Archbishop's Anti-Jewish Teachings

Amplify’d from www.adl.org

ADL Calls On Catholic Leaders To Repudiate Archbishop's Anti-Jewish Teachings

New York, NY, November 18, 2010 � The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called on Pope Benedict XVI and Catholic leaders in the United States to repudiate outrageous anti-Jewish statements by a Greek Melkite Archbishop who contends that Jews are no longer the chosen people of God.

In recent days Archbishop Cyril S. Bustros has sent a letter to constituents and has given interviews to the news media reaffirming controversial remarks he made in Rome on October 23, stating that, "After Christ there is no longer one particular chosen people."  The implication is that the distinctive relationship between God and the Jewish people, declared repeatedly in the same Scriptures held sacred by Christians, has been nullified.

Archbishop Bustros, who chaired the committee that prepared the closing communiqu� of Pope Benedict XVI's Special Synod of Bishops for the Middle-East, which was held in October at the Vatican, has reportedly been nominated to become the new Melkite Archbishop in Beirut, Lebanon.  Archbishop Bustros currently resides in Newton, Mass.

"With Archbishop Bustros continuing to promote this teaching of contempt, it is crucial for the Vatican and the leadership of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to stand up and respond," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.  "Especially in these troubled times, with the rise in global anti-Semitism and horrific terrorist attacks against Christians carried out in the name of religion, we cannot allow misrepresentations and misunderstandings to undermine our productive partnership. Reaffirming and building on Nostra Aetate is essential for the future positive trajectory of Catholic-Jewish relations and must be made clear to our two faith communities and others around the world."

ADL also appealed to Catholic leaders to join Jewish interfaith leaders in an effort to better educate the general public about the church's accepted teachings on Judaism and the Holy Land.

During a recent meeting in Rome, the League urged Archbishop Kurt Koch, President of the Vatican's Pontifical Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews, to publicly correct Archbishop Bustros' damaging statements about Judaism and Israel.

Archbishop Bustros cannot be promoted to his Beirut assignment without the approval of Pope Benedict.

Nostra Aetate, a declaration adopted in 1965 by the Second Vatican Council, repudiates anti-Semitism and the charge of "Christ-killer" against the Jewish people and lays the foundation for subsequent theological teachings about Judaism's ongoing vitality, self-understanding and God's irrevocable Covenant with the Jewish people made at Mt. Sinai.

The 1974 Vatican document "Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate, No. 4" calls on Catholics to appreciate Judaism in its own terms.   The Guidelines state that: "Christians must therefore strive to acquire a better knowledge of the basic components of the religious tradition of Judaism; they must strive to learn by what essential traits Jews define themselves in the light of their own religious experience."

The 1985 "Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church" directly contradicts Archbishop Bustros' contentions.   For example: "Christians are invited to understand [Jewish] religious attachment ["to the land of their forefathers"] which finds its roots in Biblical tradition, without however making their own any particular religious interpretation of this relationship ... We must in any case rid ourselves of the traditional idea of a people punished, preserved as a living argument for Christian apologetic. It remains a chosen people, 'the pure olive on which were grafted the branches of the wild olive which are the gentiles' (John Paul II, 6 March 1982, alluding to Rm. 11:17-24).Read more at www.adl.org

 

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Amplify’d from news.oneindia.in

Pope wants Pak-Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy released

Vatican City, Nov 18 (ANI): Pope Benedict XVI has called for the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman in Pakistan facing the death sentence awarded by a court in the Nankana Sahib under the Blasphemy Law. On Wednesday, Benedict told his weekly public audience that Christians in Pakistan "are often victims of violence and discrimination," the Dawn reported. He called for the release of Asia Bibi, who was recently sentenced to death after being accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, and the trial judge ruled out the possibility that she was falsely accused, saying that there were no mitigating circumstances. The Pope expressed his "spiritual closeness" to her, and said that he was praying that the "human dignity and fundamental rights of everyone in similar situations" is fully respected. Asia, an illiterate woman and resident of Chak 3 of Ittanwali was sentenced in June 2009 under Section 295B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code, commonly referred to as the Blasphemy Law, and has been in jail for over a year. According to an investigation by the National Commission on the Status of Women, Asia's case is rooted in personal vendetta by a landlord, who is using the issue to settle a score with her. (ANI)Read more at news.oneindia.in

 

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Pope, church leaders call for guaranteed health care for all people

Amplify’d from www.catholicnews.com

Pope, church leaders call for guaranteed health care for all people

By Sarah Delaney Catholic News Service

(CNS/Paul Haring)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI and other church leaders said it was the moral responsibility of nations to guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens, regardless of social and economic status or their ability to pay. Access to adequate medical attention, the pope said in a written message Nov. 18, was one of the "inalienable rights" of man. The pope's message was read by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, to participants at the 25th International Conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry at the Vatican Nov. 18-19. The theme of this year's meeting was "Caritas in Veritate - toward an equitable and human health care." The pope lamented the great inequalities in health care around the globe. While people in many parts of the world aren't able to receive essential medications or even the most basic care, in industrialized countries there is a risk of "pharmacological, medical and surgical consumerism" that leads to "a cult of the body," the pope said. "The care of man, his transcendent dignity and his inalienable rights" are issues that should concern Christians, the pope said. Because an individual's health is a "precious asset" to society as well as to himself, governments and other agencies should seek to protect it by "dedicating the equipment, resources and energy so that the greatest number of people can have access." "Justice in health care should be a priority of governments and international institutions," he said, cautioning that protecting human health does not include euthanasia or promoting artificial reproductive techniques that include the destruction of embryos. Care for human life from conception to its natural end must be a guiding light in determining health care policy, the pope said. In his own written statement, Cardinal Bertone had strong words in support of the need for governments to take care of all citizens, especially children, the elderly, the poor and immigrants. "Justice requires guaranteed universal access to health care," he said, adding that the provision of minimal levels of medical attention to all is "commonly accepted as a fundamental human right." Governments are obligated, therefore, to adopt the proper legislative, administrative and financial measures to provide such care along with other basic conditions that promote good health, such as food security, water and housing, the cardinal said. Private health insurance companies, he said, should conform to human rights legislation and see to it that "privatization not become a threat to the accessibility, availability and quality of health care goods and services." Cardinal Bertone recommended that government leaders in poor countries use their limited resources wisely and for the good of their citizens. The governments of richer nations with good health care available should practice more solidarity with their own disadvantaged citizens and help developing countries promote health care while trying to avoid a "paternalistic or humiliating" way of assisting, the cardinal said. Cardinal Bertone warned of the "war of interests" between pharmaceutical companies and developing nations who have little access to medicines because they can't pay for them. He said that those manufacturers should not be driven by "profit as the only objective" in the creation and distribution of medicines. Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, said in opening remarks that to have good health "is a natural right" recognized by international institutions. Despite such recognition, he said, great imbalances persist and developing nations find themselves with inadequate structures and without the ability to provide basic medicines to their people. Wealthier countries, on the other hand, have a "technical" approach to the sick, which ignores "the sick person in his entirety and dignity," Archbishop Zimowski said. The council, created by Pope John Paul II 25 years ago, will continue the church's mission to serve the sick and promote health for all, the archbishop said. END Read more at www.catholicnews.com

 

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Not cleared for landing: Ecumenical flight still far from destination

Amplify’d from www.catholicnews.com

Not cleared for landing: Ecumenical flight still far from destination

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury greets Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, at the conclusion of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity at the Vatican Nov. 17. (CNS/Paul Haring)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- For years, Christian leaders have recognized a waning enthusiasm for ecumenism, but now they are warning that too many Christians assume their divisions and differences just don't matter. Whether a divided Christianity is an anomaly, as an eminent Orthodox theologian said, or the result of sin, as a cardinal said, the ecumenical dialogues involving the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity are signs that the Catholic Church and other mainline churches are not going to settle for anything less than full unity in faith. The pontifical council held its 50th anniversary celebration Nov. 17 at the Vatican and its members met the pope the next morning. The evening celebration featured talks by Cardinal-designate Kurt Koch, council president; Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury; Orthodox Metropolitan John of Pergamon; and Cardinal Walter Kasper, retired council president. Cardinal-designate Koch used a metaphor to describe 50 years of Vatican ecumenical activity. He said it is like a plane trip -- there is much activity and excitement in preparing for the trip, everyone feels something happening during take-off, but when cruising altitude is reached, no one notices how fast the plane is moving, and passengers start to fidget and wonder if they ever are going to arrive. Ecumenical activity may have appeared to level off, he said, but it still is moving forward, and people must trust that it will reach its destination, he said. The cardinal-designate did not mention the recent turbulence experienced on the ecumenical flight because of serious differences, including over the ordination of women, blessing homosexual unions and dealing with abortion and other life issues. Cardinal Kasper said the sins of Christians throughout the centuries have fractured the body of Christ. "The great danger is that we get use to this situation of division, taking it simply as a fact," he said. "The existence of confessional churches, one alongside the other, is a reality that contradicts the will of the Lord and is the fruit of sin." Christians cannot take shortcuts to unity or gloss over differences that, in fact, may reveal they are not united in faith, he said. "Good-natured coexistence," cooperation in social service projects and shared events during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity are all positive developments, Cardinal Kasper said, "but they are not enough to fulfill Christ's will for his church." In fact, both Archbishop Williams, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, and Metropolitan John, Orthodox co-chairman of the Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue, expressed caution about a new trend in ecumenism -- "reconciled diversity." They warned that unity cannot be the result of believing differences are not important or too difficult to tackle, so that churches simply skip ahead to mutual recognition of ministers and full sacramental sharing. The Orthodox churches, like the Catholic Church, have longer and more-detailed lists of the differences that they consider necessary to resolve before unity can be restored, but Archbishop Williams said the Anglican and many mainline Protestant churches also have trouble seeing how "reconciled diversity" can respond to each dimension of the "biblical foundation for a theology of Christian unity." Archbishop Williams said the New Testament calls for the unity of Christians in Jesus Christ, unity with one another and unity with the witness of the apostles and apostolic teaching. The central place where Christians stand in unity with Christ is in the Eucharist, he said, because it is "the place where the prayer of Christ becomes our prayer." However, he said, increasingly the Eucharist is not the central action of many Christian communities, including in some parts of the Anglican Communion, and the archbishop called for a renewed effort to develop an ecumenical theology of the Eucharist. While almost all Christians would agree they need to maintain the faith handed on by the apostles, their ideas on how that is guaranteed vary widely and go from the Catholic vision that it is the pope who guarantees unity and apostolic continuity to an evangelical vision in which individual Christians read the Bible and basically decide for themselves. Most Christians who support the "reconciled diversity" model of unity, he said, believe the problem of authority is too complicated to deal with, so they simply move on. Metropolitan John, a top theologian and representative of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, said a real challenge to ecumenism today is that not all Christians agree on what unity means and entails. For the Orthodox, he said, "unity cannot avoid the question of truth," of what is an orthodox theological position and what is heresy. While some Christians "would be happier to remain separated," Metropolitan John said that only serious dialogue can lead to the full unity Christ willed for his church.Read more at www.catholicnews.com

 

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Has CERN made the VATICAN ANTIMATTER BOMB for real?*

Amplify’d from www.theregister.co.uk

Has CERN made the VATICAN ANTIMATTER BOMB for real?*

Physicists in veiled threat to gov funding bodies

By Lewis Page • Get more from this author

So - Dan Brown's turgid blockbuster Angels and Demons, in which a nefarious papal official nicks a vial of antimatter from CERN as part of a complicated scheme to become Pope by menacing the Vatican with explosive destruction. Twaddle? Or actually a perfectly feasible plan ripped from today's headlines, style of thing?

Just a few minor technical errors here

We here on the Reg particle-meddling desk naturally have no interest in the arcane Vatican rules of succession, the putative Illuminati secret society, the likelihood of finding a priest in the Pope's inner circle who would be capable of flying a helicopter etc.

We merely bring the matter up as it turns out that in fact there really is a team of scientists at CERN - the Organisation (formerly Conseil) Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire - striving to contain unprecedented amounts of antimatter: and they have just announced a major success in this extremely difficult undertaking. Could it be that Dan Brown has actually got one right? Would a tiny, pocketable amount of antimatter really be sufficient to rip the guts out of Rome in a blast equivalent to that of a small nuke?

On the face of it, yes. Antimatter reacts with normal matter to convert the entire mass of both into energy; it is the most powerful type of explosive possible, easily capable of making a global thermonuclear war look like angry cockroaches lighting their farts at each other.

Just a third of one measly gram of antimatter reacting with matter (for instance with the walls of its containment vessel) would cause a 15-kilotonne blast equivalent to that of the atom bomb which destroyed Hiroshima in 1945 - surely enough to wipe out the Vatican and quite a lot of Rome too.

QED: everything you read in Dan Brown books is true. Better still, the incomparably superior fiction of Star Trek might also be on the verge of becoming reality with antimatter at last available as a power source. As all Trekkies know, the Enterprise's warp drives were powered by a matter/antimatter reaction.

Whoa there! Not so fast.

First off, we're sorry to report that the international boffins of the ALPHA collaboration at CERN have succeeded in trapping only a sub-ultra-minuscule amount of anti-hydrogen, not even close to the milligrams range.

"We've been able to trap about 38 atoms, which is an incredibly small amount, nothing like what we would need to power Star Trek's Starship Enterprise - or even to heat a cup of coffee," says Rob Thompson, Canadian physics prof and member of the ALPHA group.

He's not kidding: each atom of nega-hydrogen masses something like 1.67x10-27 kg. Thirty-eight of them converted to energy according to Einstein's famous and pleasingly simple-enough-for-hacks equation E=mc2tells us that should a rogue Vatican official manage to abscond with Thompson's antimatter stash and annihilate it in the heart of the Catholic Church, he would liberate approximately 11 billionths of a single measly joule. And in fact it's even worse than this: the ALPHA experiment didn't contain its 38 anti-atoms all at once.

Next page: CERN boffins not interested in Vatican - but have publicly speculated about planting an antimatter bomb in a government funding office Read more at www.theregister.co.uk

 

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Amplify’d from sify.com

Vatican disturbed by reports of unauthorised ordination in China

Vatican City, Nov 18 (DPA) China risks jeopardising improving relations with the Vatican if clerics loyal to Pope Benedict XVI are forced to participate in the unilateral ordination of a bishop nominated by the Communist state-controlled church, the papal spokesman said Thursday.

Father Federico Lombardi was commenting on reports of the planned ordination of the bishop of Chengde, in China's northeastern Hebei province that is apparently scheduled for Nov 20.

The alleged candidate, Father Joseph Guo Jincai, 'has not received the approval of the Holy Father to be ordained as a bishop of the Catholic Church', Lombardi said in a statement.

The Vatican was particularly 'disturbed by reports from mainland China alleging that a number of bishops in communion with the Pope are being forced by government officials to attend an illicit episcopal ordination'.

'If these reports are true, then the Holy See would consider such actions as grave violations of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience,' Lombardi added.

'It would also consider such an ordination as illicit and damaging to the constructive relations that have been developing in recent times between the People's Republic of China and the Holy See,' the papal spokesman said.

Beijing and the Vatican broke off ties in 1951 after the Holy See recognised the government of Taiwan, the island that China sees as its breakaway province.

Benedict was seen to have broken new ground in relations with Beijing when in June 2007 he sent a letter to Chinese Catholics expressing admiration for the Chinese people but also the need for greater religious freedom in China.

The Catholic Church in China is split into about five million members of the government-administered church, according to official statistics, and more than 10 million estimated members of the underground church, loyal to the Vatican.

Catholics in the underground church often face harassment from Chinese authorities. Read more at sify.com

 

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