See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ii16
WikiLeaks upsets criminals at Vatican
Amplify’d from www.opednews.com
WikiLeaks upsets criminals at Vatican
WikiLeaks reveals that the Catholic Church obstructed the Irish investigation into pedophile priests abusing Irish children between January 1975 and May of 2004. The Irish government's investigation concluded with the Murphy Report (PDF). The Guardian reported on Saturday that the Vatican was upset when the Irish government asked high ranking Catholic bureaucrats to come to Ireland and testify. The pompous clergymen were not at all concerned about the innocent children who fell victim to the sexual perversions of the Catholic priests. Instead, they were concerned that the Irish government "failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the investigations." The callousness of these self-righteous "holy" men is stomach turning! How can they even think of anything other than the welfare of the abused and hurting children???
The fact that the criminals in the Vatican were upset that the Irish government did not show the Vatican "respect" helps to make the very important point that not everything deserves respect. Certainly the Vatican does not deserve respect. One of the main reasons the world is still suffering under the unnatural absurdities of Christianity and the other "revealed" religions is because people mistakenly believe they deserve respect. Why? They teach destructive ideas like Jewish superiority (Deuteronomy 7:6), they teach deadly superstitions like faith-healing (Mark 16:18), they teach Muslims not to be friends with people who are not Muslims (Surah 3:118) and in general they teach to focus on the hereafter while the here and now goes to hell.
The Deist and key American Founder and political and religious revolutionary Thomas Paine taught us well when he said we need to be bold in addressing the bad teachings and nonsense of Christianity and all "revealed" religions. In a letter to his fellow Deist Elihu Palmer regarding Palmer's book, Principles of Nature, Paine wrote, "I see you have thought deeply on the subject, and expressed your thoughts in a strong and clear style. The hinting and intimating manner of writing that was formerly used on subjects of this kind produced skepticism, but not conviction. It is necessary to be bold. Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think." Once enough people begin to actually and objectively think, the end of the "revealed" religions will be in sight and true natural and meaningful progress will be on the horizon.
To demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Vatican and all the fake human-beings who occupy it are, all we need to do is look at the case of Cardinal Bernard Law. Bernie Law was the first Catholic clergyman shown to have covered up for pedophile priests at the terrible expense of innocent children. What did the Vatican do about Bernie? They promoted him and moved him in with the other unnatural criminals in the Vatican! Hiding out from justice in Rome, Bernie keeps busy in several Catholic organizations including the Pontifical Council for the Family! This FACT fully exposes the Catholic Church as an organization for complete and total hypocrites who lie through their teeth and who don't even have compassion for children.
These pathetic facts show a deep need for a total revolution in religion, for a religious revolution which will replace the "revealed" religions with Nature and reason friendly Deism.
Bob Johnson is a paralegal and a freelance writer in Florida. He was raised Roman Catholic, but after reading Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason, he became a Deist. In 1993 he founded the World Union of Deists and in 1996 he launched the first web (more...)
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ihh4
US diplomats considered helping Vatican deal with terror threats
Amplify’d from www.cathnews.com
American embassy officials in 2008 asked the US State Department to consider helping the Vatican deal with terrorist threats, considering "the known al-Qaeda antipathy to the Pope," the Catholic News Agency reports from a cable published on Wikileaks.
The December 19, 2008 cable, reportedly from the US Embassy in Rome, documented a request from the US Vatican Embassy to plan and fund a "crisis management tabletop exercise" with Vatican security services.
The stated purpose of this effort was to enhance the Vatican's crisis response abilities and to "foster a dialogue with the Vatican on counter-terrorism."
"Al-Qaeda has publicly identified the Pope and the Catholic Church as an enemy ('Crusaders'), and Vatican City attracts hundreds of thousands of American citizen visitors each year, both tourists and pilgrims," the cable continued.
According to the cable, the head of the Vatican Gendarme Corps Domenico Giani had sought specific security training from the FBI, including explosives ordinance training for Vatican Gendarmerie members at the Quantico Marine Corps base in Virginia. However, the cable reported, Giani has been "reluctant to engage in a comprehensive dialogue with the United States about Vatican capabilities and preparedness to respond to a terrorist attack."
During a November 2008 conversation about al-Qaida's threat to the Vatican, US Vatican Embassy official Julieta Valls Noyes proposed to Giani a joint tabletop exercise on crisis management, to which he reportedly responded "positively."
The Rome Embassy cable noted the Holy See's sensitivity about appearing to be too close to any one state, which the embassy described as a challenge to fostering dialogue about security. Another challenge was "the Vatican's conviction that its facilities must be easily accessible to all Catholics."
FULL STORY
Al-Qaida hatred for Pope caused US worries about Vatican security (Catholic News Agency)
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ihh2
Did a 'shoddy' US diplomatic cable misreport Britain's ambassador to the Vatican?
Amplify’d from blogs.telegraph.co.uk
Did a 'shoddy' US diplomatic cable misreport Britain's ambassador to the Vatican?
Francis Campbell (Photo: BBC)
Did the WikiLeaks cables attributing an anti-Ordinariate briefing to Francis Campbell, our Ambassador to the Holy See, seriously misrepresent him? A well-informed source tells me that they did. Getting at the truth of this matter will not be easy, but if Mr Campbell has been misreported by a “shoddy” US cable, as my informant claims, then my criticism of him has indeed been too harsh.
This is what I have been told:
1. The cable “doesn’t quote Campbell accurately”. It doesn’t correspond to the report he actually produced: he never linked violence to the Ordinariate, but spoke instead of extreme anti-Papal Visit rhetoric and hinted very cautiously that some thought it might turn violent. In the same document he spoke of the atmosphere of surprise amongst Romans and Anglicans at the publication of Anglicanorum Coetibus and difficulties ahead. The US cable, based on this report, “erroneously linked the two”.
2. The liberal ecumenical lobby in Rome may have tried to influence Francis Campbell, but he is far from being their mouthpiece and is by no means opposed to the Ordinariate.
My informant adds: “I thank God that you’re trying to defend the Ordinariate from the attacks of the Catholic establishment (both here and in Rome, where opposition makes the CBCEW’s obstruction seem utterly insignificant) but, in this case, you’ve given a loyal son of the Church a real kicking for no reason. He’s done a lot of good work in that job, Damian, in the face of serious opposition from the usual suspects.”
What WikiLeaks has revealed, clearly, is the murky nature of this whole business. The Ordinariate has dedicated enemies in Rome, some of them English. The analysis attributed to Francis Campbell by the US cable seems to have their fingerprints all over it. Is is too much to ask, I wonder, for Mr Campbell to state publicly what he did and didn’t say? Or do Foreign Office rules prohibit that?
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ihgy
In Plea for Leniency, Child Sex Abuser Says Relationship With Priest is Linked to His Pedophilia
Related: Shameless Douglas Perlitz tries to deny Haiti boys full measure of justice http://www.opednews.com/articles/Shameless-Douglas-Perlitz-by-Ezili-Dant--101214-858.html
Amplify’d from www.foxnews.com
In Plea for Leniency, Child Sex Abuser Says Relationship With Priest is Linked to His Pedophilia
Douglas Perlitz talks about his missionary work with Haitian street children in a 2004 interview in Fairfield, Conn. (AP)
A Connecticut man who has confessed to sexually abusing several homeless boys in Haiti is claiming in his plea for leniency that a relationship he had with a priest while in college more than 20 years ago is linked to his pedophilia, according to a document filed by his attorneys.
Douglas Perlitz, 40, pleaded guilty in August to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, and he admitted to engaging in sexual acts with eight children as part of a plea deal. He could receive from eight to nearly 20 years in prison on Dec. 21 when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton.
In an effort to get Perlitz a lesser sentence, his attorneys, David Grudberg and William Dow III, claim his relationship with an unidentified priest when he was a student at Fairfield University in Connecticut -- coupled with his sexual identity issues, the sudden death of his father and his struggles with alcoholism -- acted as "complex forces that led him to stray from his normally sound moral footing."
That claim is made in a 32-page memorandum in aid of sentencing brief obtained by FoxNews.com.
"[Perlitz] freely acknowledges that he is responsible and answerable for his misconduct, but that fact does not make his current circumstance any less tragic," the document reads. "In imposing sentence, the Court is called upon to balance the duty and obligation to punish the defendant for his actions with the need to fashion a punishment that properly takes into account all the good Doug Perlitz has done throughout his life, as well as the complex forces that led him to stray from his normally sound moral footing."
In 1997, while he lived in Connecticut, Perlitz founded the Project Pierre Toussaint (PPT) School for homeless children in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. Four years later, the school had evolved into a 10-acre walled village where more than 200 children could eat, live and attend school, according to the brief.
"Dozens, if not hundreds, of youths who had entered the program 'drugged out' and homeless evolved into respectful, productive students with the help of PPT," the document reads. "With the growth of the program, however, came additional pressures, and additional forces that, coupled with the many other stresses of everyday life in Haiti, took their toll on Doug Perlitz."
Those factors, the document claims, ultimately led Perlitz to "cross the line," along with stress and the "never-ending responsibility" of his job at the school, his struggles with homosexuality, a lack of intimacy and his prior physical and spiritual relationship with a priest at Fairfield, a Jesuit institution.
"In many ways, the abuse of power and trust that manifested itself in Doug's own painful relationship with the priest recurred in his own conduct with some of the young adults of PPT," the document reads. "Our purpose is not to compare the Haitian street children in this case with a teenage Doug Perlitz. However, it is a sad and all-too-true fact that abusive behavior has a painful circularity to it."
Prosecutors, meanwhile, claim Perlitz withheld benefits and threatened to expel boys if they spurned his advances for nearly a decade after opening the school. U.S. Attorney David Fein has said Perlitz "preyed on impoverished and powerless" homeless children in Haiti, enticing them with food, shelter, clothing and education.
The priest Perlitz accuses of beginning a relationship with him "within days" of his arrival at Fairfield is not identified in the 32-page document. But the Connecticut Post reports that the Rev. Paul Carrier -- who served as the university's director of campus ministry and chaplain for 18 years -- played a key role in Perlitz's life.
Carrier, who took students on missions to Haiti and visited the school nearly once a month, called Perlitz nearly daily and vacationed with him, several former employees and students in Haiti told the Post last year. Carrier resigned from Fairfield University in 2006 after 18 years of service.
Attempts to reach Carrier on Tuesday were unsuccessful. His attorney, Timothy O'Neill, declined to comment, other than to say: "[Perlitz's brief] deserves the same credibility as the person making that statement, which is absolutely none."
Grudberg declined to comment on any connection between his client and Carrier. Calls to the Archdiocese of Bridgeport were not immediately returned.
In a statement to FoxNews.com, Fairfield University spokesman Mark Gregorio said the school was "deeply troubled" by the new allegation in Perlitz's brief and cited its policy against harassment.
"Fairfield University is deeply troubled by this new allegation in this tragic case," the statement read.
Paul Kendrick, an advocate for sexual abuse victims and a Fairfield University alumnus, has repeatedly called on university officials to take responsibility in the case and provide aid to the abused boys. But he also claims Perlitz's plea for leniency should be disregarded.
"It's obviously all about Doug," Kendrick told FoxNews.com. "What I really see is a lack of awareness, a real lack of accountability and a real lack of responsibility for the depth of the harm he's inflicted on these children."
Kendrick, who is accepting donations for the victims in question, said sexual abuse "permanently alters" the victim's physical and emotional development.
"In my mind, people like Doug are sorry for one thing -- they're sorry for being caught," he said. "Anything less than a maximum sentence is a slap in the face to the boys who courageously came forward and, of course, were raped and sodomized by this guy."
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ihia
Is The New York Times anti-catholic?
Good for them!
Amplify’d from www.irishcentral.com
Is The New York Times anti-catholic?
Yes, there is a long history at the paper
By
,IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
New York Times headquarters, Manhattan
Columnist Frank Rich raises the issue of whether The New York Times is anti-Catholic by his excoriating column attacking Bill Donohue's Catholic League complaints about a Smithsonian exhibition last Sunday.
On the one hand several of The Times columnists are Catholics. Nicholas Kristof's father wrote editorials for the Diocese of Portland's newspaper. On the other we have the sports department columnists Carl Rhoden and Harvey Araton who aggressively attacked Notre Dame University, Rhoden over the firing of black coach Tyrone Willingham.
Nicholas Kristof, who often chides others for ignoring scientific evidence, habitually blames the Catholic Church for AIDS in Africa because it condemned the use of condoms. There is no scientific evidence of a correlation between Catholicism and AIDS and it's dubious that anyone who ignores the Catholic Church's proscription on sex outside marriage is concerned about the church's position on condoms.
The Times perennially features the McMansion ethnic slur, the Irish as perpetrators of the New York City draft riots, and Simon Winchester the anti-Catholic who eventually admitted writing stories for the Guardian that covered up British army killings of civilians in Northern Ireland.
Connecting the draft riots to New York's Irish is especially problematic. Although the Weinstein brothers' Gangs of New York movie about the riots features the Irish in the Five Points neighborhood, near where my great-grandfather lived, most of the violence occurred along the 20th-30th street axis uptown, as Pete Hamill pointed out in a Daily News column. Indeed the lynching of Abraham Franklin recounted in Bob Herbert's egregious column about the riots occurred virtually on the doorstep of Mount Sinai Hospital's original location. Although Herbert identifies a teenager who mutilated Franklin's body as Irish, the person charged with the lynching was not mentioned: he was neither Irish nor Catholic. Neither were the commercial interests who incited the rioting, notably the leader of the Democratic party at the time, August Belmont.
Mr. Herbert egregiously accused poor immigrants of refusing to fight to free poor blacks. MIA, as far as The Times is concerned, is the fact that most of New York City, including the Irish, didn't riot in July 1863. MIA the Great Militia Mobilization of June 1863 that sent 15,000 men to the aid of Pennsylvania when the Confederates invaded, but stripped New York City of its self-defense force leaving it to the mercy of malcontents. MIA New York City's 200 Civil War Medals of Honor. MIA the 200,000 soldiers from New York City including Brooklyn who fought for the Union. MIA their 20,000 dead. MIA New York City's Irish Brigade and its suicidal assault on the stonewall at Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, on the eve of Emancipation. MIA the Excelsior brigade at Gettysburg. MIA New York City's 69th Fighting Irish regiment, which fought in almost all the major battles in the East from Bull Run to Appomattox, losing more KIA than any other Union army infantry regiment, some of its members even accompanying Sherman on his march to the sea.
Finally, to illustrate universality of this problem, The Times science department refuses to note that the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is by far the largest single mount optical telescope in the world and has produced observations clearer than the Hubble Space Telescope. Given The Times position that religion, and particularly the Catholic Church, is an antagonist of science, the Gregorian calendar notwithstanding, the science department is loathe to acknowledge that LBT sits next door to the Vatican Observatory in Arizona and the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, which was the prototype for manufacturing LBT's gigantic mirrors.
What we have here is what the British call Whig history, a world saved by stouthearted Cromwells and Marlboroughs from the Irish, Spain, benighted Kings, and the Catholic Church. Wonderful fairy tales for those who like cultivated prejudice and to read that someone else is the problem.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ihha
Five found guilty including an 83-year-old nun and an 81-year-old Jesuit, now face up to ten years in prison
Amplify’d from www.weeklyvolcano.com
Plowshares five found guilty
Activists, including an 83-year-old nun and an 81-year-old Jesuit, now face up to ten years in prison
Five peace activists, including an 83-year-old nun and an 81-year-old Jesuit, were found guilty this week of a range of crimes after breaking into a nuclear storage facility in Silverdale, Wash. Anne Montgomery, 83, a Sacred Heart sister from New York; Father Bill Bichsel, SJ, 81, a Jesuit priest from Tacoma Washington; Susan Crane, 67, a member of the Jonah House community in Baltimore, Maryland; Lynne Greenwald, 60, a nurse from Bremerton Washington; and Father Steve Kelly, SJ, 60, a Jesuit priest from Oakland California will be sentenced in March. They were charged with trespass, felony damage to federal property, felony injury to property and felony conspiracy to damage property in conjunction with a protest action that took place in November, 2009. Each defendant faces a sentence of up to ten years in prison.
The five admitted from the start that they cut through the chain-link fence surrounding the Navy base during the night of the Feast of All Souls, November 2, 2009. For hours they walked undetected a distance of nearly four miles inside the base to the Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific (SWFPAC). This top security area is where the Plowshares activists say hundreds of nuclear missiles are stored in bunkers. There they cut through two more barbed wire fences and went inside.
They put up two big banners which said "Disarm Now Plowshares: Trident Illegal and Immoral," scattered sunflower seeds and prayed until they were arrested at dawn. Once arrested, the five were cuffed and hooded with sand bags because the marine in charge testified "when we secure prisoners anywhere in Iraq or Afghanistan we hood them ... so we did it to them."
In their defense the peace activists argued that nuclear missiles at Bangor are weapons of mass destruction; those weapons are both illegal and immoral; and that all citizens have the right and duty to try to stop international war crimes from being committed by these weapons of mass destruction.
During the trial, Father Bichsel said they went "in solidarity with half the people in our world, who are living under authorized lethal force - without food, without housing, without education, without the possibility of employment. The things that they live under - it's lethal force. And it's authorized, it's not just happenstance that they are living that way. It doesn't have to be that way, and we have the power to change it."
The group will be sentenced in March.
Read more at www.weeklyvolcano.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ihhs
Knights of Columbus Suit Claims Sex Abuse Cover-Up | CNSnews.com
Knights of Columbus Suit Claims Sex Abuse Cover-Up | CNSnews.com
New Haven, Conn. (AP) - Two men sued the Knights of Columbus on Tuesday alleging a youth leader sexually abused them decades ago and the world's largest Catholic lay organization covered up one of the men's earlier allegations of abuse.
The lawsuits claim that Juan "Julian" Rivera, a former leader of the Columbian Squires in Brownsville, Texas, abused the men in the 1970s and '80s when they were boys. One of the victims told Knights of Columbus officials in 1986 that he had been sexually abused by Rivera, but the Knights concealed the report of abuse and intimidated the victim into not making the abuse public, one lawsuit alleges.
"His allegations and his coming forward was basically shut down," Jeffrey Herman, attorney for the men, said outside the Knights' headquarters in New Haven as he announced the two lawsuits. "We believe that the Knights of Columbus organization was aware of what was taking place."
Patrick Korten, senior vice president for the Knights, said there was no indication in the records at headquarters of such a complaint, but he said he doesn't know about records in Texas. He said the organization acted quickly to remove Rivera and refer the matter to police in Texas when officials first learned of the allegations last year.
"There is nothing more important to us than to ensure the safety of the children in that program," Korten said.
Korten said the Knights established a youth protection program in 2003 that includes background checks on all applicants to be youth leaders.
There was no answer at a phone listed in Rivera's name. Larry Prather, chairman of the Texas Squires state council, said a phone number he believed was Rivera's was dead and his e-mail account was deleted.
Herman said he believes the lawsuits are the first against the Knights of Columbus to allege sexual abuse of children. Each lawsuit seeks more than $5 million in damages.
"It broadens the whole issue of the sexual abuse crisis and frankly further damages the Catholic Church's reputation," said Chuck Zech, director of the Center for the Study of Church Management at Villanova University.
The Knights of Columbus is a well-regarded, generous organization which runs a large insurance program, Zech said. "They have deep pockets," he said.
One of the victims, 49-year-old Jim Dennany of Texas, identified himself in the lawsuit, while the other was filed as a John Doe. The Associated Press generally does not identify victims of sexual abuse, but Herman said Dennany believes using his name will help protect other children from abuse.
"I brought this lawsuit today because I do not ever want another child to be hurt the way that I was hurt," Dennany said in a statement to the AP. "I do not want anyone else who is suffering and blaming themselves to hurt anymore. I feel that it is time for the Knights of Columbus to be held accountable for what happened to me."
Dennehy said the abuse affected every aspect of his life.
"I do not trust anyone, especially with my family members," he said. "I have lived most of my life feeling ashamed and dirty for what Julian Rivera did to me. My abuse has affected everyone around me. I am hopeful that today is my first step toward healing myself and those that I love."
Dennany's lawsuit alleges Rivera sexually abused him at various locations throughout Texas and Mexico between 1973 and 1977. Dennany, who said Rivera plied him with alcohol and pornography, said the abuse led to guilt, shame, self-blame, depression and chemical dependency.
John Doe, who lives in Kansas, said Rivera plied him with whisky, marijuana, pornography and a white pill that he said would help him relax. He said when he hesitated to give Rivera a massage, Rivera pulled out a small handgun and placed it on the ground.
Rivera sexually abused John Doe for six years on overnight trips for local and national events of the Squires, his lawsuit alleges. The man said if he told anyone, Rivera said he would kill his family or cut off a body part and send it to his mother, according to the lawsuit.
Rivera also "shared" the boy with another adult leader of the Squires in another city who sexually abused him, the lawsuit alleges.
The man said he suffered chemical addictions, nightmares, depression and suicidal tendencies.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)