By Tracy Clark-Flory
Annie Lobert is spreading the word about the dark side of prostitution, as well as God's love for hookers
LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- She tosses her platinum blond hair over her shoulder and pulls down her shirt to expose the freckled flesh above her breasts. It's a move that would be sexy in most contexts, but certainly not this one: Annie Lobert, a former prostitute, is showing me how her breastbone bulges slightly on one side from a particularly bad beating from her pimp. "See that? That's from him standing on top of me with his Gore-Tex boots on," says the 43-year-old. "I was laying down and he marched on my chest." She presses on the bony protrusion, and it pops.
This is the first jarring stop on the tour of Lobert's battle wounds from more than a decade of hooking in Las Vegas, and it's this ugly side of the sex trade that she helps to expose in Investigation Discovery's reality TV series "Hookers: Saved on the Strip." The show, which wraps Wednesday at 10 p.m., follows Lobert as she reaches out to Sin City prostitutes and offers to help them escape abusive pimps, just like she did. There is just one catch: She offers harbor in a transitional home run by her organization, Hookers for Jesus, and the Church at South Las Vegas. It's a human rights mission, and a religious one, too.
Over lunch at a sushi restaurant, she continues mapping her scars. Pulling back her bangs, she reveals a thick white line along her hairline. "He did that to me, too," she tells me. "Another time, he took a hot fire poker and just -- boom, boom." She slams her fists on the table. "Girl, I could not walk. I have never seen anything so grotesque. My thigh was black." That's just the abuse that left physical scars -- he called her every name imaginable and shoved her face in dog shit. There were clients who beat and raped her at gunpoint, and friends, fellow working girls, who died. "Their bodies were chopped up," she says matter of factly between bites of sashimi. "They were strangled, shot in the head by tricks, or 'disappeared' by their pimps."
* Continue reading
The dissonance of eating raw fish while in the middle of the desert (or while talking about dismemberment) is nothing compared to the experience of going to Sunday services with Lobert -- the least of which is because I'm an atheist who has never attended church. The members of her congregation are no strangers to sex work or any of the other "un-Godly" things going on 20 miles away on the strip. After the preacher's raucous and very Vegas sermon -- during which he exclaims, "God loooves sex!" -- Lobert introduces me to a couple of churchgoers who used to turn tricks just like her. One friend -- let's call her Cameron, thanks to a resemblance to a certain blond actress -- managed to tear herself away from her pimp, and the sex trade, when he landed in jail (she was carrying his baby at the time).
Another woman, let's call her Julia, seems at first to have the sort of "happy hooker" story that we so often see in pop culture: She was swept off her feet by one of her clients, à la "Pretty Woman," she says. But then she introduces me to her newly adopted daughter: A shy 16-year-old with long brown hair who recently escaped life on the street, and whose 13-year-old sister is currently being exploited downtown by child sex traffickers; she hears from her occasionally but has no idea how to find her. Neither do the police, apparently.
It isn't an unusual story, but it's bracing to me, in particular because I am one of those young feminists who philosophically believes that prostitution should be legal. For the first time, though, I viscerally understand the anti-legalization stance. I can't say my position has changed, but seeing the scars and tears firsthand makes the issue appear infinitely more complex. Too often, I have focused on the best-case scenario: the "high-class" hooker who is a free agent. These women, and men, do exist, but they are not the majority. Of course I already knew this, but talking to a teenage girl whose kid sister is being sold for sex puts your political priorities in check.
When Lobert lived with her pimp, he would bring home underage girls. "I had 12-year-olds in my house," she says. Some of them barely spoke English and they all had fake IDs; whenever she found out their real age, she would try to run them off, sometimes even buying them a bus or a plane ticket out of town. Lobert drives me down a shadowy street right off the strip and points with one of her glittery pink acrylic nails. "That's where all the underage girls walk."
It isn't just the underage girls that are being forced into the trade, either. "These women leave and they die," she says. Lobert left her pimp several times, "but he always found me," she says. She was kidnapped, had her hair cut off (so that she couldn't make money for another pimp) and beaten close to death. Now she simply refers to most sex work as trafficking. "When it’s 'prostitution,' no one wants to talk to you, but it's the same thing. You’re being trafficked. You’re being enslaved. You might not see the chains, but they're there."
When it comes to sex workers who say they enjoy their work, Lobert is unyielding, even when pressed: "They're either in the honeymoon phase, or they're in total denial." She concedes that there are prostitutes without pimps, but claims that they're the exception to the rule. "Eventually, you run into a pimp, or you meet a girl in the business who will lure you home to their pimp, " Lobert says. "No matter whether he's a hardcore pimp that's beating you down or someone who is taking part of your money so you can make money, someone along the line is making money off of you." And when it comes to clients: "High-class, low-class, it doesn't matter. If a trick's gonna strangle you and kill you, he gon' take care of bidness," she says, revealing a sudden glimpse of the streetwise young woman she was on the strip.
This is where Lobert's religious message becomes secondary. She may broadly preach against prostitution as a "perversion" of sex's intended purpose as a "beautiful representation of a union between a man and a woman," as her husband, a Christian rock musician, passionately puts it -- but she's fundamentally speaking out against the coercion and exploitation that she experienced firsthand. "I just want justice, and this is what it looks like," she says, tapping my tape recorder. "It's bringing awareness."
* Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter. More: Tracy Clark-Flory
What would Jesus do about sex trafficking? - Prostitution News | Prostitutes, Gigolos, Sex Work - Salon.com
Eye Witness to Miraculous events that Haunt Justice Scalia - “Repair the Injustice”
Signs and Lying Wonders!!!
Eye Witness to Miraculous events that Haunt Justice Scalia - “Repair the Injustice”
I saw nearly two dozen statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary weep in my home, at the rectory, in church, and elsewhere in 1992. The bishop and chancellor of the diocese of Arlington, John Keating and William Reinecke, saw their own statues tear before their eyes at the Chancery. The Blessed Mother wept on television. The Washington Post called the occurrences “unexplainable.” Everybody close to the miraculous events of 1992 knows the truth. Yet for nearly twenty years the diocese of Arlington has stonewalled all inquiries into the matter.
And now we know that the Chancellor of the diocese of Arlington, William Reinecke, who was undoubtedly instrumental in formulating the diocese‘s policy of silence toward the miraculous events—a position effectively ending the Catholic Church’s interest in them— was sadly a man with multiple accusations of pedophilia.
Pope Benedict calls on bishops and cardinals to repair the injustice
Pope Benedict XVI last week told Vatican officials that they must reflect on the
church's culpability in its child sex-abuse scandal. From the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI, in his annual Christmas speech to Bishops and Cardinals, said "We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred." In his traditional, end-of-the-year speech Benedict said revelations of abuse in 2010 reached "an unimaginable dimension" that required the church to accept the "humiliation" as a call for renewal. "We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen," the Pope said.
As a former member of the diocese of Arlington, I echo the Pope’s call to “ask ourselves what we can do to repair the injustice.”
For nearly twenty years witnesses to the incredible display of the supernatural—witnesses to Our Lady’s tears ―have been denied a fair account of the events by the Catholic Church.
The Bishop of Arlington Ignores God’s call
First, let’s look at the bishop of the Arlington diocese, John R. Keating’s, response to something that would appear to be a dramatic communication directly from God. With Our Lady’s tears as a powerful supernatural reminder of the eternal God, the Bishop was offered an unparalleled opportunity to publicly deplore all manner of sins, from priestly misconduct to sexual promiscuity in society as a whole, to greed in the financial sector, to mothers terminating the lives of their unborn children, to selfish materialism, to indifference to the needs of our neighbors, and to the loss of faith in Jesus Christ himself. Yet, to many, close to the events, the Bishop dropped the ball.
In 1991-92 in Lake Ridge, Virginia (in the diocese of Arlington) there was an incredible display of weeping statues, crucifixes and other images plus rosaries and statues changing color, a priest with stigmata wounds, some inexplicable healings, strange signs in the sky and the scent of roses where there was no reason for it. Surely this was something the local bishop would understand must be acknowledged? What else could it be but a communication from his “boss”( Our Lady appears at the will of the Father) unless it could all be explained by natural phenomena or there was some kind of massive fraud and trickery going on? And if not from God, what kind of bishop would not understand the need to investigate and protect his flock from false beliefs? Yet the bishop of Arlington, John R. Keating, ordered his priests and tried to tell everyone else not to even acknowledge the amazing signs of divine intervention.
The reason given was a hurried and trivial explanation that there was nothing to investigate since there was no message involved. No message involved!? The messages found in Our Lady’s tears in 1992 are unrivaled in their fervent and agonizing display of emotional pain. If someone dear to you is sobbing without words, do you think there is nothing to inquire about? Or to be concerned about?
But the Bishop and the Chancellor chose to ignore Our Lady’s tears. They dismissed Our Lady’s cries despite a long history of Church approved miracles - Akita and Sicily come to mind - similar in nature to the events taking place in Virginia. The bishop looked away and dismissed Our Lady’s tears seemingly only concerned with what the “world” might think of plastic statues weeping tears from heaven. In hindsight we can now see that the reputations of the institution took precedent above an extraordinary religious event.
Supreme Court Justice Scalia questions lack of an investigation
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is equally baffled and has been haunted by the miracles for nearly twenty years. Justice Scalia has publicly brought up the mysterious events numerous times. According the the diocese of Arlington Judge Scalia mentioned the events in a speech in 1996 and then again in an October 2010 speech to the St. Thomas More Society in Annapolis, MD. Justice Scalia called it “irrational” to ignore miraculous signs like those that happened in and around Lake Ridge in 1991-92. He noted the powerful draw that such signs have for the unbelieving and how an investigation by the diocese might have filled the pews with nonbelievers seeking to determine if their lack of faith was misplaced.
Scandal involving the Chancellor
Some have speculated that Bishop Keating was perhaps unduly influenced by his Chancellor, Monsignor William Reinecke, who was later revealed to be an accused pedophile and who took his own life in August 1992. But, no, I think not. If Reinecke were the villain in this piece, Bishop Keating should have been shocked enough by his suicide to go on his knees to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Lake Ridge to beg forgiveness from the Virgin Mary for his callous disregard of her tears. But nothing came out of the diocese except a stony silence and orders to the Arlington Catholic Herald to print no word and accept no advertising from anyone attempting to promote the weeping statues and other signs.
Perhaps Bishop Keating received a curt summons to report home and explain himself because in 1998 he died in his sleep while on a visit to the Vatican in Rome.
Bishop Loverde continues the stonewall
Sadly, Keating’s successor, Bishop Paul S. Loverde, has been equally adamant about refusing to undo the error of his predecessor and open an investigation into what we might call “The Seton Miracles.” No acknowledgment of what happened, no investigation, no prayerful reflection about them, just stony silence. Although we are called to believe the powerful miracles of Jesus (and I totally do), apparently we can be more dismissive of miracles that happen closer to home and in our own time. Isn’t this pretty much the position of the Sanhedrin at the time of Jesus?
Pope John Paul II acknowledges weeping statues to be signs from God
You might question with full indignation who am I to question a bishop? Good point. You don’t have to rely on anything I say. But a very recent pope well on his way to canonization said explicitly that weeping statues belong to the order of signs. “[Mary] is a mother crying when she sees her children threatened by a spiritual or physical evil.” (Pope John Paul II at the dedication of the Shrine of Our Lady of Tears in Syracuse, Sicily, 1994). This dedication commemorated weeping by a single bas-relief of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for a mere four days in 1953. The weepings in 1991-92 were geometrically greater in scope. Too bad the archbishop of Syracuse wasn’t in charge of the Arlington diocese. You would never have had to read these words.
Pope Benedict XVI asked of his Cardinals and Bishops "We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred." Why should the bishop of Arlington be able to ignore his responsibility to investigate signs from Mary when the Holy Father has said otherwise? This is the question that every Christian believer, especially Catholics, should ask the bishop of Arlington. He owes the faithful an answer.
James L. Carney
Author of The Seton Miracles, Weeping Statues and Other Wonders
(editor's note: Mr Carney has given up all rights to his book and receives no compensation from its sales)
Irish Church braces for new report on abuse in Cloyne diocese
Ireland’s justice minister, Dermot Ahern, was due to receive a report today on sexual abuse by priests in the Cloyne diocese. The report, which could be made public early next year, is likely to re-ignite criticism of the Irish Catholic hierarchy.
The Irish Church is still reeling from the effects of the “Murphy report,” released last November, detailing the failure of Church leaders to restrain abusive priests. But the Murphy report covered only the Dublin archdiocese. The Cloyne diocese is the subject of a separate investigation, which covers a more recent time period: from 1996 to 2009.
In March, Bishop John Magee of Cloyne resigned his post, apparently at the request of the Holy See. Bishop Magee—who had served at the Vatican, as personal secretary to three Pontiffs—had been severely criticized for failing to enact new standards for reporting and disciplining priests accused of sexual abuse. The new report from the Murphy commission will examine the charges against priests in Cloyne during Bishop Magee’s tenure there.
Upon receiving the commission’s report, the justice minister is expected to refer the document to prosecutors, who may weigh the possibility of criminal charges. The minister may then seek court permission to make the report public.
The Cloyne diocese is currently under the supervision of an apostolic administrator, Archbishop Dermot Clifford of Cashel, who was given this temporary added assignment when Bishop Magee resigned. The Vatican has not yet appointed a permanent replacement.Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.
Prominent Jesuit Scholar Accused of Abuse
The sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has reached a “degree we could not have imagined," according to a statement made by Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that was quoted the December 20th New York Times.
Indeed: Just recently, a prominent Jesuit scholar, Keith Pecklers, SJ, was accused by 48-year-old Keith Brennan of sexual abuse, as reported in the December 12th Star-Ledger.
Pecklers is a professor of liturgy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities on Catholic liturgy in the world. He is also a frequent commentator on Vatican Affairs for ABC News. Pecklers is a native of Jersey City and it was in St. Paul’s Church in the Greenville section of Jersey City that then-14-year-old Brennan was abused by him starting in 1976.
In a December 5th story, the Star-Ledger also reported about how John J. Myers, the Archbishop of Newark, shielded at least four priests who had been accused of sexual abuse against children and one adult:
In the four instances, the priests have either admitted improper sexual contact, pleaded guilty to crimes stemming from accusations of sexual misconduct or been permanently barred from ministry by the archdiocese after allegations of sexual misconduct.
In his Christmas message to the Vatican hierarchy, the Pope wrote that
“We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred.......We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen.”
In the past year, investigations in Ireland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States have found that clerics from parish priests to those at high levels like Fr. Pecklers, committed sexual abuse against children in many cases. And in many if not most cases, the church hierarchy covered up the abuse, sometimes moving priests with a history of sexually abusing children from parish to parish, and without informing parishioners of the priests' history.
In his Christmas letter, even though the Pope states that '“We are well aware of the particular gravity of this sin committed by priests and of our corresponding responsibility,”' he also says that the abuses should be viewed 'in the context of these times."'
But rather than blaming 'these times' for the catalogue of abuses committed around the world, should not the Pope be looking at the culture of the Roman Catholic Church, a culture that, indeed, shielded and continues to shield---to protect---clerics who committed terrible crimes? As a July 8 editorial from the National Catholic Reporter states, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church is 'as it has evolved in the past half millennium is deeply damaged from within.'
Earlier this year, the Vatican revised its law on sexual abuse, a step in the right direction----but a step that seems to be not only too little, but too, too late.
Source
Some Burning Questions for the Pope
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Some Burning Questions for the Pope
Sinéad O'Connor
Singer/songwriter
This is an Open Letter to Pope Benedict on behalf of all victims of child sexual abuse by catholic priests; on behalf of all catholic people, and all honorable catholic clergy; on behalf of every media outlet under the sun; and on behalf of The Holy Spirit.
Sir,
Some burning questions arise from the following statement you made in your Christmas address to your cardinals on December 20th regarding how it came to pass that the house of The Holy Spirit became a haven for criminals of a sexual nature.
"In the 1970's pedophilia was theorized [by the church] as something fully in conformity with man and even with children."
Please deign to respond to this letter directly and personally and put aside all the pomp and titles and so-called 'proper channels' -- all of which belong not in the 21st century but the 12th and are unbecoming of Christ.
Exactly who held the theory that pedophilia was fully in conformity with man and with children?
Please give us their names.
Exactly when did they hold this theory?
Exactly when if ever did they cease holding the theory?.
Why was this information not given to victims?
Why was it never given to any commissions of inquiry or civil authorities?
Why in all the years since these scandals broke out was yesterday the first mention of this information?
It is highly disrespectful of the victims that you would throw this out as an aside remark and not present yourself for questioning on such a very serious piece of information which would be key in the potential recovery of the church.
The Holy Spirit requires you to familiarize yourself with honesty and respect if you retain any desire to salvage the remains of the church which has been ruined by its being allowed to live by its own laws and not God's
~ Sinéad
A Catholic Monsignor Is Defrocked for Sexually Abusing a Student
A Monsignor Is Defrocked for Abusing a Student
By PAUL VITELLO
A once-influential Roman Catholic monsignor who oversaw fund-raising for the Archdiocese of New York, running the annual Alfred E. Smith political dinner during the tenure of Cardinal John J. O’Connor, has been removed from the priesthood after an eight-year church review of sexual abuse accusations against him, the archdiocese announced on Friday.
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
Msgr. Charles M. Kavanagh, in a 2003 photo, was defrocked by a Roman Catholic church tribunal that reviewed allegations that he sexually abused a seminarian in the 1980s. He was one of the highest-ranking priests in New York to face accusations of sexual misconduct.
The monsignor, Charles M. Kavanagh, 73, has denied the charges, which were brought against him by a former student at the former Cathedral Preparatory Seminary in Manhattan. The monsignor contested an archdiocesan review board’s finding of guilt in 2003, then asked the Vatican to authorize a formal trial by a tribunal of priests from another diocese. When that body also found him guilty, he sought an appeal from a second tribunal.
On Wednesday, the second tribunal concluded its review, ruling that Monsignor Kavanagh should be defrocked, said Joseph Zwilling, the spokesman for the New York archdiocese. The announcement was made after two days, late on a Friday afternoon, because “we have not dealt with this kind of situation before,” Mr. Zwilling said.
Nineteen priests in the archdiocese have been discharged from the priesthood since 2002, when a sexual abuse scandal shook the church nationwide, but Monsignor Kavanagh is the only one who has pursued the full complement of appeals available to him, Mr. Zwilling said. He is also one of the highest-ranking local priests to have been caught up in the accusations.
Daniel Donohue, 46, the former seminarian who accused Monsignor Kavanagh of making unwanted advances and touching him inappropriately in the 1980s, said, “I’m glad for the validation of my credibility.” But he criticized the slowness and opacity of the church’s judicial process. “For eight years, I never knew where the process was,” he said by phone from Portland, Ore., where he lives with his wife and four children. “I have classmates who are going through similar processes. I just hope it doesn’t take eight years for them, too.”
Mr. Donohue first took his accusations to the archdiocese and the Manhattan district attorney’s office in 2002. Within months, following initial investigations by both authorities, the archdiocese ordered the monsignor to halt his active ministry. Throughout the process of review, trial and appeal, the archdiocese released no information about the case except to confirm that it was continuing.
In a statement on Friday, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, a successor to Cardinal O’Connor, said: “Although all of this took place before my arrival as archbishop, I am well aware of the seriousness of the charges involved in this case, and I am grateful for the careful way that it has been handled by my predecessor, Cardinal Egan, and by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I would like to take this occasion to renew our apologies to all those who have been harmed by the sin and crime of sexual abuse, and in particular to apologize to the gentleman who was the victim in this case.”
Monsignor Kavanagh was rector at Cathedral Prep at the time of the sexually charged events described by Mr. Donohue. He was later a much-admired pastor at St. Raymond’s Church in the Bronx, and in 1994 Cardinal O’Connor appointed him the archdiocese’s vicar of development. His stature in the church hierarchy was further cemented when he was asked to organize the cardinal’s funeral in 2000.
Supporters flocked to defend Monsignor Kavanagh after the accusations were made. He was defiant at a dinner in his honor in 2003, telling a banquet hall filled with 300 friends that he had never abused anybody. “My integrity is in place,” he said. “I will be vindicated.”
A family spokesman said Friday that the former monsignor would not comment. In a statement, Ann Mandt, who identified herself as former Monsignor Kavanagh’s sister and lawyer, said he remained adamant that he had never abused Mr. Donohue or anyone else. But, she added, he is now disillusioned with the church.
“After more than eight years,” she wrote, “he and his family now know that the church, in reaction to its own mistakes and as a way of ‘cleaning up a mess’ it created, has decided that ‘the good of the church’ must come before a person’s rights and any sense of due process.”
The statement concluded: “He is an innocent man, and he will never give up his fight for justice. We pray that people will stand with him in this struggle.”
WikiLeaks exposes Pope as supporter of GMOs
WikiLeaks exposes Pope as supporter of GMOs
The June 2009 report, which was recently confirmed by a Vatican spokesperson, explains that the Pope believes "further infrastructure development" is necessary to increase "food security." And the November 2009 report elucidates even further, proclaiming that "[t]he Vatican's own scientific academy has stated that there is no evidence GMOs are harmful, and that they could indeed be part of addressing global food security."
Apparently the Vatican "scientific academy" overlooked key data highlighting the link between GMOs and a host of serious health problems, including sterility, organ damage, diabetes, obesity and severe allergic reactions. And pesticides like Monsanto's Roundup (glyphosate) that are used on GMO crops are causing birth defects, miscarriages and cancer in humans, not to mention a mass die-off of nature's important pollinators like bees, bats and butterflies.
The leaked reports coincide with others that exposed the U.S. State Department's agenda of forcing GMOs upon the nations of the world. This U.S. effort on behalf of biotechnology includes the Obama Administration's "Evergreen Revolution," a program designed to spread GMOs to Africa just like the first "Green Revolution" did in India (http://www.naturalnews.com/030695_G...).
The State Department is also pushing the Vatican to increase its vocal support for GMOs "in the hope that a louder voice in Rome will encourage individual church leaders elsewhere to reconsider their critical views."
WikiLeaks: Vatican backed out of Holocaust Task Force
US cable reveals Vatican officials reneged due to concerns about pressure to declassify records from WWII-era pontificate of Pope Pius XII.
The Vatican backed out of a prior written agreement to become an observer on the International Task Force on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF), a US diplomatic cable from October 2009 leaked to the Guardian revealed.
US diplomatic officials said the move "complicated Vatican foreign relations" but may have been made "due to concerns about ITF pressure to declassify records from the WWII-era pontificate of Pope Pius XII.
According to the cable three members of the ITF visited Rome to finalize arrangements with the Holy See to become an ITF observer but the plan "had fallen apart completely...due to Vatican back-pedaling."
"Team members -- Austrian Ambassador Ferdinand Trauttsmandorff, US Professor Steve Katz of the Elie Wiesel Center at Boston University, and Dina Porat, the Israeli academic advisor to the ITF -- expressed considerable disappointment about the unexpected set-back," the cable reported.
The cable was critical of the Vatican's new foreign relations team who had been changed since the original agreement to join the ITF had been made.
The members of the ITF delegation believed reluctance to uncover archived documents was behind the decision, rejecting the notion that the Vatican backed out of the agreement in order to pressure Israel on a deal to normalize relations with the Holy See.
"The ITF team did not believe the Vatican was sending - via the decision to slow progress on the ITF observer status -- a subtle message to Israel about the need for progress in the Fundamental Agreement talks. Time will tell."
European court ruling on abortion
European court ruling on abortion
Madam, – I would like firstly to ask Cardinal Seán Brady a question regarding his expressed thoughts on last week’s European Court of Human Rights’ ruling on the right to life of Irish mothers when their life is truly threatened by pregnancy.
I hope he cares enough to reply – and not through his secretary.
Does he realise how disturbing it is to see him attempt to insert himself into a relationship of any sort with Irish civil law when he is Irish CEO of an organisation which never bothered with civil law when it should have. And whose so-called “norms” of July 2010 still say only to co-operate with civil authorities “where local laws require it”? The norms document very clearly does not say to “contact civil authorities” and in the small print it states that priests will have “benefit of clergy” which means they will not be given over to civil authorities by the church.
So what’s the deal? Is the church in or out of Irish civil law? And if it’s in, does that mean it’s really in, or only when it suits it?
Also, this week’s remark by Pope Benedict on paedophilia that “In the 1970s paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children” (World News, December 21st) are absolutely warped and display the paedophilic mentality which tries to make the children complicit.
Who theorised such a thing? Children were never in conformity with paedophilia. When did such theorising cease? Why were we never told that it had been the theory? And why was this said in a situation where the general public can’t ask the burning questions? Any other head of state making such a remark would be asked to stand down. This is a clear insight into the mind of the man who oversaw the Vatican response to child rape allegations for the past 30 years and who is now running the church.
Can we please now stand up and say we will not go any further with this man as pope.
He must stand down immediately and hand the church over to the people. – Yours, etc,
SINEAD O’CONNOR,
Strand Road,
Bray, Co Wicklow.
Madam, – It perplexes me that any rational person can support the view that a woman who has threatened suicide should be entitled to an abortion. How can it be argued that pregnancy is the primary issue which ought to be addressed, and not any other underlying issue such as a history of depression, mental illness, or other personal circumstances? To my knowledge, medical science has not discovered any inherent link between pregnancy and the sudden onset of suicidal thoughts.
Unpreventable medical or obstetrical problems can of course arise during a pregnancy which threaten the life of the mother. In such circumstances it is entirely appropriate that medical intervention should take place in an attempt to save her life, even if it is at the expense of the life of her unborn child.
However, the suicide of a pregnant woman is an entirely preventable outcome. Pregnancy is a transient condition lasting only nine months, which is more than enough time for the appropriate counselling and treatment to be given to the mother to prevent her self-harm. Surely this is preferable to resorting to the most drastic course of action possible, namely the abortion of an unborn child?
It is universally agreed that there is rarely one single factor which causes a person to contemplate suicide, nor are there any quick-fix solutions for such feelings. So why should our legal system accept that pregnancy is the primary catalyst for the suicidal thoughts of a mother, or allow an abortion to be presented as a quick-fix solution? – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Brooklawn,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.
Madam, – I fail to see what all the fuss over the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling is about, especially on the part of pro-abortion campaigners. While it does indeed call for legislation on abortion on the basis of the 1992 X-case, in the real world the X case does not allow for abortion.
The ruling in X determined that a pregnant woman, (or child) was entitled to an abortion if there was an imminent threat to her life and that could only be avoided by abortion. As medical and psychiatric evidence points out, there is never any medical necessity for abortion.
There may be cases where pregnancies need to terminated early, (as in my case when I suffered from severe pre-eclampsia) but in those instances when a very pre-mature baby is delivered, every effort should be made to save the baby’s life, even if in the end it proves fruitless. Similarly, no pregnant woman is denied life-saving treatment, even if as a consequence, the baby dies.
Pro-abortion campaigners are being dangerously disingenuous by trying to convince us that abortion is a cure for cancer, depression or any other ill. – Yours, etc,
MARIA Mhic MHEANMAIN,
Elizabeth Street,
Dublin 3.