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Jesuit priest arrested for removing the face scarf of a Muslim female student
Amplify’d from www.cathnewsindia.com
Jesuit arrested in scarf controversy
A Jesuit priest in Ranchi has been arrested for removing the face scarf of a Muslim female student.
Father Ephraim Baa, who is in charge of the Intermediate Section of St. Xavier’s College in Ranchi has apologized for his “inadvertent” action.
The incident occurred on Jan. 7 during a student protest against the college’s decision to charge for additional hours of teaching for weak students.
Father Baa was trying to pacify the demonstrators who had blocked the college gate.
The priest told ucanews.com he wanted to ensure the girl, who was shouting, was “from our college since many outsiders join such demonstrations.” He said the girl ignored several requests to show her identity card.
“Then I pulled the scarf from her face without knowing she was a Muslim. Otherwise I would not have touched her scarf,” he said.
Muslims were outraged by pictures of the incident published in a local newspaper the next day.
Thousands of Muslims took to the streets and burnt Father Baa’s effigy. Apologies from the college and Father Baa failed to pacify the mob that burnt tires and damaged vehicles.
The Muslim girl, Neha Praween, appealed to the protestors to show restraint. She said she had no grudge against anyone. “Whatever has happened is unfortunate but I don’t want any violence in the city,” she said.
Under pressure, the police arrested Father Baa on Jan. 8 on charges making assertions prejudicial to national integration and assault on a woman with intent to outrage her modesty.
Meanwhile a Muslim cleric, Maulana Asgar Misbahi, has appealed to his people to maintain peace. “What has happened in prestigious St. Xavier’s College was unfortunate. Father Baa has asked pardon and there is no reason to prolong this issue,” he added.
Some Church leaders today decided to boycott the Prabhat Khabar (Morning News), the local paper that carried the priest’s photographs.
Jesuit Father Alex Ekka, who directs a social science institute, alleged the newspaper wanted to stoke enmity between Christians and Muslims, who maintain cordial relations in the city.
Source: ucanews.com
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Loyola celebrates the 400th anniversary of Jesuit invasion of French Canada and eventual migration to Louisiana
Amplify’d from www.loyno.edu
Loyola celebrates Jesuit history with Cajun music performance
Cajun-French music groups Lost Bayou Ramblers and Feufollet will bring the sounds of Acadiana to Loyola University New Orleans for a one-night-only event on Friday, Jan. 14 at 7:30 p.m., in Roussel Hall. This performance celebrates the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Jesuits in French Canada, leading to the eventual migration of these immigrants to south Louisiana, or Acadiana.
Tickets are $15 for general admission and $8 for students and Loyola employees and are available online at www.montage.loyno.edu or by calling the Loyola Box Office at 504-865-2074. Tickets will also be available at the door 30 minutes prior to the performance while supplies last.
Formed in 1995, Feufollet has quickly become one of Acadiana’s most exciting young Cajun bands. Over the years, they have built upon a regional popularity, performing at folk festivals and venues not only in the South, but also throughout North America, including French Canada.
The Grammy-nominated Lost Bayou Ramblers has toured through much of the United States, including at the International Country Music Conference in Nashville, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens' Chile Pepper Fiesta, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The Ramblers’ first international performance took place in Lyon, France in November 2004. In 2008, their album “Live á La Blue Moon” was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Zydeco or Cajun Music category.
Although the band's style draws on Western swing, rockabilly and a touch of punk rock, the group has remained a traditional Cajun band at its core. It has revived forgotten classics of the genre and sings almost entirely in French, maintaining smooth, moderate tempos perfect for dancing.
For more information, contact Sean Snyder in Loyola’s Office of Public Affairs at smsnyder@loyno.edu or call 504-861-5882.
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Minnesota attorney launches London firm to pursue sex-abuse claims
Amplify’d from www.jsonline.com
Minnesota attorney launches London firm to pursue sex-abuse claims
By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
Jeff Anderson, the Minnesota attorney whose firm has pursued more than 1,000 sex-abuse cases against the Catholic Church in the United States - including several in Wisconsin - is launching a new London-based firm to pursue similar litigation in the United Kingdom, where revelations of abuse exploded last year.
The new practice, a collaboration with London-based solicitor Ann Olivarius, will announce its first lawsuit, filed Monday in federal Court in Minneapolis. The lawsuit names as defendants the Diocese of Clogher in Ireland and Father Francis Markey, an Irish priest who is accused of molesting children in Ireland, England and the U.S. Markey was extradited from the U.S. to Ireland last year.
"This touches on the international movement of these guys - not just from parish to parish but state to state, and that's the problem," Anderson said by telephone from London on Monday. "It's a global problem."
Anderson represents plaintiffs in about a dozen civil fraud cases pending against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee over its handling of sex-abuse cases, and in a federal suit in Milwaukee against the Vatican. The fraud cases were stalled last week after the archdiocese sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
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Lawyer with 20 years experience suing paedophile priests in US comes to UK
Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk
Lawyer with 20 years experience suing paedophile priests in US comes to UK
Jeff Anderson joins new legal practice in UK dedicated to rooting out clerical sexual abuse
Cardinal Cormac Murphy O' Connor requested a report into the Catholic church's child protection policies, which was published in 2001. Photograph: John Giles/PA
A leading US litigator who has spent more than 20 years suing US-based paedophile priests and the church officials who moved them from parish to parish is joining a new legal practice dedicated to rooting out clerical sexual abuse in the UK.
Jeff Anderson has filed more than 1,500 lawsuits against the Catholic church in the US and thousands more against individuals and organisations, including those belonging to other Christian denominations.
His Minnesota firm says it is "aggressively committed" to child protection through civil litigation and he believes there is significant scope to expand this activity in the UK.
Anderson, whose firm recently represented all 23 plaintiffs in a suit that led to a US diocese filing for bankruptcy protection, will be working with Ann Olivarius, a solicitor who is already based in London, to expose offenders and seek justice for victims.
In an interview with the Guardian, ahead of tomorrow's launch of the new practice, Anderson said there remained a clerical culture of secrecy in the UK.
"The protestations of regret from the Catholic church in England and Wales is something more than they have done in the past. The past was marked by silence. We applaud any child protection measures that are made but the church still operates in secrecy."
Anderson said he was "deeply concerned" and had "every reason to know" that the Catholic church was still "recycling offenders" – moving them from parish to parish – and that paedophile priests were not being turned over to law enforcement authorities.
"We want them to come clean and disclose the names of all offenders. I have been tracking what has been happening here and across the globe. Under instruction from the Vatican every bishop and religious superior is required to keep secrets. The problem is as prominent here as it has been in the US."
The Catholic church in England and Wales reviewed its child protection policies following a 2001 report, requested by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, and again in 2007. Child abuse allegations in England and Wales fell in 2009, leading one senior priest to claim it was evidence that the church was dealing robustly with issues of safeguarding young people.
It also emerged relatively unscathed from the clerical sex abuse scandals that swept through mainland Europe last year, when a series of allegations and revelations saw bishops resign, investigations begin and remorse flow from high-ranking officials.
But Olivarius warned against complacency, saying there was no research to suggest there had been less abuse in this country than elsewhere.
"We have been approached by a lot of people since the statute of limitations were removed. Because of the nature of the crime people often feel disabled. They are hard to represent, they don't want to be represented. I wouldn't be surprised if an awful lot of people come forward now. It's like a snowball effect."
She also said that the flourishing of survivors groups – such as the Lantern Project and the National Association for People Abused in Childhood – was a development that would also help victims.
The launch will also be attended by a US Catholic priest Father Thomas Doyle, who will release information on the treatment facilities used to rehabilitate paedophile priests.
Related
20 Jan 2010
Pope calls all Irish bishops to meeting about child abuse
23 Nov 2001
Pope emails apology for sex abuse
5 May 2009
£5m claim over sex abuse by Jesuit priest can go ahead
3 Feb 2008
Call to seize secret church abuse files
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Catholic schools say gays and Nazis can go to hell
Amplify’d from oncampus.macleans.ca
Spokesperson says remarks were taken out of context.
Last week, the blogosphere lit up with news that the Halton Catholic district school board in Ontario had banned Gay and Lesbian groups from its schools. Alice Anne LeMay, Board Chair threw gasoline on the fire when she defended the decision, in part, on the grounds that there are all sorts of groups the Catholic board bans. “We don’t have Nazi groups, either,” she was reported to have said.
Well, it turns out even school board officials know a public-relations disaster when they see one, and the board quickly issued an official statement. In it, LeMay claims to have been taken out of context:
Where to begin? Well, let’s see. If the remarks were taken out of context in such a way as their meaning was misconstrued, why apologize for them? Is LeMay sure she knows what “out of context” means? Apparently not, because her apology essentially restates the original inflammatory remark. Her point (in context) seems to be that there are many groups not allowed in Catholic schools because they promote what is immoral. Like Nazis. And gays. Apparently, Ms LeMay doesn’t know what “comparison” means either.
To be fair, I think what she is trying to say is that she does not think being gay is as bad as being a Nazi. But both are intolerable in schools.
Bizarrely, after quoting LeMay’s clumsy clarification of her disastrous gaffe, the board goes on to say that none of that matters anyway. The real reason they don’t allow gay and lesbian groups is that “The Catholic Church recognizes the dignity of all persons and neither defines nor catalogues them according to their sexual orientation.”
Oh, well, that’s a relief! It’s because they are so tolerant, they don’t even want to make sexuality an issue! You know, that’s funny, because I was under the impression that the Catholic Church believed things like this:
There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law.
Now, where did I get a crazy notion that Catholics believed that? Oh, that’s right: The Vatican. In the Vatican’s official statement on gay marriage, the word “homosexual” is used to denounce gay people 52 times. The Catholic Church doesn’t categorize people by sexual orientation? Are you sure you’re talking about the Catholic Church? The one with the Pope and everything? This obvious lie would be funny if the lives of real kids weren’t at stake, but they are and the Church knows it. From the same official document:
Lifestyles and the underlying presuppositions these express not only externally shape the life of society, but also tend to modify the younger generation’s perception and evaluation of forms of behaviour.
Now, all of this is bad enough. Gay kids — many already isolated, confused, and bullied — are not only deprived the opportunity of supporting each other at school — a place where they are likely to get picked on the most — but are implicitly told by their school and their church that what they are is “contrary to natural moral law.” Can they convince their teachers and principals to relent? No, because it is the Church. It is doctrine. I say the Halton Board can wrap it in the language of modern tolerance all they want, but it is what it is: bigotry and discrimination directed against those who are different. It’s the old story of religious homophobia, plain and simple. And we still think that religion and education are a good combination?
All this is bad enough, except that in Ontario’s atavistic system of education, Catholic schools are funded by the government. These are taxpayer-funded schools telling kids that being gay is unnatural, immoral, contrary to God’s law, and on a moral spectrum somewhere to the left of Nazis (with whom the Catholic Church at the time did not have a big problem).
The Catholic Church needs to come out of the middle ages once and for all, but I don’t expect that to happen any time soon. Meanwhile, how about publicly-funded schools stop bullying gay kids and lying about it to cover their asses?
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Pope makes a plea to parents to give their children traditional names (are you listening Posh and Becks?)
That is all we need! More Mary's and Joseph's!!!
Amplify’d from www.dailymail.co.uk
Pope makes a plea to parents to give their children traditional names (are you listening Posh and Becks?)
It will come as a welcome blast of commonsense for those who despair at the craze of giving children names such as Brooklyn, Apple and Princess Tiaamii.
The Pope has weighed into the debate with a plea to parents to give their children traditional first names.
Benedict XVI told a Vatican baptismal ceremony that the Christian name is an ‘indelible sign from the Holy Spirit’ and protects family life, which is ‘being threatened’.
Pope Benedict XVI, pictured yesterday, at a Vatican baptismal ceremony. He made a plea for parents to give their children traditional first names. He said a child's Christian name is an 'indelible sign from the Holy Spirit' and protects family life, which is 'being threatened'
He said baptism with a strong name was ‘the start of spiritual life which is fulfilled through the Church’.
His comments came just hours after David and Victoria Beckham
announced they were expecting their fourth child, after their three
sons, Brooklyn, Cruz and Romeo.
It is unclear whether they will take his views on board, although
the Pope would probably be pleased with Romeo, which in Latin means
‘pilgrim to Rome’.
He would, however, undoubtedly frown upon the names of Gwyneth
Paltrow and Chris Martin’s daughter Apple, Katie Price and Peter Andre’s
daughter Princess Tiaamii, and the entire brood of Bob Geldof and the
late Paula Yates – named Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches and Pixie.
People are already speculating what the Beckhams will christen their fourth child, a baby sibling for sons Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz
The Pope added: ‘With the sacrament of baptism the Church prays and
entrusts to God a new child [and] parents and godparents agree to give
the newly baptised a Christian education.
‘This is a great responsibility. That is why I encourage all the
faithful to rediscover the beauty of baptism and being part of God’s
great family.’
Theologian Gianni Gennari told an Italian newspaper: ‘By insisting on
Christian names the Pope is not violating the rights of parents but
simply asking for seriousness when it comes to baptism.’
The Pope would probably frown on names like Princess Tiaamii, here with dad Peter Andre, and Shiloh Nouvel, here with dad Brad Pitt
Often celebrity names start trends. While there has been no huge spike in Phoenix (left) or Suri, (right) there was a rise in UK babies christened Lennon after Liam Gallagher named his son Lennon
A priest can refuse to baptise a child if the name given is not
recognised. The rule is rarely enforced, although a couple from Genoa
were recently refused permission to register their child as Venerdi,
meaning Friday.
Denmark, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Argentina are among those
countries which publish lists of acceptable names from which parents
must choose.
Those banned in Portugal include Lolita, Maradona and Mona Lisa.
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POPE STATES WESTERN TOLERANCE HIDES LOSS OF IDENTITY
Amplify’d from www.agi.it
POPE STATES WESTERN TOLERANCE HIDES LOSS OF IDENTITY
16:02 10 GEN 2011
(AGI) Vatican City - Speaking to the Diplomatic Corps, the Pope
said that in the West "we are facing threats against full
religious freedom" referring to "those countries in which
pluralism and tolerance are considered more important, while
religion suffers increasing alienation." According to Benedict
XVI, one should condemn permissive legislation in Family Law,
abortion and end of life issues, that today the Pope referred
to as "attempts to oppose the right to religious freedom, in
the name of new rights that are really the expression of
selfish desires and have no foundation in human nature." .
.
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Aide Notes Pope's Commitment to Religious Liberty
Amplify’d from www.catholic.net
Aide Notes Pope's Commitment to Religious Liberty
Rome's Zenit News
The priest underlined that while the Pontiff's concern for religious liberty is "always alive," over the last few months it has been "much more present in public statements."
Father Lombardi noted as examples Benedict XVI's addresses on the occasion of the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, his address in London's Westminster Hall, his appeals after the tragic attacks on Christian churches in Iraq and Egypt, as well as the address of the Pontiff's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, at the recent summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, held in Astana, Kazakhstan. The spokesman also noted that the Pope's address to the diplomatic corps built upon his recent Message for the World Day of Peace. The peace day message, Father Lombardi explained, "gave a broad view on the foundations of the right of religious liberty and on the need to protect it in face of the risks and attacks -- both concrete and tragic violations, as well as negative attitudes of an ideological-cultural origin with juridical consequences."
The address to the diplomats, he continued, "offered an impressive series of indications on places and situations in which this right is clearly violated or questioned in a more or less explicit and radical way."
"The Pope can certainly not be reproached for not speaking clearly," the spokesman added. "Everyone can understand without difficulty what he has said."
Mission Father Lombardi noted that the message of religious freedom is "at the heart of [Benedict XVI's] mission," and "one of the characteristic features of this pontificate and of its historic mission."
"We have never forgotten," the spokesman noted, "that in the first address of the pontificate, in the Sistine Chapel, Benedict XVI pointed to God and man's relationship with God as the first of his priorities."
From here, continued the Jesuit, "stems all his effort and that of the Church to serve the person and the human community," reminding that the Church's diplomatic action also "seeks first of all to promote the cause of God as guarantor of the cause of man."
Father Lombardi said that "the explicit and courageous way with which Benedict XVI carries out his service of proposing the right of religious liberty for all" consists of "encouraging interreligious dialogue," as well as promoting the commitment of all religious and civil authorities to serve "the dignity of the human person and peace."
He said it also consists of "defending the liberty of the constructive and beneficent presence of Christian witness in today's world and culture."
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Pope demands gov'ts protect Catholic minorities
Amplify’d from www.forbes.com
Pope demands gov'ts protect Christian minorities
VATICAN CITY --
Pope Benedict XVI has demanded that governments do more to ensure Christians can practice their faith without discrimination or violence, in one of his most pointed appeals yet for religious freedom.
In a speech Monday to ambassadors accredited to the Vatican, Benedict cited recent attacks on Christians in Egypt, Iraq and Nigeria, and said governments must take effective measures - in law and in practice - to protect religious minorities.
He urged Pakistan to reverse its blasphemy laws, which carry the death sentence for insulting Islam, saying they were a pretext for violence against non-Muslims.
He urged governments on the Arabian peninsula to let Christians have churches.
And he cited China in calling for an end to a state's "monopoly" over the faith.
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