Hiroshima survivor for nuclear energy

D'Souza requested the local police to look for a priest.



A few days later, a German Jesuit priest visited the camp. He belonged to a seminary on the outskirts of Hiroshima; and D'Souza was amazed to discover that the priest had served at St Xavier's in Mumbai before World War II.



“I have forgotten his name, but he was tall and had fear in his eyes. He had survived the atomic blast and had witnessed the devastation in the city. That explained the fear in his eyes. He told me, ‘What I have seen here, I would not even show the devil'. Such was the impact on him,” he recalls.

Amplify’d from www.thehindubusinessline.com

This Hiroshima survivor bats for nuclear energy

RAHUL WADKE

Maj Gen (retd) Eustace D'Souza

The near-cataclysmic disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plants has shaken the world and once again focused attention on the inherent dangers in nuclear technology. Environmental activists are shouting themselves hoarse, calling for a complete rethink on nuclear energy, even as nuclear engineers go into a huddle to consider new safety measures for existing plants.

But support for nuclear power and nuclear weapons comes from a rather unexpected quarter — a 90-year-old retired army officer in Mumbai, who had witnessed first-hand the nuclear devastation in Hiroshima in 1946.

Major Gen (retired) Eustace D'Souza of the Maratha Light Infantry had arrived in Hiroshima in March 1946, seven months after the city was completely destroyed by a nuclear bomb. He survived not just the radioactivity there but also Italian and German soldiers in World War II, Pakistani tribal marauders in the Kashmir Valley in 1948, and the Chinese in the 1960s' war.

“Until I came back from World War II, I was not in favour of nuclear weaponisation. In later years, when I saw what the Chinese and Pakistanis can do to India due to common borders, my views changed. These weapons should be the last resort of the Indian forces but that option should be available,” says D'Souza. He also believes that nuclear energy is the answer to climate change as there are no harmful carbon emissions.

Face-to-face with Hiroshima

After joining as a lieutenant in the British Indian Army in 1943, D'Souza fought in various campaigns in Italy during World War II. On Victory Day (May 8, 1945), he was ordered to sail back to India for jungle training at Gudalur, Ooty, in preparation for Operation Zipper to liberate Malaysia.

“In August 1945, just 500 miles off Mumbai, we soldiers learnt about the atomic explosion at Hiroshima and were worried about it. My battalion was selected to be a part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces. In Japan, it was assigned with the task of carrying out search for arms and ammunition among the local population,” he recalls.

His battalion had not faced the Japanese in the war and so did not have any hostility towards them. “But it influenced our mental perspective towards them,” he explains.

In March 1946, he landed at the Kure port near Hiroshima, and was stationed 20 km from the city. On March 6, D'Souza and his fellow officers Maj R.G.D. Nambiar and Capt A.M.M. Lafferty decided to go to Hiroshima.

“We decided to go there as if we were going to a garden, it was that casual. After a short drive, my colleagues asked a local for directions to Hiroshima and we were told that we had already arrived there. But there was no sign of the city. We were shocked that not a single building was in sight. After travelling further, we came across only three buildings, one of which served as a hospital.”

At the hospital, children were being treated for radiation burns. They had horrendous wounds. “There I saw the most terrible sight of my life. Their flesh was clinging to their bones just the way meat hangs from a butcher's hook. They had lost all their hair to radiation. But their spirit was amazing; there was not even a single cry or whimper from them. They were suffering stoically.

“We loitered around the town, even stood at Ground Zero. Very casually, we even inspected the soda water bottles strewn on the streets. They were broken and mangled due to the heat. We touched and saw everything, without worrying about radiation. While in Japan, the British Government never told Indian soldiers about the dangers of radiation exposure. Not a word was told to us,” D'Souza says.

Hellish moments

There were five Christians in his unit and D'Souza requested the local police to look for a priest.

A few days later, a German Jesuit priest visited the camp. He belonged to a seminary on the outskirts of Hiroshima; and D'Souza was amazed to discover that the priest had served at St Xavier's in Mumbai before World War II.

“I have forgotten his name, but he was tall and had fear in his eyes. He had survived the atomic blast and had witnessed the devastation in the city. That explained the fear in his eyes. He told me, ‘What I have seen here, I would not even show the devil'. Such was the impact on him,” he recalls.

Radiation deaths

While in Japan, an Indian soldier died of unknown causes and D'Souza was given the task of cremating him. He believes that radiation killed him.

Years later, in 1952, Maj Gen Dinkarrao Surve, the erstwhile second-in-command of his battalion, died of leukaemia in Mumbai. Nambiar and Lafferty too died of leukaemia sometime later. “They probably picked up radiation during our visit to the city,” D'Souza says.

But none of these tragic happenings can shake his belief in the country's need for powerful defence systems — in the form of nuclear power. Read more at www.thehindubusinessline.com

 

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Harvard Diploma: Priceless & Unreadable

Amplify’d from www.hlrecord.org

Your Harvard Diploma: Priceless ... But Unreadable

By Stephen M. Darrow & Jonathan J. Darrow

In a little more than a month, the latest crop of soon-to-be Harvard Law School (HLS) graduates will join their peers from across the University in receiving their hard-earned diplomas. But unlike some of their peers, HLS students may be in for a shocking surprise: their diplomas are unreadable, because they are in Latin.

Despite having learned a smattering of Latin phrases such as inter alia, sui generis, and res ipsa loquitur during their time at Harvard — a complimentary bonus that comes with an education in the conservative field of law — few HLS students know enough Latin to actually read their Harvard Law School diploma. And for those in the general population who might have occasion to rest their gaze on one of these treasured trophies of achievement, the chances of comprehension are lower still.

This is a peculiar result. The Harvard diploma is the symbolic embodiment of success and accomplishment achieved through years of effort at one of the world's foremost institutions of higher learning. As such, most graduates will presumably wish to display theirs prominently for perusal by themselves, family, friends, clients, and others. What else, after all, is a diploma for?

Nevertheless, the Law School's Latin diplomas continue to come up short on comprehensibility, to the point even of robbing graduates of the august, world-renowned Harvard brand name used in association with the University in virtually every other context. Eschewing the working language of the institution and its host society in favor of the more traditional Latin, the Law School's diplomas do not even contain the phrases "Harvard University" or "Harvard Law School" — or even the word "Harvard" — anywhere on them.

History and tradition might well be called upon to justify such an obfuscation of meaning. Harvard is, after all, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, founded at a time when Latin was decidedly in vogue for scholarly pursuits. Indeed, Latin was still an important pillar of a Harvard education nearly 100 years later, when, in 1734, entry to the all-male school was dependent upon a candidate having been able "extempore to read, construe, and parse Tully, Virgil, or such like common classical Latin authors, and to write true Latin in prose, and to be skilled in making Latin verse, or at least in the rules of Prosodia . . . ."

Some 275 years later still, however, the social context has changed enormously. Latin no longer enjoys a strong association with contemporary educated individuals, nor is it even readable by the majority of them (to say nothing of the general population). Perhaps in recognition of this, many schools — including some other schools at Harvard and even some Jesuit universities — choose to offer their diplomas in English, while the Law School diploma, seemingly oblivious to the dramatic changes surrounding it, remains stubbornly stuck in the past.

Harvard Law School need not give up its rich Latin tradition in order to improve the communicative impact of its diplomas. Diplomas could, for example, be issued primarily in Latin but with the name of the university and the name of the degree written in English. Or graduates might be given a choice between English and Latin, since all diplomas must be customized anyway with the graduate's name.

As crowds disperse and the lingering echoes of the commencement ceremony fade, HLS graduates will be on their way to new lives and new challenges. Wherever alums choose to go, however, diplomas will accompany their proud holders throughout their lives. Given the diploma's enduring value and significance as a vessel of meaning, we as the HLS community might do well to reconsider the form of this venerable token of erudition.

Stephen M. Darrow is an ‘09 graduate of the Law School. Jonathan J. Darrow is an S.J.D. candidate at the Law School.  Read more at www.hlrecord.org

 

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For a secular World...

...No Vatican interference

Amplify’d from catholicinsight.com

For a secular World. No Vatican interference

By Alphonse de Valk

Part I United States’ professor attacks Vatican               Dr. Joseph Palacios, adjunct Professor of Liberal and Latin American Studies at Georgetown University (a Jesuit-conducted institution in Washington, DC), attacked the Vatican under the above title in his April 19, 2011 press release. What is the reason?   In March, the Vatican opposed the newly declared gay “rights” at the United Nations. Palacios is the director of Catholics for Equality Education, another group of dissenters trying to destroy the Church from within.               Palacios especially mocks the idea of Archbishop Silvano Tomasi that the real victims are now those who dare to oppose those false “rights” (“they are stigmatized…vilified, and prosecuted” stated Tomasi at the UN Human Rights Council. See “Holy See statement on Sexual Orientation. Human sexuality is not an identity,” C.I., May 2011, p. 28. Website: http://catholicinsight.com/online/church/vatican/article_1128.shtml, April 14).               Palacios is an example of a person who has pushed his earlier religious understanding of creation out of sight and now embraces the immorality of the activist homosexual lifestyle as the new preferred ideology of equality. In his press release, he rejects natural law morality; the (traditional) consensus that anti-social behaviours must be forbidden by law (pedophilia and incest being two examples); the Church’s refusal to accept sexual orientation and gender identity as human rights categories; her refusal to accept any model other than the male-female one as pro-creators in the natural order of biology; and her subsequent non-recognition of LGBT…persons. In other words, Palacios stamps with both feet on the traditional natural law anthropology (which has existed since Jesus Christ) and its recognition of the divinely ordered human family of father, mother and children.   Part II The new refrain is intolerance               Catholic Insight has reported over the last few years in Canada, that is since Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin in 2005 decided that “marriage” between persons of the same sex should replace the age-old traditional description of marriage between one man and one woman, that its supporters now want to see this view accepted and acknowledged by all citizens. No more tolerance for non-tolerance. For many years, homosexual activists demanded tolerance out of respect for their “rights.” As news agency Zenit’s Fr. John Flynn recently observed, now that they have won their case in half a dozen countries, “their enthusiasm for tolerance has largely vanished “ (Zenit.org,Feb. 13, 2011). As Catholic Insight put it, the “victims” of all are the bullies of today.               Examples of this intolerance are easily available. A Christian medical doctor in Britain, for example, has been thrown off the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs one month after he had been appointed, because somebody discovered that he co-wrote an article in 2005 where he recorded that pedophiles had a disproportionately greater number of homosexuals than heterosexuals. The co-authored study was called “Gay Marriage and Homosexuality: Some Medical Comments.”               “My appointment has merely been revoked as a result of my views on matters completely unrelated to drug policy,” Dr. Raabe complained in comments published the same day by the Daily Mail newspaper.               Commenting on the previous push to impose acceptance of homosexuality in a Jan. 24 column Daily Mail writer Melanie Philips had lamented: “What was once an attempt to end unpleasant attitudes towards a small sexual minority has now become a kind of bigotry in reverse.”               Also in Britain, family-owned bed-and-breakfast and small hotel establishments run by Christians have been fined for failing to rent accommodations to gays. And a Christian pediatrician lost her claim of religious discrimination when she was fired from an adoption panel for holding that children should not be placed with homosexual couples. She had even agreed to refrain from voting when a case came before the panel which involved gay adoptions but this gesture was in vain.               In Canada, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal recently ruled that its provincial marriage commissioners could not refuse to perform a “marriage” ceremony for same-sex couples. And in Ontario the current government is forcing the entire school system—public and Catholic, French and English—to acknowledge the homosexual lifestyle as normal and acceptable.   Part III Monday, April 18: Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) Meeting               Campaign Life Catholics stated the purpose of the meeting was to obtain feedback from Catholic parents and stakeholders on the TCDSB’s draft “Equity & Inclusive Education” policy, which has become a source of controversy.               CLCatholics further explained the following: “The government strategy upon which the ‘Catholic template version’ is modelled was written under the direction of then Education Minister, Kathleen Wynne, who is an open lesbian. A significant amount of evidence suggests that Wynne consulted with gay lobby groups such as EGALE and the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario (now called Queer Ontario) for the writing of the government strategy document. Among many things it recommends, for example, that schools celebrate the local gay pride parade as “equity related work” They also suggest that every school sets up a homosexual student club, commonly referred to as a GSA (Gay Straight Alliance).               Campaign Life Catholics also recommended these amendments to the TCDSB’s draft policy:                (a) The policy must require the teaching of Catechism section 2357  to students whenever the topic of homosexuality is discussed,                (b) Must expressly prohibit gay-straight alliances (or homosexual clubs by another name). The TCDSB’s “student senate” has already published a document demanding that gay-straight alliances be set up in Toronto’s Catholic schools.                (c) Must prohibit partnerships by the Board with community groups that are not reflective of Catholic moral teaching;                (d) Participation by “student leadership” in forming “equity policy and practices” must be limited to those student voices which are reflective of Catholic moral teaching.              (e) A screening process must be implemented to ensure that only texts/resources/groups which do not contradict Catholic moral teaching in the area of homosexuality are allowed into Toronto’s Catholic schools.                (f) The term ‘Sexual orientation’ must be removed from the TCDSB’s draft policy as a prohibited ground for discrimination.    Part IV Comments   Here are a few reactions:               I attended last night's TCDSB's consultation meeting on Equity and Inclusive Strategy. It was held at St. Mary Secondary School. The were four panellists including Chris  D'Souza who addressed those present. The audience was not permitted to speak or ask questions. Three people who did, had to voice their concerns out loud because there were no microphones for those in attendance.               If you wanted to raise a question, you were told to write the question on a pieceof paper, and at the end of the speakers' talks the moderator chose some of the questions and put them to the panelists.               The message from three of the four panelists was clear: accept the Equity and Inclusivity policy or else face the wrath of OHRC (Ontario Human Rights Commission). If you believe heterosexual relations to be normal, and are not ready to accept open homosexuality in Catholic schools as well as “gay” clubs, then the Ontario Human Rights Commission will soon open your mind to the "truth" because you will have to be indoctrinated and need to find ways of curing any traces of “homophobia.”               We were also told that that there will be no gay clubs or alliances in Catholic schools because they will now call them equity groups. George Orwell must surely be rolling in his grave as doublespeak is alive and well in the Ministry of Education and the TCDSB.               From what I saw last night, Catholic moral teaching with this new policy will be challenged and in the long run rejected. The Ministry of Education needs to be told that Catholic boards have no need for this policy. Both the Ministry and the Board are subverting the language of the Gospel in an attempt to make homosexuality and the sexualization of students "normal", "just" and "loving".               Catholic trustees must be told to reject this policy….Most trustees (seem to) have bought the Ministry propaganda. Write, call or email your Catholic trustee and board administrators before it is too late.               A second attendee noticed the following:               Between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and fifty stakeholders attended the event.               After a short video presentation of Archbishop Collins, the Board presented their four speakers on equity issues: Kirk Mark on the history of equity policies in the Catholic Board, Dr. Ashleigh Malloy speaking about the inclusion of the disabled, Chris d'Souza on the inclusion of those of various sexual orientations and Moira McQueen on Church teaching on the morality of homosexuality.  The response of stakeholders was limited to the submission of questions on sticky notes.  The notes were viewed by speakers and a few were selected for response by the speakers.  How this was meant to effectively allow airing of concerns or real dialogue about the policy (since a number of questions about policy delivered to D'Souza were redirected to the TCDSB staff, for some indeterminate future time) was exquisitely unclear.  The event was engineered to control what was said and limit possible disruptions.               Two of us told Superintendant Keyes that parents should not have to walk away knowing their questions had not been answered. They should open up the floor to anyone who wants to ask a question.               D'Souza contended that homophobic bullying is the main type of bullying in the board.  Kirk Mark afterward suggested that the number one complaint that comes to the Ontario Human Rights Commission is based on racism, with an intersection with gender and disability.  There seems to be a discrepancy about how large a problem homophobic bullying really is within the Board.               D' Souza avoided the direct questions about his support for the gay lifestyle but at the end he finally said that if his daughter wanted to marry a gay woman he would be proud to walk her down the aisle and put her hand into the hand of whoever it was that might love her.  Expressions of disbelief as well as polite applause followed this statement.               The Catholic Register’s journalist Sheila Dabu Nonato reported this:   Toronto board’s equity policy draws more fire               TORONTO – “A vocal group of Catholics loudly expressed its concerns that the Toronto Catholic school board’s draft equity policy could undermine Catholic teachings on same-sex relationships.                “About 120 people attended the first equity policy public consultation at St. Mary’s Catholic High School April 18 and heard four panellists speak on the equity policy, including Chris D’Souza, a former equity and diversity officer with the Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board….               “The Toronto Catholic District School Board’s draft policy states that the board “gives pre-eminence to the tenets of the Catholic faith” which are “congruent and compatible with the protections entrenched in the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Constitution Act 1982 and confirmed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.               But Catholic ratepayer Alan Yoshioka said he objected to the lack of strong language in the policy which would ensure it is in line with Catholic teachings. He referred to amendments proposed by Toronto trustee John Del Grande at a previous board meeting to add the words “in a manner consistent with the Catholic faith and Catholic moral teaching” and “unjust” before the word “                “I am a former gay activist, 15 years or more. I disagree with your treating the legitimate need for respect for all students with this imposition of a policy and groups that focus on sexual orientation,” he said. “Love and respect for students is fine. (The issue is) how is that going to be implemented?”               A Catholic school policy that contradicts Catholic teachings “is not acceptable,” he said to loud applause.                 Others questioned the need for the equity policy and some objected to D’Souza’s views on homosexuality….                 “My wife and I,” said D’Souza, “took our two (daughters) and son to church on Sunday. And I looked at them and thought to myself, ‘If one of them is gay, I would still proudly walk them down the aisle and put their hand in the hand of whoever they fall in love with because I love them.’   Part V Memorandum between Archbishop and School official Friday, April 15, 2011   On Friday, April 15th, the following document was published:   MEMORANDUM   To:                    Ontario Catholic Education Organizations   From:                Archbishop Thomas Collins, President   Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario Nancy Kirby, President, Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association   Subject:            Enhancement of Caring for All Students in the Spirit of the Gospel   Date:                April 15, 2011     One reason why Catholic schools have for many years been a source of strength for our local communities, our province, and our country, is that they are animated by a spirit of inclusivity and equity rooted in the Gospel. We believe that every person, young or old, is to be treated with reverence; we are called to see the face of Christ in each person we meet, and to act accordingly.    This is why each person must be welcomed with kindness, respect and compassion and why, for us, bullying is wrong under any circumstances, at any age.   There has been much discussion recently surrounding one dimension of this issue, bullying related to sexual orientation. As an enhancement of the existing resources to support all students, we encourage Catholic school boards in Ontario to provide the opportunity for students who wish to do so to gather to address this dimension of bullying.   Guided by our faith, a committee that includes students, parents, trustees, educators, clergy and other members of our school community, working with the Institute for Catholic Education (ICE), will establish a framework for these groups, including a common name, to assist Catholic school boards with this anti-bullying initiative.   In addition, the committee will collect and share the best resources and practices that we have in our Catholic schools to combat bullying in any form and to be sure they are places of welcome according to the Gospel.   The committee will begin this work before the end of April, 2011. It is our hope that the initial results will be available to our school boards before the beginning of the next school year. In the meantime, we urge all members of our community to ensure that students are educated in a safe and caring environment that does not tolerate bullying or harassment of any kind and for any reason.   Attachment   The complete document with attachments may be found at: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2011_docs/OCSTA-ACBO-CatholicStudentGroups-April15-2011.pdf   Comments by Catholic Insight’s editor               The archbishop continues to place his trust in Ontario’s Catholic education officials perhaps because he has nowhere else to turn. Meanwhile an increasing number of informed Catholic parents have the feeling that these same officials are about to betray them. The key question is: how will Premier McGuinty’s Equality and Inclusive Strategy” be implemented?               Catholic Insight magazine, Life Site News, Campaign Life Catholics and others have shown that the Institute of Catholic Education (ICE) under Sister Joan Cronin, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Union (OECTA) under James Ryan and a large number of Ontario Catholic School officials, including trustees, have “bought into” the pro-homosexual culture of the day. They have already downplayed Catholic principles to make room for the politically correct but morally unsustainable demands of the same-sex “marriage” protagonists. The latter are vehement in their denunciation of the Church’s views, as outdated and passé, no longer suitable for modern society. They want a secular society, and no Vatican interference.               Premier Dalton McGuinty has made it abundantly clear that he  a) rejects Church teaching and b) is fully committed to the new homosexual culture. Consequently, he has instructed his Ministers to act accordingly, the current Minister being Leona Dombrowski, another Catholic, who appears to be dutifully carrying out his wishes.               The agreement printed above is between the Archbishop and Nancy Kirby. Kirby is now president of the Ontario Council of Catholic Trustees. Yet, a few years ago she used to work in the Department of Education under then lesbian Minister Kathleen Wynne, the very one who devised the current legislation. The language of the memorandum is that of the Education Ministry.               What are we to think of this memorandum? As one commentator put it: “Bishop Collins/Catholic Trustees give green light to start gay clubs by September.”   Notice               The next TCDSB for interested stakeholders meeting is Wednesday, April 27th at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church from 6:50 p.m. to 9:50 p.m. (Editor: this is in Toronto’s homosexual district so parents and stakeholders should attend: demand open discussion and the right of stakeholders to speak, but not for non-Catholic or anti-Catholic pressure groups).               PS: Next week, Catholic Insight will publish a list of articles, editorials, analyses and critiques published on this subject during 2010 and 2011. Read more at catholicinsight.com

 

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The priest who got away with murder

Amplify’d from www.renewamerica.com

The priest who got away with (financing) murder

By Matt C. Abbott

What can I do but shake my head in disgust? And pray, of course. I'm referring to Father Manel Pousa of the Archdiocese of Barcelona, who, according to an April 19 story on LifeSiteNews.com, "financed the abortion of two young girls in his care [and] will not be excommunicated nor otherwise punished, the Archdiocese of Barcelona declared yesterday on behalf of Cardinal Archbishop Lluís Martínez Sistach." What's even more disturbing: "The archdiocese also claims that it has support for its decision from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which it says ruled in favor of the priest in 2009." Pousa, who has essentially boasted about financing the abortions (as well as blessing homosexual unions and calling for women's ordination), "claims that the girls whose abortions he financed would have killed their unborn children anyway, so he decided to 'commit a lesser evil to avoid another greater (evil)' and ensure that the abortion would be done in safety. A similar argument is made by Planned Parenthood to justify the legalization of abortion worldwide." Absolutely appalling. Not only did Pousa provide the means for the girls to have their unborn children killed, he also put the physical, psychological and spiritual well-being of the girls in grave danger. And what if the girls were in abusive situations? Could Pousa be guilty of covering up criminal activity? (Where have we heard that before? Hmmm...) More from LifeSiteNews.com: 'According to the law of the Church, canon 1398, anyone 'who actually procures an abortion incurs a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication.' Pope John Paul II added that 'The excommunication applies to all of those who commit this crime knowing the penalty, including those accomplices without whose cooperation the crime would not have been produced,' in his encyclical letter 'The Gospel of Life,' in 1995. 'However, the tribunal assigned to examine the case concluded 'with the proper certainty' that 'the aforesaid priest has not incurred the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae established by canon 1398, for not having been in agreement with the intention of procuring the abortion and for not having a principal complicity in the abortions, which were completely decided upon and brought about by two girls in a very precarious economic situation,' according to the archdiocese....' Thus, Pousa will remain in active ministry to promote further scandal to nourish the faithful. Canon lawyer Edward Peters posted the following comment in response to the story: 'Based on what is publicly known about this case (as opposed to what people might think they know) there is not enough information to conclude either that CDF/Barcelona were wrong or that they were right. There are certainly scenarios that would support the canonical results in this case. I suggest that people be moderate in asserting their disagreement with the results. For the rest, Father Pousa's behavior is eventually going to catch up with him, in my opinion.' I asked a trusted source about this whole sordid mess; he responded (edited): '[Dr. Peters is] right, in a sense, that there is a strict basis for the ruling, since Pousa's reasoning was that he was helping the girls to pay for a 'safe' version of what they would have already gotten anyway. Therefore his financial aid did not cause the deaths per se and they were an attempt to avoid a lesser evil — by his reasoning. 'However, the whole thing strikes me as an outrage. The reasoning for giving the money seems very specious. Obviously by giving it he was ensuring the abortions would happen. He presumably could have told the girls that they would be [killing their unborn children] and urged them not to do it, prayed for them, and so on. 'Legal, private abortions aren't necessarily much safer, so was Pousa really helping to protect the girls' lives? Was he not misleading them into thinking their actions weren't really that serious? Should the Catholic Church set up an abortion fund for women in similar situations, since apparently the behavior of this priest is legit in the minds of the authorities? 'And what about his other outrageous behavior, including the 'blessing' of homosexual unions and the endorsement of priestesses? There wasn't even a trial for that. Apparently endorsing sexual perversion and denial of Church doctrine aren't enough to merit action on the part of the bishop or the Vatican. It's yet another disaster on the sinking ship of Vatican II.' Again, I will say: Welcome to the new springtime, ladies and gentlemen. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us. © Matt C. Abbott Read more at www.renewamerica.com

 

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Church Expels Women's Advocate, Keeps...

At Easter, Church Expels Women's Advocate, Keeps Pedophiles in the Fold

Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com

At Easter, Church Expels Women's Advocate, Keeps Pedophiles in the Fold

Angela Bonavoglia Journalist and author

Joining the women who have stepped forward to be ordained as Roman Catholic Women Priests and been summarily castigated and excommunicated, the latest victim of the Church's strong-armed resistance to any effort toward women's equality in the Church is internationally beloved and regarded Father Roy Bourgeois. And while it might have looked like last year's new canonical guidelines declaring that a priest's "attempted sacred ordination of a woman" was as grave a "crime" as a priest's sexual molestation of a child, the Church hierarchy's treatment of Bourgeois shows that it considers advocacy of women's ordination to be much, much worse.

Father Roy is a Purple Heart recipient. In the 1970s, he worked with the poor in Bolivia and was arrested and forced to leave the country for speaking out against injustice. In the 1980s, he got involved in issues surrounding U.S. policy in El Salvador, this after four churchwoman -- two his dear friends -- were raped and killed by Salvadoran soldiers. He became an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, establishing the School of the Americas Watch, which advocates for the closing the U.S. School of the Americas (aka School of Assassins). Bourgeois spent five years in U.S. federal prison for nonviolent protest, and he is a former Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

Father Roy is an extremely powerful force in the world, which meant that his unequivocal public support for women's ordination, and his participation in the ordination of his friend Janice Sevre-Duszynska, greatly disturbed the hierarchy. The Vatican promptly excommunicated him, but as recently as February, as I reported in The Huffington Post, his order of 44 years, the Maryknolls, had not banished him from their ranks. "He has been excommunicated by Rome," spokesperson Mike Virgintino told me, "but he remains part of the Maryknoll Society," specifically, the Maryknoll Priests and Brothers.

What finally put the Maryknolls over the edge? Bourgeois' speaking at a public panel at the Barnard College Athena Film Festival on Women's Leadership on Feb. 12. The panel, which I led, followed the screening of Pink Smoke Over the Vatican. I think that Jules Hart's documentary (which, as the author of Good Catholic Girls, I am in) captures in vivid detail the Roman Catholic Women Priests' movement and the increasingly hysterical response of the all-male, theoretically celibate hierarchy as it tries to discredit and defeat it. In his letter of March 18 to Bourgeois, Maryknoll Superior General Rev. Edward Dougherty, referring to the panel and the film, committed to expelling Bourgeois from the Maryknolls if he failed to recant within 15 days and did not respond to a subsequent second warning. Dougherty also promised to submit to the Vatican a request for Bourgeois' laicization, which would thereby end his Roman Catholic priesthood forever.

This swift and unequivocal action has never been the response of these same church leaders to the rape, sodomizing, sexual torture and torment of children -- from infancy through adolescence -- by thousands of male Catholic clergy worldwide.

On April 17, the New York Times reported that Bishop Roger Vangheluwe -- not long ago one of the most powerful bishops in Belgium, until he resigned following admission of sexually molesting a child, his nephew -- admitted in a TV interview that he had also abused another child, another cousin, claiming that they were reciprocal relationships, the kids enjoyed them and he didn't "have the impression" that he himself was "a pedophile."

What has the Church done? Essentially, nothing. The Vatican sent him for "spiritual and psychological treatment." The Times reported that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pope are considering what to do next.

And neither excommuniaton nor laicization has been threatened against any of the scores of Philadelphia priests who Cardinal Justin Rigali, under public pressure, was forced to relieve of duty, following the recent release of a second damning Grand Jury report. Protected for years by the black wall of silence, those priests were kept in active ministry even after the 2002 sex abuse crisis broke in this country and even after the diocesan authorities knew of the horrific allegations against them -- that they had repeatedly raped and sodomized children, turning one child into a sexual slave who they pimped out from priest to priest.

This same Rigali in 2006 castigated Eileen McCafferty DiFranco for daring to be ordained a Roman Catholic priest, accusing her of causing "confusion and discord," charging that if she celebrated a sacrament, she would "further exacerbate the public scandal." This was at the time of the first Grand Jury report, which described one of the most astounding histories of child sex abuse of any diocese in the country. The list of crimes by more than 60 priests included a teenage girl groped by her priest while she lay immobilized in traction and a boy who awoke intoxicated in a priest's bed to find the priest "sucking his penis while three other priests watched and masturbated."

Bourgeois was incredibly engaging and moving on the Barnard panel, as he is in the film -- humble, deeply committed to women's rights in the Church, immovable in his position of support. But what struck me, what touched me most deeply was his concern, his wish and his deep disappointment that his fellow priests have refused to step forward and join him in this fight. They remain silent, despite knowing in their hearts how unjust and discriminatory is the Church's position, which flies in the face of church history, archaeological evidence and even a Pontifical Biblical Commission that found insufficient Scriptural grounds to exclude the possibility of women's ordination.

To Bourgeois, this fight, and the resistance to it, is what being a priest is all about. As he told the National Catholic Reporter: "I believe if we really take our faith seriously on these issues of justice and peace, there's going to be consequences ... I'm just seeing now ... that maybe I'm finally becoming a faithful priest. I finally really understand what this man Jesus was talking about when he said it's not going to be easy."

The face of a Church steeped in an unmistakable misogyny will be on view again, on this most sacred of holy days, Easter Sunday. Even as we recall Jesus telling Mary Magdalene, the first witness to his Resurrection, to go and tell his brothers that He is risen, no woman in a Catholic Church will be allowed to preach that Gospel or deliver a homily about it because no woman can be ordained. And all across the globe, in Roman Catholic churches, men alone will consecrate the Eucharist. Men alone will repeat the sacred words: "This is my body. This is my blood."

Yet, that body and blood began in the body and blood of a woman. Mary's gift to the world is brutally dismissed and diminished by a Church that has declared the fight for her voice, her equality and her empowerment to be a most grave crime.

In reality, it is that untenable position, unabashedly and self-servingly defended, that is the real scandal, the real crime.

Related News On Huffington Post: 98 Percent Of Catholic Women Use Birth Control Banned By Church (Reuters) -- Some 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used contraceptive methods banned by the church, research published on Wednesday showed. A... Excommunicated Priest Now Faces Expulsion By Bruce Nolan Religion News Service NEW ORLEANS -- The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, the Louisiana native and peace activist who was excommunicated three years ago... Three Anglican Bishops Ordained As Catholic Priests By Al Webb Religion News Service LONDON (RNS) Three former Church of England bishops, disaffected by their church's ordination of women, have been ordained as... Priest Who Left Catholic Church Finds Love In Family Life By Kevin Eckstrom Religion News Service (RNS) The Rev. Albert Cutie saw a lot of things in his 14 years as a Catholic priest while... More News Posts:  « First   Prev  1  2  Next   Last »    98 Percent Of Catholic Women Use Birth Control Banned By Church Excommunicated Priest Now Faces Expulsion Three Anglican Bishops Ordained As Catholic Priests Priest Who Left Catholic Church Finds Love In Family Life Interview With Toni Tortorilla, Female Catholic Priest U.S. Bishops Defend Inclusion Of Women's Ordination In Church Crimes List Vatican: Ordination Of Women A 'Grave Crime' Protesters Campaign For Women's Ordination At Vatican 98 Percent Of Catholic Women Use Birth Control Banned By Church (Reuters) -- Some 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used contraceptive methods banned by the church, research published on Wednesday showed. A... Excommunicated Priest Now Faces Expulsion By Bruce Nolan Religion News Service NEW ORLEANS -- The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, the Louisiana native and peace activist who was excommunicated three years ago... Three Anglican Bishops Ordained As Catholic Priests By Al Webb Religion News Service LONDON (RNS) Three former Church of England bishops, disaffected by their church's ordination of women, have been ordained as... Priest Who Left Catholic Church Finds Love In Family Life By Kevin Eckstrom Religion News Service (RNS) The Rev. Albert Cutie saw a lot of things in his 14 years as a Catholic priest while... Interview With Toni Tortorilla, Female Catholic Priest PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) It's been three years since Toni Tortorilla was ordained in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement, and the Vatican's recent decision to label... U.S. Bishops Defend Inclusion Of Women's Ordination In Church Crimes List By Daniel Burke and Richard Allen Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) U.S. Catholic bishops on Thursday (July 15) defended the Vatican's decision to include the... Vatican: Ordination Of Women A 'Grave Crime' VATICAN CITY — The Vatican revised its in-house rules to deal with clerical sex abuse cases Thursday, targeting priests who molest the mentally disabled as... Protesters Campaign For Women's Ordination At Vatican By Luigi Sandri Religion News Service ROME (RNS/ENInews) A group of women demonstrated in Rome's St Peter's Square on Tuesday (June 8), saying they want...

Leora Tanenbaum: Religious Enough for You? Women Light the Holiday Fires When families light Hanukkah candles this evening, will the women light too? Jewish, Christian and Muslim women assume that that they're forbidden from leadership roles, when they are not. Serene Jones: Equal Pray for Women Imagine if National Women's History Month's motto for 2011 was tweaked slightly to read, "Our Religious History is our Strength." Would there be as much to rejoice about? I'm afraid not. Angela Bonavoglia: Women Take On Gender Apartheid in the Catholic Church As more and more cases of child abuse and cover-up emerge and the church escalates actions aimed at controlling women -- and not just Catholic women -- the all-male hierarchy finds itself in the midst of an unprecedented crisis. Angela Bonavoglia: The Catholic Church: Abusing, Endangering, And Intimidating Women Cantalamessa talked about the need to end violence against women, which is crucial, but he did so without any acknowledgment of the Church's own culpability in the abuse, endangerment, and intimidation of women.

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