Amplify’d from gawker.com

Twitter Users Hijack EU Summit with Hilarious Berlusconi Slander

It's a bad idea to project random people's tweets, live and unfiltered, onto a giant screen at any event. But especially when that event is an EU summit, and one of the guests is sleazy Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

For some reason, the European Union decided to project any tweets with the hashtag #EUCO in the main hall at their summit in Brussels this week. But once Twitter users caught on they flooded the tweet wall with anti-Silvio Berlusconi vitriol. From the Telegraph:

"It was insulting. People were calling him a paedophile. The point was not to show insulting messages about Berlusconi. If anyone from theItalian delegation saw it, it would hurt their feelings." The tweets appeared in huge letters on giant television screen in the summit press areas and in rooms used by passing diplomats and politicians. "Berlusconi pays for sex, for votes, for mafia protection, for everything he can buy. What he cannot buy, will be stolen," sent tanzeron.

The wall was up for about two hours before officials took it down. Amazing! This act of extremely immature global solidarity is just the kind of thing the EU should be promoting.

[Image via AP]

Send an email to Adrian Chen, the author of this post, at adrian@gawker.com. Read more at gawker.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.livemint.com

How playing Robin Hood can prevent economic crises

The rise in debt levels leads to the financial sector becoming more important and accounting for a larger size of the economy. This explains the laments about the “financialization of the economy”

Simply Economics | Manas Chakravarty

Inequality, Leverage and Crises By Michael Kumhof and Romain Ranciere, IMF Working Paper ( http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2010/wp10268.pdf )

Mainstream theories of the economic crisis have identified loose monetary policy leading to asset bubbles, wrong incentives, a failure of regulation, excessive leverage or the explosion in opaque derivatives as the underlying reason for the crisis. More radical explanations have said, following the iconoclastic economist Hyman Minsky, that the financial system is prone to boom-bust cycles. It has so far been only the political left that has identified inequality as one of the reasons for the increase in debt in the US. Because workers’ incomes have not increased in real terms, so runs the argument, they have been forced to borrow and the banking system has been happy to oblige. It’s a sign of how far the dominant discourse has shifted, therefore, to see the International Monetary Fund carrying an article in its Finance and Development magazine that says “long periods of unequal incomes spur borrowing from the rich, increasing the risk of major economic crises”. The article, by Kumhof and Ranciere summarizes an earlier research paper authored by them.

The authors point out that inequality increased sharply both before the Great Depression and the current crisis. The share of total income (excluding capital gains) commanded by the top 5% of the income distribution increased from 24% in 1920 to 34% in 1928, and from 22% in 1983 to 34% in 2007. This led to a rise in the debt-income ratios of the working and middle classes.

While income inequality increased, inequality in consumption did not rise to the same extent for the simple reason that those at the bottom of the pyramid were borrowing more, while the rich people at the top were saving more. And because the poor borrowed more to keep up their consumption, their debt-income ratios went up, increasing financial fragility. The authors find that nearly all of the increase in the debt-to-income ratio at the aggregate level comes from the bottom group of the wealth distribution. Also, the rise in debt levels leads to the financial sector becoming more important and accounting for a larger size of the economy. This explains the laments about the “financialization of the economy”. In essence, the authors are saying that the richest 5% of the US population, who are investors, lend to the bottom 95% of the population.

Seen in this fashion, the origin of the crisis is at the bottom a political problem, based on the distribution of income. That, in turn, is dependent on the relative power relations between the rich and the poor. Kumhof and Ranciere write: “The crisis is the ultimate result, after a period of decades, of a shock to the relative bargaining powers over income of two groups of households, investors who account for 5% of the population, and whose bargaining power increases, and workers who account for 95% of the population.” Economists such as Morgan Stanley’s Stephen Roach had pointed out long ago that labour’s share of national income had been going down in the US many years before the crisis.

Bank bailouts help investors and, therefore, the rich, while the cost of the bailouts is borne by the taxpayer, most of whom are from the poor and middle classes. So what’s the solution? Write the authors, “Because crises are costly, redistribution policies that prevent excessive household indebtedness and reduce crisis risk ex-ante can be more desirable from a macroeconomic stabilization point of view than ex-post policies such as bailouts or debt restructurings.”

Their conclusion: “Restoring equality by redistributing income from the rich to the poor would not only please the Robin Hoods of the world, but could also help save the global economy from another major crisis.” Read more at www.livemint.com

 

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Sentencing Date for Ohio Valley Priest Postponed

Video: http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=91228

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Sentencing Date for Ohio Valley Priest Postponed

The Rev. Felix C. Owino plead guilty to charges of aggravated sexual battery on Sept. 29.

By Laurie Conway

WEIRTON  -- The sentencing for a local priest accused of sexual assault is now delayed. According to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the sentencing date for the Rev. Felix C. Owino has been moved to Friday, Feb. 18, 2011. The original sentencing date was set for Friday, Dec. 17. Owino entered a guilty plea to aggravated sexual battery in Virginia circuit court in Fairfax County on September 29. According to authorities, Owino was arrested on July 8 in Fairfax for the aggravated sexual battery of a minor. Owino is a former associate professor at Wheeling Jesuit University and had a residence at St. Paul Parish in Weirton as well. He is being held at the adult detention center in Fairfax. Read more at www.statejournal.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

A Monsignor Is Defrocked for Abusing a Student

By PAUL VITELLO

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.

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.

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.” Read more at www.nytimes.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.boston.com

Rev. Marc Piché, 68; priest urged Cardinal Law to resign

MARC PICHÉ

By Judy Rakowsky

The Rev. Marc Piché was a popular parish priest who welcomed female and adult altar servers before it was officially sanctioned and was among a cadre of Catholic clergy who urged Cardinal Bernard F. Law to step down amid the sexual abuse scandal.

Known for listening carefully to parishioners and for giving considered advice, Father Piché died Tuesday of liver cancer at a relative’s home in Avon. He was 68. “I can’t tell you how many marriages he saved,’’ said Carole Piché, wife of Andre Piché, a younger brother. “Be it a cut knee, a strained marriage, or a troubled teenager, he soothed people.’’ A humble man with no interest in advancing in the church hierarchy, he heard and saw how much he meant to people in the weeks since he was removed from the transplant list after his disease had spread, Carole Piché said of her brother-in-law. Visitors flocked to their Avon home, and piles of letters arrived, including one FedEx special delivery from a former parishioner that reached him two days before he died. “It was a living wake with so many people at our house, with so many people coming in and out,’’ said another younger brother, Joseph Piché of Plymouth. “Even the cat Gizmo) wouldn’t leave his bed, and I don’t think he even cared for cats but that one.’’ One of the more than 800 letters that arrived since the pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Newburyport was removed from the transplant list was from a former parishioner who is now an FBI agent. He recalled the fun he had romping on a raft in New Hampshire, where Father Piché took young parishioners on swimming and skiing trips. Plenty of chaperones were on hand for the swimming and skiing trips for parishioners, she said, but after the pedophilia scandal walloped the church in the last decade, he did not feel he could continue the trips. Father Piché was one of 58 clergy in the Boston Archdiocese who signed a letter to Law in 2002 urging him to resign. It said: “Your position as our bishop is so compromised that it is no longer possible for you to exercise the spiritual leadership required for the church of Boston.’’ Joseph said his brother’s courage inspired him to put pen to paper himself. “I wrote a letter telling him how proud I was,’’ he said. “He never made any big deal out of it. But he joked that he may need a place to live after that got sent.’’ Father Piché was in a small minority; there were 550 diocesan priests at the time, as well as 300 retired priests and 700 members of religious orders. Carole Piché said Father Piché suffered no repercussions for signing the letter, which was sent just days before Law resigned. Father Piché also was ahead of Rome when it came to including girls and adults as altar servers. Four years before the Vatican decided in 1994 to allow female altar servers; he put a notice in the bulletin for Sacred Hearts in Haverhill seeking altar servers. He did not say boys. “I felt it was an issue of justice,’’ Father Piché, then pastor at Sacred Hearts, told the Globe. “I didn’t have any valid reason to delay. It takes Rome a little while to catch up sometimes.’’ When Father Piché told the congregation, “I’ll take anyone,’’ Theresa O’Brien, 80, stepped up. Within three years, she was the senior server and one of three adults among 70 servers. Father Piché said O’Brien had been an inspiration. “Theresa became a resource to me immediately because of her long connection to the parish and so many organizations and her knowledge of so many families,’’ he said. “I consult with her often.’’ Born in Brockton, Father Piché was the second of four sons of the late Marcel and Noella (Landry) Piché. He attended Sacred Heart Grammar school in Brockton and Assumption High School and Assumption College in Montreal. He attended St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, and received a master’s degree from Providence College. Father Piché served at St. Francis Parish in Medford, St. Peter’s Parish in Plymouth, St. Joseph’s Parish in Salem, St. Mary’s Parish in Wrentham, St. Patrick’s Parish in Stoneham, Sacred Heart/St. James parishes in Groton as administrator, was pastor of Sacred Hearts parish in Bradford for 13 years, and had been pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Newburyport since June 1, 2003. “My brother never aspired to be anything other than a parish priest,’’ Joseph said. “He could have been asked, and he would have refused to be a bishop. He only wanted special consideration if a parish opened near mountains so he could ski. If he took a day off, everybody knew where he was in the winter.’’ Father Piché also leaves his older brother, Roger J. of Lake Suzy, Fla. The funeral Mass is scheduled at 11 a.m. today at Immaculate Conception Church, 42 Green St., in Newburyport. Burial will be at a later date in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Newburyport. Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley celebrated a vigil service last night at Immaculate Conception Church. Read more at www.boston.com

 

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Lutheran Leader Seeks Communion Agreement With Pope

By Luigi Sandri Religion News Service

ROME (RNS/ENInews) The president of the Lutheran World Federation is calling on Lutherans and Catholics to issue a common statement on Holy Communion to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017. "Our intention is to arrive at 2017 with a common Roman Catholic-Lutheran declaration on Eucharistic hospitality," Bishop Munib Younan told the Italian Protestant news agency NEV before meeting with Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday (Dec. 16). "Eucharistic hospitality," means that Catholics would be able to receive Communion at Lutheran worship services, and Lutherans would be able to do the same at a Catholic Mass. In a speech during his meeting with Younan, Benedict praised progress in Catholic-Lutheran dialogue but did not make any reference to the bishop's Eucharist proposal. "It is my hope that these ecumenical activities will provide fresh opportunities for Catholics and Lutherans to grow closer in their lives, their witness to the gospel, and their efforts to bring the light of Christ to all dimensions of society" the pope said. Catholic doctrine forbids such bilateral Communion acceptance. The Second Vatican Council, held from 1962 to 1965, said that Protestants "did not keep the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery." In 1517, Martin Luther published 95 theses critical of the Roman Catholic Church, setting the Protestant Reformation in motion. In 1999, the Catholic Church and the LWF signed a joint declaration on the doctrine of justification (how a person is saved), one of the main points of contention between Catholics and Lutherans in the 16th century. At the meeting with Younan, Benedict called the 1999 declaration "a significant step along the difficult path towards re-establishing full unity among Christians." Younan is bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, based in Jerusalem. Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

 

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Amplify’d from en.rian.ru

Sentence for Iraqi Saddam-era deputy PM to be commuted - source

Tariq Aziz

The sentence for Iraqi former deputy prime minister and incumbent foreign minister to be commuted, a source in Iraqi Supreme Criminal Court said.

The minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to death by hanging in October over the persecution of Iraqi religious parties.

"The court's answer on the request of the Iraqi government for commutation of the death sentence for former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz will be positive," the source said adding that the government is trying to influence the court to commute the sentence, taking into account the special status of Aziz, and pressuring the court from all the sides including with participation of the Vatican, the United Nations, the European Union, Russia.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Wednesday he would not sign an execution order for Aziz, French television France 24 reported.

Aziz was already serving a 15-year sentence after being found guilty in the execution of traders in 1992 under the Saddam Hussein regime.

Aziz, now 74, suffered a stroke in January.

Related News

Iraq president refuses to sign execution order for Aziz

Aziz' death penalty attempt to cover U.S. failure in Iraq - Russian lawmaker

U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: Ending or outsourcing the war? Read more at en.rian.ru

 

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Vatican shielded Dublin priest until he raped boy in pub, says inquiry

Associated Press

Dublin:  The Vatican tried to stop church leaders in Dublin from defrocking a particularly dangerous pedophile priest and relented only after he raped a boy in a restroom at a pub, according to an investigation released on Friday. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said he fully accepted the findings of the latest chapter in Ireland's investigation into child abuse by priests in Dublin who were shielded from the law by Catholic leaders. Archbishop Martin called the priest, Tony Walsh, an "extremely devious man" who should never have been ordained. A state-ordered investigation into cover-ups by the Dublin Archdiocese reported last year that church officials had shielded scores of priests from criminal investigation over several decades and did not report any crimes to the police until the mid-1990s.

A chapter dealing with Mr. Walsh was censored from the original report because he was still facing a criminal trial at the time. It was published Friday, after Mr. Walsh's conviction on Dec. 6 for raping three boys over a five-year period three decades ago. He got a 12-year prison term. The investigators concluded that Mr. Walsh raped and molested hundreds of boys and girls while serving as a priest in Dublin from 1978 to 1996. They described him as "probably the most notorious child sexual abuser" of the 46 cases they investigated. Mr. Walsh often performed as an Elvis impersonator in a traveling Catholic song-and-dance production called the "All Priests Show," which was popular with children. The report found this increased his access to victims, as did his interest in scouting groups and taking altar boys on visits to the Dublin seminary Clonliffe College. The investigators based their conclusions on previously confidential Dublin and Vatican documents and interviews with church figures. They found that archdiocese leaders spent several years arguing over whether Mr. Walsh should be defrocked, sent to counselors in England or assigned to duties that kept him away from children. Archbishop Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat appointed to clean up the Dublin scandals in 2004, handed over the archdiocese's previously secret abuse files to the investigators. His predecessor, Cardinal Desmond Connell, had refused to do so. Archbishop Martin said the church concealed child abuse easily for so long because it had grown too powerful. "It had often become self-centered and arrogant," he said. "It felt that it could be forgiving of abusers in a simplistic manner and rarely empathised with the hurt of children." Read more at www.ndtv.com

 

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Amplify’d from blogs.telegraph.co.uk

Lesbian-hugging Marxist nuns have reduced US parishes to nuclear wasteland, Catholic pundit tentatively suggests

Damian Thompson

If you think I’m a bit hard on the Magic Circle, or Delingpole is mean to Moonbat, then you may not enjoy this short video in which conservative Catholic broadcaster Michael Voris suggests that the radical American nuns currently being investigated by the Vatican deserve more than a slap on the wrist.

Voris, who runs RealCatholicTV, is not pleased that Rome is planning to “acknowledge the hurt” felt by Lefty nuns as they’re asked to demonstrate that they are, you know, Catholic. And understatement really isn’t his thing. As he puts it:

Is there a Catholic in the world who still goes to Mass who doesn’t realise the nuclear damage that has been done to the Church by modernist nuns? Millions of Catholics have had to stand by while these “good sisters” dismantled hundreds of years of work … advancing a socialist, Marxist political agenda, embracing lesbianism, instituting yoga classes along with Mother Earth prayer tutorials, conducting retreats based on sorcery and witchcraft … making a shipwreck of the faith by teaching that abortion is acceptable, that women can be priests, that WE ARE CHURCH…

Fortunately, he adds, “real nuns” in real habits are on the rise, proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ, and the radical orders are disappearing into oblivion…

… but we can’t go there because that annoys the femiNazi nuns and we don’t want to spend any more time having to acknowledge their “deep hurt and anger”. Most of them are getting along in years, well along, and while in New Age theology death doesn’t really mean anything except being released into the fullness of your feng shuiness and whirling around Mother Earth gardens for eternity, we know who will be standing there waiting for them!

Such mean-spirited glee is, of course, deplorable. So let me make one thing absolutely clear. I’ve posted this video only to show what can happen when conservative Catholic commentators lose their sense of charity. Yes indeedy. Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk

 

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Amplify’d from www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Priest abuse was hidden for 16 years

By Ed Carty

A cardinal, several bishops and gardai in the Republic faced criticism today over revelations a serial paedophile priest was free to abuse for 16 years.

A previously censored report revealed the Vatican wanted ‘Fr Filth’ Tony Walsh sent to a monastery for 10 years, while Dublin's Catholic hierarchy wanted him ordered out of the Church.

The state inquiry revealed the archdiocese was more concerned about a Garda investigation into Walsh than the gardai themselves.

It branded Walsh as probably the most notorious child sexual abuser to have come to its attention.

Officers had been alerted to the attacks as far back as 1991 but a investigation was effectively shelved because the Church was running its own inquiry.

His attacks date to the 1970s. Read more at www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

 

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Video: http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/top_stories/130852/vatican-dismisses-local-priest

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Vatican Dismisses Local Priest

By: NY1 News

A New York priest has been dismissed by the Vatican after a church court found him guilty of sexually abusing a minor in the 1970s. The New York Archdiocese first learned of the allegations against Monsignor Charles Kavanagh in 2002, when the accuser wrote a letter in to Edward Cardinal Egan, the then-archbishop. Kavanagh was removed from his priestly duties pending an investigation and trial. After learning of the verdict, Archbishop Timothy Dolan issued a statement, apologizing to the victim. Kavanagh's sister, who also served as his attorney, said the church court did not grant him a fair trial. Read more at manhattan.ny1.com

 

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The Religion Newswriters Association releases its annual Top 10 story list

Amplify’d from www.statesman.com

The Religion Newswriters Association releases its annual Top 10 story list

By Joshunda Sanders

If this feels like deja vu, it’s because I posted my personal Top 10 two weeks ago. The Religion Newswriters Association, which I belong to with hundreds of other religion writers around the country, just released theirs yesterday, after polling its membership. The complete Top 10 Religion Stories of 2010, in order from first to tenth (with some additional items of note this year) are below, with this comment from Debra Mason, RNA president:

Public debate and controversy over a planned Islamic community center and mosque to be built near New York’s Ground Zero ignited a national debate about religious freedom that kept the story in the news for months. The story was voted the No. 1 religion story of 2010 in the annual Top 10 Religion News Stories of the Year poll of Religion Newswriters Association members. The center’s leading proponent, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, was voted the 2010 Religion Newsmaker of the Year. Public opinion and outcry over the mosque reached a peak when a pastor of a small Florida church threatened to burn a Qu’ran in protest, a bravado that fueled fears of international backlash against the United States until the pastor backed down.

A proposal to build an Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero leads to a national debate on religious freedom, with strong statements on both sides as the 9/11 anniversary approached. A Gainesville, Fla., pastor, who vowed to burn copies of the Qu’ran in protest, backs down.

The catastrophic earthquake in Haiti sparks relief efforts by many and varied faith-based groups. One by Idaho Southern Baptists leads to child-smuggling accusations, as well as to examinations of others’ practices. Leader Laura Silsby is imprisoned for four months.

Pope Benedict XVI is accused of delaying church action against pedophile priests in Ireland, Germany, the United States and other countries when he led the Vatican office in charge of discipline 1981 to 2005. Several bishops resign. Benedict continues to criticize the church’s handling of past cases.

The rise of the Tea Party movement is seen by some as a return to political prominence for the religious right; others see it as stressing economic rather than social issues. Mormon Glenn Beck pushes a Washington rally. Election results are mixed. One Tea Party candidate who loses, however, is Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, who was pilloried for responding to critics with an ad that stated, “I am not a witch.”

President Obama signs the health-care reform bill for which many faith-based groups labored. Near year’s end the Catholic bishops repeat their strong opposition to it due to the belief that it provides funding for abortions, and lament support some Catholics gave it.

Sexuality continues as a hot topic among mainline congregations. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA votes for the fourth time to lift the ban on noncelibate gay clergy; the presbyteries are again voting on it. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America suffers scores of defections after its 2009 vote on the issue. The Episcopal Church is asked by the archbishop of Canterbury to take a lesser role in the Anglican Communion after a lesbian assistant bishop is ordained.

The prolonged economic slump spells trouble for additional churches and ministries. In the highest profile case, the Crystal Cathedral declares bankruptcy after downsizing efforts fall short. The Lutheran publishing house, Augsburg Fortress, drops its pension plan; Focus on the Family cuts 110 employees; the Seventh-day Adventist publishing arm removes top executives.

Bullying draws attention with several suicides attributed to it, including a New Jersey college student. Religious groups strongly condemn it, but some see it as having religious roots, especially in regards to homosexuality. Several religious voices take part in the “It gets better” YouTube video project to encourage gay youth not to commit suicide or succumb to depression.

The U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey released by the Pew Forum offers some surprising findings, including that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons had the highest correct answers.

The U.S. Supreme Court convenes for the first time ever without a Protestant in its number (6 Catholics and 3 Jews). The court hears arguments in the case of the Kansas church that loudly protests at the funerals of servicemen; the decision will come this spring. The Court earlier allows a cross to remain at least temporarily on National Park land in the Mojave Desert, but then the cross is stolen.

The other items on the ballot, ranked 11 to 20:

Faith-based aid workers are slain in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Half of Iraq’s 750,000 Christians have left it since 2003.

Faith-based environmental groups gain new impetus from the BP oil spill, building on efforts in recent years to place creation care at the top of religious leaders’ priorities.

Faith-based groups continue to press for immigration reform. Southern Baptist leader Richard Land calls for giving illegal immigrants “a compassionate, just pathway to earning citizenship or legal status.”

In November, more than 80 percent of state voters approved a measure amending the Oklahoma Constitution to prevent state courts from using Islamic law or international law. After a federal judge temporarily blocks the ruling, Oklahoma state attorneys vow to appeal the federal block.

U.S. Courts of Appeals rule on a large number of religion-related issues, with mixed results. The 7th OKs a moment of silence in schools and says a college student group cannot be denied funds because of its religious activity; the 9th reverses its ‘02 ruling on “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, saying the phrase is not a prayer; the 10th bans metal crosses for deceased Utah police; the 11th says feeding the poor does not qualify as free exercise of religion; the 2nd invalidates FCC indecency policy.

Pope Benedict XVI warns against “aggressive secularism” on the first visit of a pope to the United Kingdom in 28 years. Meanwhile, a new survey shows church attendance in Britain has stabilized or gained a little after decades of decline. The UK coalition government said it plans to fund religious schools with state money.

The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, is disinvited from a Pentagon National Day of Prayer observance because of previous criticisms of Muslims. The Day of Prayer continues despite legal attempts to stop it.

President Obama makes a strong pitch for religious tolerance on his visit to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country. Meanwhile, he continues to seek reconciliation between Jews and Muslims in Palestine.

President Obama signs an order reforming the White House faith-based office to improve transparency and clarify rules for religious groups that receive federal grants; members of his advisory committee are generally pleased. The question of hiring and firing on a religious basis will be decided case by case.

Hinduism gains more of the spotlight through the book “Eat, Pray, Love” and word of star Julia Roberts’ conversion to it. At least one prominent conservative Protestant leader gains attention-criticizing yoga.

Results are based on an online survey of more then 300 journalists with a response rate near 30 percent. The Religion Newswriters Association is the world’s premier association dedicated to helping journalists write about religion with balance, accuracy and insight. Founded in 1949, the association is headquartered at the Missouri School of Journalism. The association has conducted its Top 10 Religion News Stories of the Year for nearly 30 years. Read more at www.statesman.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.mjtimes.sk.ca

Dublin investigation: Vatican tried to stop pedophile Irish priest from being defrocked

DUBLIN - A previously censored chapter from Ireland's investigation into church coverups of child abuse says the Vatican tried to stop Irish church leaders from defrocking a particularly dangerous pedophile priest.

The chapter, released Friday, details how Dublin leaders ordered Catholic priest Tony Walsh defrocked in 1993 following 15 years of child-abuse complaints. But the Vatican overruled the verdict and ordered him sent to an Irish monastery instead.

Rome relented in 1996 after police opened a criminal probe and Walsh attacked a boy in a pub restroom following a family funeral.

Walsh was imprisoned for raping boys last week.

The Dublin Archdiocese investigation, published last year, found that Catholic officials shielded dozens of priests from prosecution for decades.

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Paedo priest anger

Massive pervert - William Green

VICTIMS sexually abused by a Wigan priest are demanding to know why he is still a clergyman – two years after being jailed. Fr William Green (pictured above), formerly of Holy Family RC Church in New Springs, is currently serving a six-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to 27 counts of sexual assault in 2008. Green, 69, abused six pupils aged 11 to 15 while working as a religious education teacher at St Bede’s Boys’ School in Whalley Range, Manchester, between 1975 and 1987. Following Green’s conviction, church chiefs vowed that he would never minister to the public again as he agreed to be defrocked or “laicised” – a process involving the Vatican which would see him stripped of his priesthood and privileges. A spokesman for the Diocese of Salford said that the laicisation was on-going and was out of their hands. Green was asked by the Diocese of Salford in January 2009 to apply for laicisation, which he did. The application went to the Bishop, who then sent it to Rome to be considered by the Congregation for the Defence of the Faith (CDF). This application is still with the CDF, and the diocese could not confirm a time-frame when things might begin to move. Fr Barry O’Sullivan, safeguarding co-ordinator at the Diocese of Salford, said: “The most important thing for the victims to know is that now he has been held to account of his offences, he will never work again as a priest. It is an ongoing process which we don’t actually control. We can’t determine the length of the process.” But two years on, the process is still incomplete and victims and former parishioners are questing what is taking so long. One of his former parishioners, who does not wish to be identified, said: “There seems to be a very big gap between what the church says it will do in such cases and what actually happens. “During the summer of 2010, the Catholic bishops seemed keen to remind us that Pope Benedict XVI had led changes to church law that included fast-track dismissal from the clerical state for offenders. “However, in practice, these processes seem to run very slowly, if at all, in the Diocese of Salford. “William Green has still not been laicised more than two years after he was convicted and sentenced.” In 2001, the Nolan Report was published in the wake of damaging disclosures of clerical sexual abuse and cover ups at the start of the decade. It was designed to root out sex offenders and prevent paedophiles from entering the priesthood. Recommendation 78 of the Nolan Report states that “if a bishop, priest or deacon is convicted of a criminal offence against children and is sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of 12 months or more, then it would normally be right to initiate the process of laicisation. Failure to do so would need to be justified. “Initiation of the process of laicisation may also be appropriate in other circumstances.” Read more at www.wigantoday.net

 

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