COVID-19 & the Clerical Church

Institutional Advantage

Commonweal

By Massimo Faggioli, June 19, 2020

Pope Francis leaves after celebrating Mass marking the feast of Corpus Christi in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, June 14, 2020. (CNS photo/Tiziana Fabi, Reuters pool)

If there’s something positive to have emerged from these many months of pandemic, it’s the constructive thinking going on about what it might mean for the Catholic Church. There’s a kind of collective and individual self-examination underway, perhaps exemplified best by Czech theologian Tomáš Halík, who is a psychotherapist by training. As he put it in one of the most perceptive articles published recently on the topic: “Our time of civilizational change calls for a new theology of contemporary history and a new understanding of the church.”

Trump’s brandishing of the Bible plays into a cultural legacy of racism and colonialism

INDEPENDENT

Katie Edwards – Helen Paynter

• Wednesday 3 June 2020

On Monday, after vowing violent state action against protestors across the US, Donald Trump took time out for a photo opportunity. Did he talk to people of colour, heartbroken, enraged and exhausted by police brutality and the killing of George Floyd by officers of the state? Did he listen to the black mothers terrified that the next time they see their son leave the house will be the last time?

No.

Police launched smoke grenades and shot rubber bullets at protestors to pave the way for Trump’s publicity stunt outside the St John’s Episcopal church.

Where Do Church Donations Go? The Catholic Church Has Used Almost $4 Billion Settling Child Molestation Lawsuits

Collective Evolution. Cutting Edge Conscious Media

Published 3 years ago 

on November 12, 2017

ByAlexa Erickso

Pedophilia has become a huge topic of discussion over recent weeks as not only have sexual abuse outings been taking place in Hollywood, but the exposure of pedophilia in Hollywood and amongst the elite is becoming more common.

The reality of child molestation by the Roman Catholic Church has surfaced time and time again, and yet, somehow, it continues to happen. If you watched the movie Spotlight, perhaps you have an idea of just how things are going down. But let’s break it down to date.

Will column: Has the Catholic Church committed the worst crime in American history?

PostIndenpedent

March 17, 2019

PHILADELPHIA — “Horseplay,” a term used to denote child rape, is, says Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, part of a sinister glossary of euphemisms by which the Catholic Church’s bureaucracy obfuscates in documents the church’s “pattern of abuse” and conspiracy of silence “that goes all the way to the Vatican.” “Benevolent bishops” are those who allow predatory priests, shuffled from other dioceses, to continue as priests.

The fuse for the national explosion of fury about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy was lit in Boston — the excellent 2015 movie “Spotlight” recounts The Boston Globe’s victory over the stonewalling Catholic hierarchy in 2001-2002. But the still-reverberating detonation occurred last August in a Pittsburgh grand jury’s report on the sexual abuse by approximately 300 priests of at least 1,000 victims in six Pennsylvania dioceses.

Invasion of the killer queens! The fearsome Asian hornet can gorge on up to 50 honey bees a day after decapitating them and pulling off their wings. Now, as new nests are discovered in Britain, experts are fighting back

Mail Online

By DAVID LEAFE FOR THE DAILY MAIL, 4 June 2020

• Asian hornets are ruthless killers of other flying insects, including honey-bees
• David Leafe visited Jersey and joined a team hunting for the destructive hornets
• Volunteer Bob Hogge, 69 tags and tracks  hornets, leading him to the main nests
• The team are focusing on destroying nests before the queens depart by Octob

High above Bonne Nuit Bay on the north coast of Jersey, a grey-bearded 69 year old with binoculars around his neck and a glint in his eye is emerging from the foliage on a clifftop path.

The beach here was once a filming location for the hit TV detective series Bergerac and there is a hint of that maverick detective about Bob Hogge.

In his waxed coat and wellingtons, he is far from the womaniser played by John Nettles. But Bob also likes to get his man – or rather his pest. 

‘This game is all about patience,’ Bob tells me. By the time we meet he’s been lurking here for six hours.

.

15 Of The Most Absurd And Unforgivable Things The Catholic Church Has Ever Done

Ranker

Lea Rose Emery, svibnja 6, 2020

It’s hard out here for a pope. See, when it comes to religious history, the list of Catholic Church transgressions makes for pretty uncomfortable reading. Despite exalting virtue and kindness in its teaching, church leadership has spearheaded a long history of outright unforgivable Catholic actions.

You might remember some of these improprieties from school – the Inquisition, Joan of Arc, and the trial of Galileo should all ring a bell. But not everything here is medieval. Though Vatican violence goes way back, a number of disturbing episodes are from recent history. Some of this repugnant behavior comes from popes, some was church-endorsed, and some, most unsettlingly, was just straight-up regular church practice.

Dark church history contains scandal after scandal rife with every vice and taboo you can imagine. When the church was at the height of its power (at which point it was the most powerful organization in the Western world), it’s safe to say everything went to its head. Combine that with church leaders seeming to stubbornly resist adapting to changing morality and you’ve got a whole lot of unforgivable moments on your hands. 

Can the Pope Go to Jail?

VICE Quide to 2030

By Alex Norcia, Sep 6 2018

A new wave of sex scandals and allegations he personally covered for an abusive cardinal have Pope Francis under fire. But is he in trouble?

LEFT PHOTO: GIUSEPPE CICCIA/PACIFIC PRESS/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES. RIGHT PHOTO: JUAN CAMILO BERNAL/GETTY IMAGES

n August 2013, Józef Wesołowski, the Vatican‘s ambassador to the Dominican Republic since 2008, abruptly abandoned his island home. He’d been a staple on the waterfront in Santo Domingo, the capital city, where—often dressed like he was out for a jog—he assumed a laid-back and less-than-holy presence. The shoeshiners knew him casually as “the Italian,” because of the way he spoke Spanish with a distinct accent. (He was actually Polish.) He often had beers in the sun at a popular restaurant. He seemed, well, normal.

Jane Roe’s deathbed confession exposes the immorality of the Christian right

Arwa Mahdawi

The plaintiff in the landmark supreme court case revealed she was paid to change her mind about abortion. Have anti-abortion activists no shame?

‘After becoming the poster girl of the pro-choice movement, McCorvey performed a very public about-face in the 1990s.’ Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

What would you do for almost half a million dollars? Would you very publicly denounce your past life and pretend to be an anti-abortion, born-again, ex-gay Christian?

Thanks to her newly public deathbed confession, we now know that’s what Norma McCorvey, best known for being the plaintiff known as Jane Roe in the 1973 landmark supreme court case abortion rights case Roe v Wade, did.

The Grand Inquisitor of Toulouse

The Grand Inquisitor of Toulouse 

excerpt from Secret History of the Witches © 2000 Max Dashu 

Like many Dominican monks of his time, Bernard Gui rose through the ranks of the Inquisition. At the age of 35 he was named Grand Inquisitor of Toulouse, a repressive office he held from 1306 to 1323. The church hierarchy rewarded his efforts with a 1314 appointment as the Vicar of Toulouse, and he was sent on several papal missions to Italy and the French court. [Lea, Inq II, 104] 

Gui was a four-star general in the war on heresy. He wrote its principal battle plan, a handbook for Inquisitors entitled Practica Inquisitionis Hereticae Pravitatis: a “guide for inquiring into heretical depravity.” A classic interrogatory manual of the medieval Inquisition, it detailed forbidden beliefs, practices and rituals, and set out formulas of abjuration to be repeated by those the Church Militant had tortured into submission. Interrogatory torments administered before the tribunal did not count as punishment, but as the means of extracting “confessions.” Official penalties included death, imprisonment, exile, confiscation of property, and enforced pilgrimage to distant sites. 

A Little Girl and A Big Elephant – Pooja

A Little Girl and A Big Elephant – Pooja & Shanti: Eine besondere Freundschaft

Edi Maurer

The girl is called Pooja, and she was 6 years old when her father recorded this video. She is buying tomatoes for her friend Shanti. She does that every day when she is in India. But who is her friend Shanti? Shanti is an elephant, a temple elephant to be precise. Pooja ist ein mutiges Mädchens mit einem großen Herz für Tiere. Sie verbringt jedes Jahr die Wintermonate mit ihren Eltern in Indien. In einem Dschungelreservat lernt die sechsjährige Pooja, die Elefantendame Shanti kennen. Zwischen den beiden äußerlich so verschiedenen Wesen entsteht über viele Jahre eine wunderbare Freundschaft. Pooja lernt Shanti zu pflegen und für sie zu sorgen. Shanti erwidert diese Zuneigung auf vielerlei Art. Als Pooja sechs Jahre alt war, haben ihre Eltern einige Szenen gefilmt und uns das Material für diese Dokumentation zur Verfügung gestellt. Pooja & Shanti – Eine besondere Freundschaft: DVD bei Brennglas.com