A Doctrine of Demons: The Pope, The Vatican and The Sex Abuse Scandals - Part 5

Pope Put Off Punishing Abusive Priest
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Laurie Goodstein and Michael Luo - April 9, 2010
The priest, convicted of tying up and abusing two young boys in a California church rectory, wanted to leave the ministry.
But in 1985, four years after the priest and his bishop first asked that he be defrocked, the future Pope Benedict XVI, then a top Vatican official, signed a letter saying that the case needed more time and that “the good of the Universal Church” had to be considered in the final decision, according to church documents released through lawsuits.
That decision did not come for two more years, the sort of delay that is fueling a renewed sexual abuse scandal in the church that has focused on whether the future pope moved quickly enough to remove known pedophiles from the priesthood, despite pleas from American bishops.
As the scandal has deepened, the pope’s defenders have said that, well before he was elected pope in 2005, he grew ever more concerned about sexual abuse and weeding out pedophile priests. But the case of the California priest, the Rev. Stephen Kiesle, and the trail of documents first reported on Friday by The Associated Press, shows, in this period at least, little urgency.
The letter that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later pope, wrote in Latin in 1985, mentions Father Kiesle’s young age - 38 at the time - as one consideration in whether he should be forced from the priesthood. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said it was wrong to draw conclusions based on one letter, without carefully understanding the context in which it was written.
“It’s evident that it’s not an in-depth and serious use of documents,” he said. Earlier Friday, Father Lombardi suggested that the pope would be willing to meet with sexual abuse victims.
But John S. Cummins, the former bishop of Oakland who repeatedly wrote his superiors in Rome urging that the priest be defrocked, said the Vatican in that era, after the Second Vatican Council, was especially reluctant to dismiss priests because so many were abandoning the priesthood. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/world/europe/10pope.html


John Paul backed praise for hiding abuse: Cardinal
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor - April 17, 2010
A former Vatican cardinal who congratulated a French bishop for hiding a sexually abusive priest has said he acted with the approval of the late Pope John Paul, a Spanish newspaper reported on Saturday.
Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the Vatican official in charge of priests around the world when he praised the French bishop in 2001, dragged the Polish pope into the controversy during a conference in the Spanish city of Murcia.
His comment came after a Vatican spokesman indirectly confirmed that a 2001 letter to the bishop posted on a French website on Thursday was authentic and was proof the Vatican was right to tighten up its procedures on sex abuse cases that year.
By invoking John Paul, Castrillon Hoyos appeared to up the ante in a subtle Vatican power struggle over who was to blame for past failures to deal effectively with the abuse cases whose revelations in recent months have shaken the Church.
"After consulting the pope ... I wrote a letter to the bishop congratulating him as a model of a father who does not hand over his sons," the daily La Verdad quoted Castrillon Hoyos as telling the conference on Friday, to a round of applause from the assembled prelates, priests and lay people.
"The Holy Father authorized me to send this letter to all bishops in the world and publish it on the internet." ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63G1SH20100417


Bishop, 73, in Belgium Steps Down Over Abuse
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Elisabetta Povoledo - April 23, 2010
ROME - The longest-serving bishop in Belgium resigned Friday after admitting to sexually abusing “a boy in my close entourage” many years ago, becoming the latest cleric to quit in a spreading abuse scandal. …
In a statement issued by the Vatican on Friday, Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the bishop of Bruges since 1985, said that the abuse had occurred “when I was still a simple priest and for a while when I began as a bishop.”
“This has marked the victim forever,” he said.
The bishop said that he had asked the victim and his family several times to forgive him, but that the wound had not healed, “neither in me nor the victim.” A recent media storm merely deepened the trauma, he said. “I am profoundly sorry,” he said.
This week, in a rare public comment directly addressing the issue of abuse, Pope Benedict XVI promised that the church would take action to deal with the crisis. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/world/europe/24vatican.html


Future Pope’s Role in Abuse Case Was Complex
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Katrin Bennhold - April 26, 2010
VIENNA - As Pope Benedict XVI has come under scrutiny for his handling of sexual abuse cases, both his supporters and his critics have paid fresh attention to the way he responded to a sexual abuse scandal in Austria in the 1990s, one of the most damaging to confront the church in Europe.
Defenders of Benedict cite his role in dealing with Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna as evidence that he moved assertively, if quietly, against abusers. They point to the fact that Cardinal Groër left office six months after accusations against him of molesting boys first appeared in the Austrian news media in 1995. The future pope, they say, favored a full canonical investigation, only to be blocked by other ranking officials in the Vatican.
A detailed look at the rise and fall of the clergyman, who died in 2003, and the involvement of Benedict, a Bavarian theologian with many connections to German-speaking Austria, paints a more complex picture. …
There are indications that Benedict had a lower tolerance for sexual misconduct by elite clergy members than other top Vatican officials.
Unlike John Paul, his predecessor, Benedict has as pope apologized and met with sexual abuse victims. But while he often, as a cardinal, used his clout to enforce doctrine and sideline clergy members whose views diverged from his own, he seemed less willing at that time to aggressively pursue sexual abusers. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/europe/27vienna.html

Belgian Catholics Remain Anguished by Abuse
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Steven Erlanger - September 19, 2010
BRUSSELS - There were 32 worshipers at noontime Mass in a side chapel of the soaring Cathedral of SS. Michael and Gudula, which dates from the 11th century. A third of the faithful were African; there were two nuns and a police officer. ...
[The] sermon before a thin crowd seemed an obvious demonstration of the anguish of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, staggered by a sexual-abuse scandal that has already affected 475 victims. There have been 19 suicide attempts, 13 of them successful, by Belgians abused by clergy members.
The country’s longest-serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in disgrace when the nephew he abused for 13 years finally moved to expose him, and the reputation of a former archbishop, the liberal Cardinal Godfried Danneels, has been badly damaged by his effort, caught on tape, to allow the bishop to retire quietly.
The new archbishop, the conservative André-Joseph Léonard, chosen by Pope Benedict XVI over the objections of Belgium’s bishops, released a graphic 200-page report into the abuse scandal prepared by a child psychiatrist, Peter Adriaenssens, who worked with the hundreds who came forward after the bishop resigned.
Last week, the archbishop promised to open a center for victims and vowed that new cases will go to the secular law enforcement authorities. But he made no apology and asked for more time to fashion a comprehensive response, disappointing many. The vivid suffering of the victims, he said, “makes us shiver.”
But the “shiver” has been more like an earthquake for the Belgian church, affected by decades of abuse from those meant to uphold the highest moral standards. It is another blow to the “universal church” in its European heartland. Charges of priestly pedophilia and church cover-ups have recently spread to continental European countries like the Netherlands, Austria and the pope’s own Germany, after some in the church once argued that such abuses were mainly confined to countries like the United States and Ireland.
Hundreds of Belgian Catholics have already sent letters asking to be debaptized, said Jürgen Mettepenningen, the spokesman for Archbishop Léonard. “This is one of the most difficult crises for the church in its history,” he said. “This is a crisis of moral authority, of moral credibility” for a church that preaches morality to others. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/world/europe/20belgium.html


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A Doctrine of Demons: The Pope, The Vatican and The Sex Abuse Scandals - Part 4

UN Judge: Pope Should be Prosecuted at International Criminal Court for "Crimes against Humanity"
CATHOLIC FAMILY AND HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTE - By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. - April 8, 2010
In London last Friday, a high ranking United Nations (UN) jurist called on the British government to detain Pope Benedict XVI during his upcoming visit to Britain, and send him to trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “crimes against humanity.”

Geoffrey Robertson touted his status as a UN judge in an article he published last week, in which he argued that jurists should invoke the same procedures that have been used to indict war criminals such as Slobodan Milosevic, to try the Pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church, who he said is ultimately responsible for sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

Robertson is one of five select jurists in the UN’s internal justice system responsible for holding UN officials accountable for corruption and mismanagement. His article was published in both the United States and Britain and reported on by the Associated Press.

Professor Hurst Hannum of the Fletcher School at Tufts University told C-Fam's Friday Fax that it would be a “real stretch” to use the ICC, since that court’s jurisdiction is mainly reserved for crimes during war. More likely, Hannum said, is that Robertson and likeminded experts would invoke the principle of “universal jurisdiction,” so that national courts all over the world could detain the pope whenever he stepped foot on their soil. Critics say the principle, already used in practice, is a violation of sovereignty as it is enshrined in the UN Charter.

Yet Robertson insisted that the ICC could be used as long as the Pope’s sovereign immunity was waived and as long as jurists can show that the sex abuse scandal was carried out on a “widespread or systematic scale,” in a similar way that child soldiers were used in the wars in Sierra Leone and the way that sex slaves are traded internationally. …

Robertson, a tort lawyer, argued that prosecution at a higher level of the Church is necessary to get more money for victims of clergy sexual abuse in cases where dioceses have gone into bankruptcy. He specifically pointed out the fact that the diocese of Los Angeles has already paid $660M in damages and Boston has paid $100M.

One prominent law professor told the Friday Fax, “Without in any way minimizing the seriousness of the alleged offenses of Catholic priests, it would be a grave mistake to the laws of human rights to permit a trivializing of the responsibility to protect, and to play into the hands of American contingency-fee lawyers.”

Another human rights lawyer told the Friday Fax that the article could be part of a broader campaign. Robertson has long campaigned to strip the Holy See of its permanent observer status at the UN, and has publicly referred to the Holy See “the world’s largest NGO.”

When a campaign was launched to oust the Holy See from its status in 1999, UN Member States rallied around the Vatican, and in 2004 the General Assembly voted unanimously to expand that status. It is unclear whether UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon knew about Robertson’s leanings before appointing him to his current position.

This article reprinted with permission from www.c-fam.org

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040810.html



Pope hesitated to defrock priest

LOS ANGELES TIMES [Tribune Company] - By Mitchell Landsberg and Victoria Kim - April 9, 2010

When he was the church's chief enforcer of doctrine 25 years ago, Pope Benedict XVI declined to immediately defrock a California priest who admitted to child sexual abuse, saying he needed more time to consider the impact of the case on "the good of the Universal Church," according to a letter released Friday.

The 1985 letter to Bishop John Cummins of Oakland is the latest document to shed light on Benedict's handling of the sexual abuse crisis in his earlier career, when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and headed the Vatican office that ultimately assumed full responsibility for such cases. In it, he acknowledges the "grave significance" of the charges against the priest, Stephen Kiesle, who had pleaded no contest to charges of molesting two boys in 1978. But Ratzinger said he needed more time and information, in part because of the "detriment that [defrocking] can provoke with the community of Christ's faithful."

It would be another two years before the Vatican relented to the request, which apparently came on Kiesle's initiative. …

By itself, the Vatican letter suggests that Ratzinger was reluctant to act hastily in such a grave matter as defrocking a priest, something that is rarely done.

Church critics said it was part of a pattern by the Vatican of seeming more concerned about the church's reputation than about the trauma of sexual abuse victims, about whom Ratzinger says nothing in the document. ...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pope-letter10-2010apr10,0,1421147.story


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A Doctrine of Demons: The Pope, The Vatican and The Sex Abuse Scandals - Part 3

Papal preacher apologizes for Jewish remarks
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - Editing by Jon Hemming - April 4, 2010
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict's personal preacher apologized to Jews on Sunday after he compared attacks on the Church and the pope over a sexual abuse scandal to "collective violence" against Jews throughout history.
"If -- and it was not my intention to do so -- I hurt the sensitivities of Jews and victims of pedophilia, I am truly sorry and I ask for forgiveness," Father Raniero Cantalamessa said in an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.
He also said the pope was not aware of his remarks and that the pontiff heard them for the first time along with everyone else in St. Peter's Basilica on Good Friday.
"Not only did the pope not inspire me but, like everyone else, heard my words for the first time like everyone else during the liturgy in the basilica," he said.
Cantalamessa, speaking with the pope sitting nearby, said Jews throughout history had been the victims of "collective violence" and drew comparisons between Jewish suffering and attacks on the Church. …

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/04/us-pope-abuse-preacher-idUSTRE6330BY20100404

Vatican deputy led cover-up in US abuse case: report
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - April 5, 2010
The current Vatican number two, and not Pope Benedict XVI, bore the main responsibility for inaction in the scandal of a US priest accused of molesting deaf children, a German magazine said Monday.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone -- who was the deputy chief of the Church's moral watchdog when it was headed by the current pope -- played the role of a "brake" in the affair, the Die Zeit weekly said.
Benedict has faced criticism over claims that, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he failed to take action despite being alerted twice by the archbishop of Wisconsin to claims that Reverend Lawrence Murphy had abused 200 children.
But Die Zeit, citing a copy of Vatican documents, said that at a crisis meeting arranged by the Vatican in 1998, it was Bertone who raised numerous obstacles against internal disciplinary proceedings against the US priest.
It said Bertone warned it would be difficult to deal with Lawrence's case when it would have to be "treated in absolute secrecy", while there would also be trouble gathering evidence "without enlarging the scandal".
He also wanted to "avoid a scandal for his boss", the weekly said, citing a summary of the meeting. ...
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.8ffe222a5e285c85451afd276cb9fe1c.311&show_article=1



Priest Charged in U.S. Is Still Serving in India
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Laurie Goodstein - April 5, 2010
A Catholic priest who has been criminally charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Minnesota six years ago is still working in his home diocese in India despite warnings to the Vatican from an American bishop that the priest continued to pose a risk to children, according to church documents made public on Monday.
The documents show that the American bishop warned the Vatican that the priest was accused of molesting two teenage girls whose trust he gained by promising to discuss their interest in becoming nuns.
A county attorney in Minnesota is seeking to extradite the priest from India in a criminal case that involves one of the girls, who said the priest had forced her to perform oral sex and had threatened her and her family.
The case took place during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI, who has recently come under fire for his role in cases of sexually abusive priests in Germany and Wisconsin. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/world/europe/06church.html



Catholic bishop in Norway dismissed due to sex abuse
ECUMENICAL NEWS INTERNATIONAL - April 7, 2010
Oslo -- Former Roman Catholic bishop Georg Müller, who abruptly left his post as Bishop of Trondheim in Norway on 8 June 2009, was dismissed due to his sexual abuse of an altar boy 20 years ago, the Vatican has said. Müller's dismissal was confirmed to journalists on 7 April by Vatican spokesperson the Rev. Federico Lombardi. The Catholic bishop of Oslo, Bernt Eidsvig, had earlier announced the dismissal in a press release. Eidsvig has been acting bishop of Trondheim since German-born Müller, aged 58, left. Eidsvig said the matter had not been publicised earlier because the person abused had not wanted it made public, and had requested anonymity. [642 words, ENI-10-0233] ...
http://www.eni.ch/news/item.php?id=3968

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A Doctrine of Demons: The Pope, The Vatican and The Sex Abuse Scandals - Part 2

Abuse Scandal’s Ripples Spread Across Europe
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Katrin Bennhold, Nicholas Kulish and Rachel Donadio - March 24, 2010
MUNICH - The fallout from the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church settled across Europe on Wednesday, as prosecutors said they were weighing criminal charges against a priest suspected of molesting children in Germany, and Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of a bishop accused of mishandling allegations of abuse in Ireland.

The possibility of criminal charges emerged from new accusations against a priest at the center of the child-molesting scandal rocking the church in Germany. On Wednesday, church officials in Munich said the priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann - whose transfer in 1980 to an archdiocese led at the time by Benedict, then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, has drawn the pope himself into the nation’s child abuse controversy - had been accused of molesting a minor as recently as 1998.

The latest revelation comes as church officials in northern Germany say they have “credible evidence” of at least two other cases of sexual abuse committed by Father Hullermann in the 1970s, adding to a trail of accusations that suggest a pattern of abuse over two decades.

During that time, church officials repeatedly transferred Father Hullermann to new parishes and allowed him to work with children, even after a 1986 conviction for sexually abusing boys.
Father Hullermann has not returned repeated calls and hung up without comment when reached briefly on Wednesday. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25church.html



Pope May Be at Crossroads on Abuse, Forced to Reconcile Policy and Words
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Rachel Donadio - March 25, 2010
ROME - Even as Pope Benedict XVI, faced with a sexual abuse scandal spreading across Europe, has called on victims to come forward and urged clerics to cooperate with civil justice, those strong words are running up against the complexities of his past.

“He is at a crossroads,” said Marco Politi, a veteran Italian Vatican journalist. “What’s extraordinary is that the scandal has reached the heart of the center of the church. Up to now it was far away - in the States, in Canada, in Brazil, in Australia. Then it came to Europe, to Ireland.

“Then it came to his motherland,” Mr. Politi added of Benedict’s native Germany. “Then it came to his diocese, and now it’s coming to the heart of the government of the church - and he has to give an answer.”

Last weekend, in a heartfelt letter to Irish Catholics reeling from reports of decades of systemic sexual abuse, Benedict apologized but did not discipline any church leaders who had covered up abuses, fueling growing anger in Ireland. …

As archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982, the future pope approved the transfer to Munich for psychiatric treatment of a priest who had sexually abused boys. The priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, was quickly returned to pastoral work with children. This month, a subordinate took responsibility for the decision, although internal church documents show that Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was copied on a memorandum informing him of the transfer. Benedict has not addressed the issue. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26vatican.html



Memo to Pope Described Transfer of Pedophile Priest
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Nicholas Kulish and Katrin Bennhold - March 26, 2010
MUNICH - The future Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised of a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have suggested, raising fresh questions about his handling of a scandal unfolding under his direct supervision before he rose to the top of the church’s hierarchy.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope and archbishop in Munich at the time, was copied on a memo that informed him that a priest, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.

An initial statement on the matter issued earlier this month by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising placed full responsibility for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties on Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber. But the memo, whose existence was confirmed by two church officials, shows that the future pope not only led a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest’s reassignment.

What part he played in the decision making, and how much interest he showed in the case of the troubled priest, who had molested multiple boys in his previous job, remains unclear. But the personnel chief who handled the matter from the beginning, the Rev. Friedrich Fahr, “always remained personally, exceptionally connected” to Cardinal Ratzinger, the church said.

The case of the German priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, has acquired fresh relevance because it unfolded at a time when Cardinal Ratzinger, who was later put in charge of handling thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican, was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from coming into contact with children. The German Archdiocese has acknowledged that “bad mistakes” were made in the handling of Father Hullermann, though it attributed those mistakes to people reporting to Cardinal Ratzinger rather than to the cardinal himself. …

The future pope’s time in Munich, in the broader sweep of his life story, has until now been viewed mostly as a steppingstone on the road to the Vatican. But this period in his career has recently come under scrutiny - particularly six decisive weeks from December 1979 to February 1980. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26church.html



For Years, Deaf Boys Tried to Tell of Priest’s Abuse
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Laurie Goodstein and David Callender - March 26, 2010
They were deaf, but they were not silent. For decades, a group of men who were sexually abused as children by the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin reported to every type of official they could think of that he was a danger, according to the victims and church documents.

They told other priests. They told three archbishops of Milwaukee. They told two police departments and the district attorney. They used sign language, written affidavits and graphic gestures to show what exactly Father Murphy had done to them. But their reports fell on the deaf ears of hearing people.

This week, they learned that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, received letters about Father Murphy in 1996 from Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee, who said that the deaf community needed “a healing response from the Church.” The Vatican sat on the case, then equivocated, and when Father Murphy died in 1998, he died a priest.

“That man should have been in prison for a very long time, but he was lucky,” Steven Geier, one of Father Murphy’s victims, said Thursday. “What about me? I wasn’t supposed to touch girls. What gave him the right to be able to do that? Father Murphy constantly thought about sex with children, and he got away with it.” …

“First thing in the morning,” Mr. Geier said, “we took communion, and as he passed out the communion wafers, I thought about how many boys did he touch with those hands and all of the germs, all of the filth of his hands.” ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/us/27wisconsin.html



Only God Can Fire Pope Benedict After Scandals
Irish Singer Sinead O'Connor and Journalist Christopher Hitchens Call for Investigation
ABC NEWS [American Broadcasting Companies, Inc./The Walt Disney Company] - By Susan Donaldson James - March 26, 2010
As outrage mounted over the latest Catholic Church sex scandal, writer Christopher Hitchens called for the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI, and singer Sinead O'Connor said the pope should face a criminal investigation.

Protesters rallied outside the Vatican, angry that an office under his command had stopped the prosecution in 1996 of Wisconsin priest Lawrence Murphy, who admitted molesting 200 boys at a school for the deaf where he worked for 20 years. ...

The Vatican continued to be rocked almost daily about new revelations. The New York Times reported today that the pope when he was archbishop of Munich was included on a memo about a priest he had sent to therapy for pedophilia was returning to pastoral work. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys.

French bishops have sent the pope a letter saying they are ashamed of priests who committed "abominable acts" by molesting and raping children.

And the conservative group Legionaries of Christ issued a statement today apologizing for the behavior of the group's founder, Marcial Maciel, who was determined by a church investigation to have molested seminarians and fathered a child by a woman with whom he had a long affair.
Those would be devastating scenarios for most world leaders, but not for the pope.

Experts in canon law say only a heavenly bolt of lightning can take the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from power as the supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church. ...

"He is really accountable to no one, and that is the history," said former priest Richard Sipe, author of the 1990 book, "A Secret World" about the priesthood. "There have been a pope or two who have resigned, several hundred have been murdered, but it's a very stable organization from the top down. What other monarchy do you know that's lasted for 2,000 years?"

"He is untouchable, there is no question about that," Sipe said. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/pope-benedict-fired-growing-sex-abuse-cover-ups/story?id=10200682

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

A Doctrine of Demons: The Pope, The Vatican and The Sex Abuse Scandals - Part 1

Chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth says Devil is in the Vatican
THE TIMES of LONDON [News Corporation/Murdoch] - By Richard Owen in Rome - March 11, 2010
Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican", according to the Holy See's chief exorcist.

Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon".

He added: "When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms, it is all true - including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia."
He claimed that another example of satanic behaviour was the Vatican "cover-up" over the deaths in 1998 of Alois Estermann, the then commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife and Corporal Cedric Tornay, a Swiss Guard, who were all found shot dead. "They covered up everything immediately," he said. "Here one sees the rot".

A remarkably swift Vatican investigation concluded that Corporal Tornay had shot the commander and his wife and then turned his gun on himself after being passed over for a medal. However Tornay's relatives have challenged this. There have been unconfirmed reports of a homosexual background to the tragedy and the involvement of a fourth person who was never identfied.

Father Amorth, who has just published Memoirs of an Exorcist, a series of interviews with the Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, said that the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981 had been the work of the Devil, as had an incident last Christmas when a mentally disturbed woman threw herself at Pope Benedict XVI at the start of Midnight Mass, pulling him to the ground.

Father José Antonio Fortea Cucurull, a Rome-based exorcist, said that Father Amorth had "gone well beyond the evidence" in claiming that Satan had infiltrated the Vatican corridors. ...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7056689.ece



 Vatican officials defend pope on abuse
ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Frances D'emilio - March 13, 2010
VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland. It also insisted that church confidentiality doesn't prevent bishops from reporting abuse to police.

The Vatican's campaign to defend the pope's reputation and resolve in combatting clergy abuse of minors followed acknowledgment by the Munich archdiocese that it had transferred a suspected pedophile priest to community work while Benedict was archbishop there.
Benedict is also under fire for a 2001 church directive he wrote while a Vatican cardinal, instructing bishops to keep abuse cases confidential. …

Associated Press writers Melissa Eddy in Berlin and Eliane Engeler in Geneva contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/13/AR2010031300790_pf.html



Pope Offers Apology, Not Penalty, for Sex Abuse Scandal
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Rachel Donadio and Alan Cowell - March 20, 2010
VATICAN CITY - Faced with a church sexual abuse scandal spreading across Europe, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday apologized directly to victims and their families in Ireland, expressing “shame and remorse” for what he called “sinful and criminal” acts committed by members of the clergy.

But the pope did not require that Roman Catholic leaders be disciplined for past mistakes as some victims were hoping, nor did he clarify what critics see as contradictory Vatican rules that they fear allow abuse to continue unpunished. ...

But even that decision raised questions among many who wondered what the investigators might unearth beyond what the Irish government found in two wide-ranging and scathing reports released last year. One report found systemic abuse in church-run schools; another said the church and the police in Ireland had systematically colluded in covering up decades of sexual abuse by priests in Dublin. ...

Last week, a psychiatrist who treated a priest decades ago in a German archdiocese run by the future pope said he had repeatedly warned that the priest, who was accused of sexually abusing boys, should never work with children again. The priest was re-assigned to parish work almost immediately after his therapy began, and one of Benedict’s deputies at the time has taken responsibility for that decision. Less than five years later, the priest was accused of molesting other boys, and in 1986 was convicted of sexual abuse. …

“I find that deceitful because we know that this is a global and systemic problem in the global church,” said Colm O’Gorman, the co-founder of a victims’ group who said he was sexually abused by a priest as a teenager in Ireland in the early ’80s. “It’s all about protecting the institution and, above all, its wealth.”

“The greatest contribution the pope could have made was to stop the abuse of victims, and he’s not even done that,” he added. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/world/europe/21pope.html



Pope slams Irish church, no Vatican blame in abuse
ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Nicole Winfield and Victor L. Simpson - March 20, 2010
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI rebuked Irish bishops Saturday for "grave errors of judgment" in handling clerical sex abuse and ordered an investigation into the Irish church but did not mention any Vatican responsibility.

In a letter to the Irish faithful read across Europe amid a growing, multination abuse scandal, the pope doled out no specific punishments to bishops blamed by victims, and Irish government-ordered investigations, for having covered up abuse of thousands of Irish children from the 1930s to the 1990s.

Ireland's main group of clerical-abuse victims, One in Four, said it was deeply disappointed by the letter because it failed to lay blame with the Vatican for what it called a "deliberate policy of the Catholic Church at the highest levels to protect sex offenders, thereby endangering children."

"If the church cannot acknowledge this fundamental truth, it is still in denial," the group said.
The letter directly addressed only Ireland, but the Vatican said it could be read as applying to other countries. Hundreds of new allegations of abuse have recently come to light across Europe, including in the pope's native Germany, where he served as archbishop in a diocese where several victims have recently come forward. One priest suspected of molesting boys while the future pope was in charge was transferred to a job where he abused more children. …
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100320/D9EICMPG0.html



Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Laurie Goodstein - March 24, 2010
Top Vatican officials - including the future Pope Benedict XVI - did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit. ...

The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal. …

The New York Times obtained the documents, which the church fought to keep secret, from Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, the lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The documents include letters between bishops and the Vatican, victims’ affidavits, the handwritten notes of an expert on sexual disorders who interviewed Father Murphy and minutes of a final meeting on the case at the Vatican.

Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities.

Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html?pagewanted=all


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Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his traveling Tent Show (Flashback to Sept 2009)

"But he will gain control over the hidden treasures of gold and silver and over all the precious things of Egypt; and Libyans and Ethiopians will follow at his heels. "But rumors from the East and from the North will disturb him, and he will go forth with great wrath to destroy and annihilate many. "He will pitch the tents of his royal pavilion between the seas and the beautiful Holy Mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.
- Daniel 11:43-45

Considering how much Libya and Col. Gaddafi is in the news these days here is a post for those who wish to think and dig below the surface.

PLEASE, PLEASE, understand my point in all of this: I am NOT suggesting Gaddafi is the anti-Christ (or better, one of the two, i.e. anti-Christ and false prophet) or even to suggest he is a candidate. Most students of the bible would find that laughable at best. No, just that here is a character that lives in such a way that shows just how precisely Scripture can and will be fulfilled. I am just looking at facts and keeping emotions out.

One other curious phenomenon surrounding Gaddafi is some of the “Messianic” descriptions used for him just similar to that of Barack Obama. However, we are in a time when there are “many anti-Christs” and many who have titles and descriptions that are “Messianic” in nature including the pope in Rome who walks around with the literal title of anti-Christ “Vicarious Christos” written across his body.

The following is from a set of articles a planned for but never published ‘Be Alert!’ regarding Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the nightmare of logistics, upheaval and uproar surrounding his visit to the UN in September of 2009 some interesting Scriptural considerations concerning unfulfilled prophecy with the nation of Libya.

Col. Gaddafi, travels with a large retinue and “pitches” his Bedouin style tents wherever he travels just like in biblical times, the only exception being that he is able to load them up onto aircraft and ships them cross-country, cross-continent or overseas when necessary.

Again, when this was hitting the press in 2009 it struck me how this lined up with the anti-Christ character mentioned in Daniel 11. My thoughts were that I could not see how Gaddafi fit into this other than it showed that some are living this way today and Scripture will be fulfilled exactly.

BE/\LERT!

A Tents Standoff Pits a Town Against Gadhafi and a Synagogue Whether Shelter for Libya's Strongman or Site For a Bar Mitzvah, Englewood DisapprovesTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL [News Corporation/Murdoch] - By Barry Newman and Suzanne Sataline - August 27, 2009 ENGLEWOOD, N.J. -- This green, unassuming New York City suburb has a couple of problems involving tents.

One concerns Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Many people here believe Libya's leader plans to put up a tent in Englewood during his trip to the United Nations in September. They don't like that.

The second problem concerns East Hill Synagogue. It puts up tents for bar mitzvahs. Some people in Englewood don't like that, either.

"I was hoping the community had put this behind it," Mayor Michael Wildes says of the bar-mitzvah-tent battle -- "until the head of a nation decided to pitch his own tent in Englewood."

As Col. Gadhafi has become visible in countries that once shunned him, his tent has been getting a lot of attention. He travels with it. Visiting Paris in 2007, he pitched his tent in a garden of the Elysée Palace, the presidential residence. Last June in Rome, he chose Villa Doria Pamphili, a park. (Protesters pasted up "No Camping" signs.) Now the colonel is getting ready for his first chance to address the U.N. General Assembly. He needs a place to camp out.

The State Department is trying to persuade the Libyans to steer clear of New Jersey. "We're expecting that we'll be able to come to some sort of agreement where all of these sensitivities are respected," spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday.

But New York City is defiantly anti-tent. A few weeks ago, Libya's government asked if Col. Gadhafi could sleep in Central Park. A city department said no.

"There is no camping in the park," said Jason Post, a city spokesman.

For Libya, that left Englewood. In 1982, Libya's U.N. mission paid $1 million for a 10,000-square-foot stone mansion here -- some people in town know it as "Thunder Rock" -- on nearly five acres of land in East Hill, one of the city's leafier neighborhoods.

The Libyans, who at the time had no diplomatic relations with the U.S., got a letter from the State Department warning them that only their ambassador had the run of the property. Neither the ambassador nor his successors appear to have taken up the invitation: Over the years, the house went to ruin.

Englewood's mayor would like to keep it unoccupied. He's doing everything he can to keep Col. Gadhafi from camping out in his city of 26,000, across the Hudson River from the Big Apple. That counts double after last week, when Libya gave a hero's welcome to the man responsible for blowing up Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

"Our tent-enforcement rules are laborious and tedious," says the mayor, Mr. Wildes. "When you're putting up a Bedouin-style tent for a period of weeks, there's enough to warrant a more aggressive approach."

Tents, of course, have special meaning for people with deep roots in the desert. For Col. Gadhafi, they seem to represent a nomadic heritage applied to jet travel and diplomacy. Religious Jews, for their part, get married under a kind of tent and celebrate the harvest in another kind of tent.

Over the years, Englewood's Orthodox Jewish community has grown. It now numbers about 700 families. One of the newcomers was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whose Web site identifies him as "America's Rabbi," and who has gained fame for his book, "Kosher Sex." Rabbi Boteach's much more modest house is next door to Libya's.

"I wanted to go say hello, but there was never anybody to say hello to," he says. "It was a real hovel," he adds.

A month ago, Rabbi Boteach and his family awoke to noise. Workers next door had cut down some oak trees between the two properties. Libya's house was under total renovation.

The rabbi went over to complain, and received warm apologies. Then, the Lockerbie bomber was released, and the rabbi is ready to sue.

"I was prepared to give Gadhafi the benefit of the doubt -- that he really wanted to change," Rabbi Boteach says. "Now he's shown that he's the same guy. And they haven't replanted my trees, which they cut down."

As of yesterday, newly raked earth led down to a pond and a new cabana at Col. Gadhafi's place. It might be a good spot for a tent. But unless the colonel is planning a bar mitzvah, Englewood's other tent controversy won't help him escape the tent enforcers.

East Hill Synagogue occupies a shingled three-story house with a turret, a short drive from Libya's mansion. The temple bought the property 10 years ago, and began holding bar mitzahs, and the occasional circumcision party, under a tent in the parking lot. Not unlike the Libyans, the synagogue ran into trouble from the neighbors. They complained about noise, and said the parking-lot parties, often held on Saturdays, forced members of the congregation to park their cars out on the street.

But the temple said that was impossible: Its members don't drive on Saturdays. "Come the Sabbath, we don't drive -- we walk," says a temple member who asked not to be identified. "Nobody's going to be driving there. So, we figured, why not a tent?"

The dispute was big news. Before Col. Gadhafi's trip loomed, it was Englewood's prime source of ethnic and religious passions.

When the planning board ruled tents could go up just three times a year, the temple went to court, claiming religious discrimination. Englewood's tent-suppression, it contended, "imposed a substantial burden on religious exercise." A settlement in 2008 finally let the temple put up tents 12 times a year.

But if Libya's diplomats imagine they might turn to East Hill Synagogue's fight for tent liberation to ensure that Col. Gadhafi has a place to sleep in New Jersey, they will be disappointed.

"The government of Libya can't sue under a statute designed to protect religious freedom," says Andrew Frackman, the attorney who represented the synagogue in court. "Gadhafi's situation is more like putting up a tent for a wedding. In Englewood, everybody has to ask for permission to put up a tent."

Unedited :: Link to Original Postinghttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB125132927204562111.html


Qaddafi’s Visit Upsets N.J. ResidentsNEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Joseph Berger - August 27, 2009ENGLEWOOD, N.J. - At a run-down estate on Palisade Avenue here, construction workers and landscapers clamber around in what appears to be a hurried top-to-bottom, inside-and-out makeover - all in anticipation of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his traveling tent.
Colonel Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, will be coming next month to address the United Nations, and the logistics of his stay are complicated by the Bedouin-style, air-conditioned tent that he uses to greet visitors. In a visit to Russia, for example, the tent was pitched in a garden at the Kremlin; in Rome, a public park.
Colonel Qaddafi had wanted to plunk his tent down in Central Park, but New York officials rejected the idea. Next on the list was the Libyan-owned estate on Palisade Avenue, which would produce one of those only-in-America cultural collisions.
Many Americans are incensed at the Libyan leader for his past sponsorship of terrorists and would probably prefer that he not come at all. But Englewood is a suburban city of 30,000 with a large Orthodox Jewish population, a community that has particularly detested Colonel Qaddafi because Israel has been a favored target of terror.
In fact, Englewood’s largest yeshiva is right next door to the estate on Palisade Avenue. …
On Wednesday, the rabbi addressed reporters gathered on his lawn. He took note of the star-crossed coincidence that Colonel Qaddafi could become his neighbor, and sounded like Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca” lamenting, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/nyregion/28tent.html


‘African King of Kings’ Makes Waves in New York, Offers to Move U.N. to LibyaIn his long and disjointed address, Gaddafi said the Taliban should be allowed to establish an emirate, he $7.77 trillion in compensation for Africans, and he called for new investigations into the JFK and Martin Luther King assassinations. He also suggested that the U.N. headquarters move away from the U.S.CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE (CNSN.com) [Media Research Center] - By Patrick Goodenough - September 24, 2009(Editor’s note: [CNSN] Although he was scheduled to attend and address Thursday’s Security Council summit on nonproliferation, Gaddafi did not appear and a Libyan envoy read out a statement instead.)
– It took 40 years in power before Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi decided to address the U.N. General Assembly, and he made up for it on Wednesday, delivering a seemingly interminable address in which he tore up the U.N. Charter and laid out his vision for revolutionizing the Security Council.

The speech, running some 80 minutes longer than the usual 15 minute time limit, threw out the day’s carefully-crafted schedule, but there appeared to be nothing the General Assembly president, Libya’s Ali Triki, could or would do to stop it.

Triki, who served as Gaddafi’s foreign minister in the late 1970s, had earlier introduced him as “king of kings of Africa” – an epithet bestowed on him by a group of African traditional leaders when Gaddafi was elected head of the African Union (A.U.) early this year.

As A.U. head, Gaddafi had a prime speaking slot, immediately after President Obama, who left before the Libyan began his address. Also not in the chamber to hear Gaddafi’s speech were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who vacated the U.S. delegation seats. Lower-level diplomats took their places.

Early on in his speech, Gaddafi called the recently-departed Obama “my son,” and later described him as “a young African Kenyan.”

“Can you guarantee after Obama how America will be governed?” he asked. “We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of the United States of America.”

The Libyan’s lengthy address covered numerous bases ranging from calling for the Taliban to be allowed to establish an emirate if it wished, to demands that former colonial powers compensate Africans to the tune of $7.77 trillion and that investigations be opened into the JFK and Martin Luther King assassinations.

He suggested the U.N. headquarters move away from the U.S. Having been in the western hemisphere for more than half a century it should now be moved to the “middle of the globe or the eastern part of the globe.”

“All of you came across the Atlantic Ocean, the Asian continent, the African continent to reach this place. Why? Is this Jerusalem? Is this the Vatican? Is this Mecca? All of you are tired, suffering from jet lag …”

Gaddafi said the General Assembly should vote on the proposal: if it decides to move the U.N. to the “middle part” of the globe, Libya could host it; if it chooses to go to the east, Beijing or New Delhi could do so.

“You will thank me for this proposal, for eliminating the suffering and the trouble of flying for over 20 hours to come to this place.” Gaddafi also spoke at length about the Security Council – which he dubbed “the Terror Council” – saying it was responsible for the conflict in the world since the end of World War II. Rather than reform it by adding other countries it should be remade, he said, with seats being designated for multinational organizations like the A.U., Non-Aligned Movement, Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League.

Gaddafi also tried to rip apart a copy of the U.N. Charter, saying the existence of the Security Council violated the charter’s provision about the equality of all member states. ...
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/54480

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Keeping Up with the Qaddafis

The family that fights the United Nations together, stays together.
FOREIGN POLICY [The Slate Group-Wash Post Group/Graham] - BY Suzanne Merkelson - March 17, 2011
As the world prepares for a military intervention in Libya, Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi has few allies on the international stage. But sometimes, it's family that counts -- and Qaddafi's close-knit family has stood him in good stead during these days of civil war and threats of no-fly zones. In fact, in a bizarre twist on normal family dynamics, the Qaddafi clan's hard times over the last month seem to have only pulled them closer around their erratic patriarch. Qaddafi has eight biological children, seven of them sons, many of them embracing, in one way or another, the Western values that their father hated (and has railed against). But with his regime under fire, the Qaddafi children have been among their father's most ardent supporters, in many ways rejecting their past inclinations toward reform and partnership with the West. Here, Qaddafi poses with his second wife, Safia, and some of his children in November 1986 near the Bab Aziza palace in Libya, destroyed in a U.S. air raid. According to Muammar, another raid that year killed his adopted daughter.

Muammar al-Qaddafi was born in the Libyan desert near the city of Sirte in 1942. He graduated with honors from the University of Libya before, like many of his children after him, pursuing a European education and doing some army training in Britain, where he first began plotting to overthrow the Libyan government. In 1969, he organized a coup that removed King Idris I. After taking power, Qaddafi launched a cultural upheaval and eventually a "people's revolution," creating a unique government system known as the "Jamahiriya"-state of the masses. Though he wields absolute power over the Libyan government, Qaddafi technically holds no formal office. He defended the system in New York on March 2006, saying, "There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet." ...

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/17/keeping_up_with_the_qaddafis?page=0,0


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Iran Placing Medium-Range Missiles in Venezuela; Can Reach the U.S.

HUDSON NEW YORK [Hudson Institute] - By Anna Mahjar-Barducci - December 8, 2010
Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on western information sources[1], according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, of November 25, 2010. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit o Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on October19, 2010. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela, and the joint development of ground-to-ground missiles. ...

According to Die Welt, Venezuela has agreed to allow Iran to establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Venezuelan missile officers. In addition, Iran has given permission for the missiles to be used in case of an "emergency". In return, the agreement states that Venezuela can use these facilities for "national needs" - radically increasing the threat to neighbors like Colombia. ...

The situation that is unfolding in Venezuela has some resemblance to the Cuba crisis of 1962. At that time, Cuba was acting on behalf of the USSR; now Venezuela is acting on behalf of Iran. At present, the geopolitical situation is very different: the world is no longer ruled by two superpowers; new nations, often with questionable leaders and the ambition of acquiring global status, are appearing on the international scene. Their danger to the free world will be greater if the process of nuclear proliferation is not stopped. Among the nations that aspire to become world powers, Iran has certainly the best capabilities of posing a challenge to the West.

notes
[1] http://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article11219574/Iran-plant-Bau-einer-Raketenstellung-in-Venezuela.html

[2] http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20101015/160963585.html

[3] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3982738,00.html

[4] http://www.iiss.org/whats-new/iiss-in-the-press/november-2010/iran-fortifies-its-arsenal-with-the-aid-of-north-korea/

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1714/iran-missiles-in-venezuela

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Ben-Eliezer: Americans Don't Realize What They've Done

ARUTZ SHEVA (Israeli National News) - By Hillel Fendel - February 4, 2011
First Israeli politician to castigate Obama: Former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer says Americans still don't realize the catastrophe into which they have pushed the Middle East.
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer - a former army general, Labor Party Chairman and Cabinet minister - praises Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whom he has known for many years, and has strong criticism for U.S. President Obama's abandonment of him. ... "it pained me to see his collapse. He stood by our side for 30 years, he was a strong leader, he kept proudly to Sadat's commitments and followed in his path. He always emphasized the strategic importance of peace with Israel, and that this peace was the basis for stability in the Middle East." ...

Just Like in Iran and Gaza...
Ben-Eliezer does not agree that he is being too pessimistic: "We learn from history. We remember what was said when Carter proposed that the Shah of Iran give up nicely and allow Khomeini to take his place. In Gaza, too, when the Americans came in, they supervised the democratic elections [via which Hamas came into power]. If there are elections in Egypt the way the Americans want, I will be surprised if the Muslim Brotherhood does not win... This will be a new Middle East - radical, Islamic and extremist."
"I think the Americans still don't realize the extent of the catastrophe into which they have pushed the Middle East," Ben-Eliezer said. " ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142127

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Egypt and More

THE GOLDEN REPORT - By Jerry Golden - February 5, 2011
[...] If you are getting your news from the mainline media you are imbibing a lot of spin and very little reality. But let me say at this point that aside from God no one knows what the final outcome will be in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Lebanon and later Saudi Arabia. One thing we do know is that they all have one common denominator that binds them together. They all want to destroy Israel and kill the Jews. That, as we know, is a very old war that started with Isaac and Ishmael and rages on to this day - and will continue.

Obama has once again shown his hand by protecting Islam at the expense of Israel's survival at every turn, and in every way he possibly can. There are a few questions that have crossed my mind lately. How did these street protests become so organized so quickly? Who has been printing all the signs and why are they in English instead of Arabic? Why did Obama so quickly turn on an old friend of the US in favour of the possibility of the Muslim Brotherhood getting into power in Egypt? One thing is certain. The few friends the US has around the world are now looking at how quickly they can lose the support of Obama in a crisis. They are all coming to the same conclusion: "who needs a friend such as that?". ...

But if you are listening to the American News you would think it is all about Democracy.
We have learned from Gaza that a personal vote does not a democracy make. When people are desperate and hungry they don't think clearly, and you have to add the fact that they have been brainwashed all there lives. When there are no institutions in place to establish a real democracy then we simply see another take- over by the most evil of mankind.

Mubarak is a Dictator, but not of the Saddam Hussein variety. For the past 30 years he has held over 80 million Egyptians together. The United States has given him 1.5 Billion a year in Military aid. He has made the Muslim Brotherhood illegal in Egypt and held down other Islamic extremists. That is until Obama came on the scene. ...

People say, "Jerry, why don't you write some good news?" My answer is; "I do". The only Good News is that you must be saved and filled with the Spirit of God. ...

No, there is no good news for the people of the USA. Their fate was sealed when they elected an unknown to be President. When everything they knew about him was terrible, they still elected him. They still know nearly nothing about his past or his family, or where he was born. And he has made it very clear by his actions that he hates Israel as do Muslims around the world. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.thegoldenreport.com/asp/jerrysnewsmanager/anmviewer.asp?a=1396&z=1

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.