Archive for the 'Religion' Category
Talking to China about religious freedom("The Washington Post," February 15, 2012)
Washington, USA – President Obama and Vice President Biden took care to mention human rights during their meetings on Tuesday with Chinaâs incoming leader, Xi Jinping. The president devoted one vaguely worded sentence to the subject during his greeting of Mr. Xi at the Oval Office; Mr. Biden stretched that to three during a toast at the State Department, in which he observed that âconditions in China have deteriorated.â Mr. Xi, who has appeared to have adopted the script of his predecessor, Hu Jintao, during a tightly controlled tour, offered the standard reply that China had made great progress in human rights but that there was âalways room for improvement.â
That much was predictable. The more pressing question is whether Mr. Obama â who may be beginning a five-year official relationship with Mr. Xi â treated human rights as a central matter of concern in the bilateral relationship, or as a box to be checked in a dialogue centered on economic and geopolitical issues. We believe it is essential that U.S. policy toward China focus on the need for political reform, because without it, the country is less likely to remain stable, or peaceful toward its neighbors, during Mr. Xiâs planned decade in power.
The White House told us that the issue is âa priorityâ and that âthe president and vice president spoke very directly with Vice President Xi about our commitment to universal values including religious freedom.â In his toast, Mr. Biden indicated that he had discussed âthe plight of several very prominent individuals,â telling Mr. Xi, âwe appreciate your response.â Yet neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Obama chose to utter the name of Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, much less the four other peaceful dissidents recently given long prison terms. They publicly raised trade and currency issues ahead of human rights, and Mr. Xi himself observed that âthe greater part of our discussionâ was devoted to those subjects.
Then thereâs this: The words âreligious freedomâ appeared nowhere in the public remarks of Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Thatâs striking because religious activists have been a target of recent Chinese repression, especially in Tibet, and because Beijing has been refusing official meetings or a visa to the State Departmentâs ambassador for international religious freedom. The Postâs William Wan and Michelle Boorstein reported that Suzan Johnson Cook was forced to cancel a trip to China planned to begin Feb. 8 and that she and her staff were told by superiors in the administration to avoid talking about the matter before Mr. Xiâs visit.
Was Ms. Johnson gagged by an administration fearful of offending Mr. Xi? White House and State Department spokesmen say no. China did not formally deny the visa, State says, and Ms. Cook still hopes to visit. Perhaps she will; but it will help if the administration makes clear to Beijing and its incoming leader that matters such as religious freedom are as important in U.S.-China relations as currency rates and World Trade Organization cases. So far, it hasnât done so.
Published by: WorldWide Religious News (
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February 17 2012 | Religion | Comments Off
Catholic Church launches Internet project to help clergy fight pedophilesCatherine Hornby (Reuters, February 10, 2012)
Rome, Italy – Roman Catholic Church leaders unveiled an Internet teaching project on Thursday to help clergy around the world root out pedophiles in their ranks and protect children from potential abusers.
Ending a four-day conference on child abuse in Rome, Father Francois-Xavier Dumortier said the 1.2 million euro ($1.60 million) project would provide multilingual advice and access to research on pedophilia and how to respond to the problem.
âIt will help to develop a culture of listeningâ¦a different face to the culture of silence,â said Dumortier, who is rector at the Pontifical Gregorian University where the conference was held.
An association for victims of abuse, while not commenting directly on the Internet project, has dismissed the conference as âwindow dressingâ and said the Vatican should publish its documentation on abuse and hand it over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.
Victimsâ groups for years have accused some bishops in the Church of preferring silence and cover-up to coming clean on the scandal, which has darkened the image of the Church around the world.
Published by: WorldWide Religious News (
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February 14 2012 | Religion | Comments Off
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – Intense public opposition halted the Indian government’s decision to open up to increased foreign direct investment from single- and multi-brand retailers last year. The move prompted heated debate about the possible impacts of such a move on the Indian economy.
Lucrative markets in Western Europe and North America have been drying up. In addition, the purse strings of India’s middle classes are exhausted by years of consumption that are now banging at the gates of fresh marketplaces in the global South.
Small, Indian-owned business have begun to look elsewhere. The townships of South Africa, along the banks of the Amazon in the favelas of Brazil and now in India’s urban centers, these areas are teeming with over 169 million potential customers in just 53 cities.
When Wal-Mart initially began its entreaty to enter the Indian market, its Web site promised to provide the country’s “underserved” market with a wider range of goods at lower prices, while increasing efficiency, reducing waste and creating jobs.
However – the notorious “Wal-Mart effect” in the birthplace of the world’s largest private employer pulls back the veil on a less comforting reality.
“The proliferation of Wal-Mart across the U.S. has led to the lowering of income of over a million workers,” Deidre Griswold, a former U.S. presidential candidate and editor of the Workers World newspaper says.
“It has the world’s biggest computer (system) and the largest fleet of trucks, both of which it touts as examples of its productivity. But what is the use of increased productivity if it’s not coupled with more leisure time and better salaries for workers?”
The average “sales associate” or retail clerk at Wal-Mart earns less than 250 dollars a week, an annual income that lies well below the U.S.’s official poverty line for even small families.
“Wal-Mart reflects the central problem with capitalism, where ‘productivity’ only means bigger profits for capitalists and further exploitation of workers. Most Wal-Mart employees are only hired on a part-time basis, making it impossible for them to claim unemployment benefits even though they barely earn enough to survive,” Griswold adds.
In addition, the lack of formal employment contracts for a majority of employees “effectively crushes workers’ collective bargaining power and destroys what is left of the unions.”
Wal-Mart has also been proven to decimate local economies. According to some estimates, for every Wal-Mart that opens, 100 stores in the area are forced out of business.
Ten years after Wal-Mart arrived in Iowa in 1990, “the state lost 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293 building supply stores, 161 variety stores, 158 women’s apparel stores, 153 shoe stores, 116 drugstores, and 111 men’s and boys’ apparel stores.”
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that Wal-Mart was responsible for 27 billion of the U.S.’s 235-billion-dollar trade deficit with China in 2006. The total deficit accounted for 1.8 million lost jobs, of which Wal-Mart was singlehandedly responsible for about 200,000 as a result of its imports from China.
© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.
February 13 2012 | Religion | Comments Off
WASHINGTON,DC (Catholic Online) – Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that she had overruled a decision of the Food and Drug Administration to make “Plan B” available on the shelves of drug stores for teenage girls to ingest to either prevent pregnancy or to evict human life. This lethal chemical concoction is now deceptively billed as an “emergency contraceptive”.
In 2003 the “Food and Drug Administration” (FDA) of the United States Government held a public hearing on “Plan B” and recommended making it available over the counter without a prescription. Heralded by its proponents as a “morning after” pill, it was purported to be different from Mifepristone (RU-486), which induces a miscarriage at any time after conception.
Medical evidence disputes the claim that this self ingested chemical concoction is always “contraceptive” in preventing fertilization. Even the FDA’s own Question and Answers admitted this with these words: “Plan B works like other birth control pills to prevent pregnancy.
Plan B acts primarily by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary (ovulation). It may prevent the union of sperm and egg (fertilization). If fertilization does occur, Plan B may prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb (implantation).”
The Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life’s Statement released on October 31, 2000 explained: “The morning-after pill is a hormone-based preparation. which, within and no later than 72 hours after a presumably fertile act of sexual intercourse, has a predominantly “anti-implantation” function, i.e., it prevents a possible fertilized ovum (which is a human embryo), by now in the blastocyst stage of its development (fifth to sixth day after fertilization), from being implanted in the uterine wall by a process of altering the wall itself. The final result will thus be the expulsion and loss of this embryo.”
In 1987, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Holy See issued an “Instruction on the Respect for Human Life in its origin and on the Dignity of Procreation” Among the many questions it answered with absolute moral clarity was: “What Respect is due to the human embryo, taking into account his nature and identity?” The answer given by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church: “The human being must be respected – as a person – from the very first instant of his (her) existence.”
In a 2008 Instruction on the Dignity of the Human Person, considering “Certain Bioethical Questions” we find a thorough treatment of many Bio-Ethical issues of the hour. We also find a simple insight which cuts right through the fog surrounding this matter, “It must be noted, however, that anyone who seeks to prevent the implantation of an embryo which may possibly have been conceived and who therefore either requests or prescribes such a pharmaceutical, generally intends abortion.”
Whether you listen to the Church or to the State, you get to the same place – “Plan B” can result in the taking of human embryonic life when it makes implantation of a newly fertilized oocyte impossible. This new human life, seeking shelter and nourishment in the first home of the whole human race finds that there is no room. “Plan B” renders this new human life homeless by subverting “Plan A” which is to welcome her/him into the mother’s womb, the first home of every human person.
“Plan B” can thus become a direct chemical attack on a unique human life seeking refuge, a chemical landlord refusing shelter to the newest member of the human family. This legitimate concern does not even take into account the other danger, the unknown effects this massive dose of a hormone may have on the woman (girl) who ingests it.
“Plan B” contains a concentrated massive dose of progestin. It can therefore become a “Pre-Emptive” chemical strike, acting before that new life becomes some kind of “officious interloper” in the womb in some instances. In effect, the mother evicts her own child.
The Pontifical Academy wrote: “It is clear, therefore, that the proven “anti-implantation” action of the morning-after pill is really nothing other than a chemically induced abortion. It is neither intellectually consistent nor scientifically justifiable to say that we are not dealing with the same thing.”
The U.S. Federal Government unilaterally decided to define pregnancy as beginning at implantation not fertilization. They have now become the purveyor of a kind of new secular “morality” of their own these days. Their “sanctioning” of what can be a lethal act seems intended to provide consolation to …
February 10 2012 | Religion | Comments Off
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – Pfizer recalled 14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and 14 lots of a generic version of the medicine. About one million packs of 28 tablets were withdrawn, Grace Ann Arnold, a Pfizer spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail.
Manufactured and packaged by Pfizer, the pills were marketed by Akrimax Rx Products of Cranford, New Jersey under the Akrimax Pharmaceuticals brand. The company hasn’t received any reports of adverse health consequences thus far.
Each pack contains 21 white tablets that contain the synthetic hormones norgestrel and ethinyl estradiol which are taken for 21 consecutive days. The remaining seven tablets are inactive pink pills taken for a week.
“An investigation by Pfizer found that some blister packs may contain an inexact count of inert or active ingredient- tablets and that the tablets may be out of sequence,” the company said. This situation would lead women to take an incorrect daily dosage and increase the risk of an accidental pregnancy.
“As a result of this packaging error, the daily regimen for these oral contraceptives may be incorrect and could leave women without adequate contraception, and at risk for unintended pregnancy,” a Pfizer statement on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Web site read.
The error was “identified and corrected immediately,” and doesn’t pose immediate health risks, Pfizer said. “However, consumers exposed to effect packaging should begin using a non-hormonal form of contraception immediately.”
The drug maker said the issue involved 14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and 14 lots of Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol tablets.
A company spokeswoman said the problem was caused by both mechanical and visual inspection failures on the packaging line.
According to the Company the problem has since been corrected.
© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.
February 04 2012 | Religion | Comments Off
Islam critic backs out of West Point cadet event("Associated Press," January 30, 2012)
West Point, USA – A retired U.S. lieutenant general who made comments denigrating Islam withdrew Monday from speaking at a West Point prayer breakfast after a veterans’ advocacy group asked the Army chief of staff to rescind the invitation.
VoteVets.org told Gen. Raymond Odierno in a letter that allowing retired Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin to speak at the U.S. Military Academy next week would be contrary to Army values and disrespectful to Muslim cadets.
Late Monday afternoon, West Point issued a brief statement saying Boykin had decided to withdraw speaking at the Feb. 8 event and that another speaker would be lined up in his place.
Boykin, a former senior military intelligence officer, had been criticized for speeches he made at evangelical Christian churches beginning in January 2002. He said that America’s enemy was Satan, that God had put President George W. Bush in the White House and that one Muslim Somali warlord was an idol-worshipper.
Boykin later issued a written statement apologizing and said he didn’t mean to insult Islam. But VoteVets.org said Monday that Boykin has continued to make denigrating comments about Islam since his 2007 retirement.
“These remarks are incompatible with the Army values, and a person who is incompatible with Army values should not address the cadets of the United States Military Academy,” VoteVets chairman Jon Soltz said in a letter written with the group’s vice chairman.
Army public affairs didn’t immediately comment. West Point’s Lt. Col. Sherri Reed said cadets are “purposefully exposed to different perspectives and cultures” during their four years at the academy.
In a statement issued earlier Monday, Reed noted that Christian, Jewish and Muslim cadets would be participating in the prayer breakfast, and she had expressed confidence that Boykin’s speech would “be in keeping with the broad range of ideas normally considered by our cadets.”
Boykin has continued to attract controversy since his retirement. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and People for the American Way had asked officials in Ocean City, Md., to rescind an invitation to speak at a prayer breakfast last week. Boykin attended and spoke about his faith.
CAIR also asked West Point officials to retract Boykin’s invitation
“It gives Islamophobes a platform at the nation’s most prestigious military academy. And I doubt that they would invite a KKK speaker and claim that they want to expose the students to a variety of opinions,” said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad.
Boykin didn’t return a call seeking comment or respond to an email sent to his account at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia where he is a visiting professor.
A Pentagon investigation concluded that Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made nearly two dozen church speeches beginning in January 2002. It also found that Boykin, who made most speeches wearing his uniform, didn’t get prior clearance for the remarks.
Published by: WorldWide Religious News (
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February 04 2012 | Religion | Comments Off
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – Twenty long years after signing of the Peace Accords, analysts now say that San Salvador’s leaders should emulate the willingness to give and take that were the hallmarks of the peace process.
San Salvador was able to bring to a close a civil war that had wracked the country for 12 years after left-wing insurgents of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front and the government of then president Alfredo Cristiani (1989-1994) brokered an agreement. The conflict left some 75,000 people dead and 12,000 disappeared.
The front, now a political party and governing the country with President Mauricio Funes along with the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance reached a consensus facilitated by the United Nations, and in Mexico on Jan. 16, 1992 both parties signed the agreement to end the war and attempt to salvage the ruined economy.
The agreement paved the way for a democratic transition in a country that had previously endured military rule.
“If we were able to overcome the brutality of war through dialogue, we can also defeat poverty, inequality and violence through dialogue and concerted decision making,” analyst José María Tojeira wrote in an editorial in a local newspaper.
The 20th anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords has been met with economic crisis and the continued wave of murders carried against civilians. El Salvador is ranked among the most violent countries in the world, with 70 homicides per 100,000 people.
Of the nation’s six million people, 36.5 percent live below the poverty line, with 11.2 percent living in extreme poverty.
“What we need is to further develop the democracy that we initiated 20 years ago . the challenges are enormous, but so are the opportunities,” Nidia Díaz, a lawmaker in the Central American Parliament says.
Retired general Ernesto Vargas, who signed the accords on behalf of the government commission, also says that “there must be a countrywide agreement with an institutional focus… free from ideologies, motivated only by the desire for a better nation,” just as occurred two decades ago, Vargas says.
Two decades after the accords, the El Salvador justice system continues to be afflicted by the same evils.
“As long as the (composition of the) Supreme Court remains in the hands of the Asamblea Legislativa (Congress) and is subject to the agreements between party leaderships, it will serve those interests,” Ramón Villalta, the head of Social Initiative for Democracy says.
© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.
February 02 2012 | Religion | Comments Off
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – Smoke from gunfire has billowed over Khadafi’s home town of Sirte, located on the Mediterranean coast between Tripoli and Benghazi. The assault on Sirte and Bani Walid are an attempt “to break the back” of regime holdouts. However – according to Reuters, both cities have responded with a fierce defense which is not being overcome quickly.
It’s not yet known if Khadafi, who went into hiding several weeks ago, is in either city.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered up prayers in Tripoli a day after the French and British leaders traveled to Libya. In addition, supporters of Libya’s interim government have stepped up calls to establish legitimacy and start rebuilding the country while Khadafi remains hidden.
The U.N. General Assembly has since offered Libya’s seat in the world body to the former rebels’ National Transitional Council which led the rebellion that ousted Khadafi.
Loyalists in Sirte have fired upon loyalists with sniper fire and rocket barrages. Smoke rose from parts of the city, where the green flags of Khadafi’s regime still defiantly flew from mosques and buildings.
The battle raged along one of Sirte’s main boulevards, 1st of September St., named after the anniversary of Khadafi’s 40-year rule.
Mohammed, a 23-year-old fighter from the city of Misrata said the resistance was coming from pockets of Khadafi supporters dotted around Sirte.
“They have got heavy weapons,” Mohammed said. “Khadafi has been gathering heavy weapons for 42 years. So far we haven’t had any problems with snipers, but maybe they are inside the city … We are regrouping, pulling back, hitting them with heavy weapons and then advancing again.”
In the meantime, Bani Walid, a bastion of tribal loyalists in the desert 110 miles southeast of Tripoli, anti-Khadafi fighters have moved forward under mortar, rocket and sniper fire, advancing from house to house and sheltering behind walls as shrapnel and bullets flew.
The defense from loyalists remained ferocious after a two-week siege of the town where senior figures in the old government may have taken refuge.
One of the fighters, Hisham Nseir, said the frontline is “very heated and chaotic” and his troops were meeting with heavy resistance from Khadafi’s men.
© 2011, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.
January 24 2012 | Religion | Comments Off
NEW DELHI, INDIA (Catholic Online) – Workers are clearing landslides and searching rubble for survivors. At least 53 people are now reported dead and more than 100,000 homes have been damaged throughout the region.
Adding to the misery are heavy rains that are slowing efforts and increasing the danger of new landslides. Aftershocks are continuing and thousands are homeless.
The danger is so great that three rescue workers have been killed amid their frantic efforts to save people who have been trapped by the quake.
More than 6,000 Indian army and paramilitary troops are assisting in the efforts to rescue trapped survivors. Several helicopters are being used to deliver food and aid to villages that have been trapped by landslides.
The deadly quake struck on Sunday evening and has been rated as a 6.9 by the U.S. Geological Survey. Powerful aftershocks also created problems for rescuers by triggering landslides. Many roads are blocked and rescue workers cannot reach many places in the remote mountain regions.
China’s Xinhua News Agency reported seven people killed and 24 injuries in Tibet. Chinese officials also reported landslides and power disruptions throughout that region.
Nepal reported seven deaths including two men and an eight-year-old child that dies when part of the British Embassy’s perimeter wall collapsed.
Indian officials are blaming the monsoon rains for some of the deaths. The rains have reportedly weakened foundations and appear to have contributed to most of the collapses.
In West Bengal state, utility workers have been struggling to restore power to a large portion of the state which went dark after the quake snapped power lines.
Large earthquakes have struck the region before, notably in 1950 and 1897.
© 2011, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.
January 18 2012 | Religion | Comments Off