The Vatican has reintroduced a system of clocking in, nearly 50 years after it was last phased out.

Senior clerics will have to swipe plastic cards when entering and leaving, all in a drive to improve time-keeping and efficiency.

It was Pope John XXIII, fondly known as the Good Pope, who phased out clocking machines in the early 1960s.

Now the Vatican has brought back a high-tech version involving electronic swipe cards for 2,000 employees.

Lay and ecclesiastical staff working in the tiny city state, are now using the swipe cards.

--------------------

Gus: big-brother bundy for the bludging priesthood: Now god's minions want to know where you are and if you're slacking off... As if god didn't know that, and so does Rupert Simpson... Better clock up... and on time, and pull your purple socks up... And have a smashing good excuse (a sinner's alibi) when going walkabout or going to smoke a ciggie "across the border in Italy".

Gay groups and activists have reacted angrily after Pope Benedict XVI said that mankind needed to be saved from a destructive blurring of gender.

Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the environment.

The comments were "irresponsible and unacceptable", the UK's Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) said.

Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender former Italian MP, called his words "hurtful".

The row erupted as news emerged that the pontiff is to pay his first visit to the Holy Land in May next year.

--------------------

Meanwhile:

Auxililary Catholic Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn Pat Power says the Pope's comments on homosexuality have hurt the gay and lesbian community.

Pope Benedict said that saving humanity from homosexual behaviour was just as important as saving rainforests.

Bishop Power says the Pope's message was mixed.

"When I heard that message of the Pope today I said, 'What's that saying to those people that I love and share a great deal with'," he said.

----------------------------

see toon at top...

Paul Vallely: Theological point that was lost in translation

The idea the Pope was 'gay-bashing' to celebrate Christmas is seriously ill-informed

Wednesday, 24 December 2008

Sometimes you can be too clever for your own good. Of no one is this more true than an intellectually-dense theologian who happens to be the leader of the world's billion Catholics. Step forward Pope Benedict XIV.

The hapless pontiff has been reported around the globe as saying that saving humanity from homosexual or trans-sexual behaviour is as important as saving the rainforest. That is not what he said at all. In fact, his end-of-year address to Vatican bureaucrats does not even mention homosexuality. There is nothing even about sexual orientation and certainly no attack on same-sex marriages.

What it does attack, rather opaquely, is gender theory – the idea that gender is not something entirely to do with what we inherit from nature, but something which is also socially constructed. Or, as the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir put it: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one."

------------------

Gus: so, the pope did not say what he meant? My apologies for misunderstanding his convoluted ramblings. My apologies to be of so little comprehensive skills as to read between the lines comments that are not there.  Sure, on other occasions, one day the pope bashes Galileo Galilei, the next day he nearly gives him a sainthood. Even what the good bishop Power said about what the pope said was confusing as well... "the pope's message was mixed..." Mixed? Does this mean something? Got no idea what they're rambling about.

see toon at top. mea culpa.

From the NYT

Pope Reinstates Four Bishops, Including Holocaust Denier

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI, acceding to the far-right of the Roman Catholic Church, revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops on Saturday, including one whose comments denying the Holocaust have provoked outrage.

The decision provided fresh fuel for critics who charge that Benedict’s four-year-old papacy has proven increasingly focused on appeasing traditionalists who are hostile to the sweeping reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s that sought to create a more modern and open church.

A theologian resigned to the church’s diminished status in a secular world, Benedict has favored a smaller church of more ardent believers over a larger one with looser faith. But his focus on doctrinal debates has come at a cost. As in 2006, when Benedict offended Muslims by citing a medieval scholar who called Islam “evil and inhuman,” the revocation may help heal an internal rift, but it opens a broader wound.

read more at the NYT and see toon at top and all the others, including this one...

Further more:

President Barack Obama today made the most contentious move of his young administration with an order, overturning a ban on federal funds to foreign family planning organisations that either offer abortions or provide information or counselling about abortion.

The rule change continues the dismantling of George Bush's conservative policies. It is likely to encounter fierce criticism from the still robust anti-abortion movement.

It will allow US aid, usually through the US agency for international development, to flow to HIV/Aids clinics, birth-control providers and other organisations that advocate or provide counselling about abortion across the world. It is known as the "global gag rule" because it denies US taxpayer dollars to clinics that even mention abortion to women with unplanned pregnancies.

-------------------

Thus the Pope and his minions are very disappointed about the change of policy...

Pope promotes pastor who said Hurricane Katrina was 'God's punishment for homosexuality'
Gerhard Wagner was quoted as saying disaster was 'divine retribution' for New Orleans' permissive sexual attitudes

    * Mark Tran
    * guardian.co.uk, Sunday 1 February 2009 11.03 GMT

Pope Benedict XVI has made another controversial appointment by elevating an Austrian pastor who said Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for homosexuality in New Orleans to the position of bishop.

The Vatican yesterday announced that Gerhard Wagner has been appointed as auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria.

Wagner, who has served as the pastor of a church in the Austrian town of Windischgarsten since 1988, has a doctorate in theology from the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome.

In 2005, the 54-year-old was quoted in a parish newsletter as saying he was convinced that the death and destruction caused by Katrina that year was "divine retribution" for New Orleans' permissive sexual attitudes and tolerance of homosexuality.

Kath.Net, a Catholic news agency in Austria, said the newsletter quoted Wagner as saying that Katrina had destroyed not only nightclubs and brothels but also abortion clinics.

He first attracted international attention in 2001 when he described JK Rowling's best-selling Harry Potter novels as "satanism" and warned against the magical spells and formulas used in them.

-----------------------

It would be funny if it was not so tragically stupid. See toon at top and read more at the Guardian.

And a doctorate in theology? what's the point? It's like having a doctorate in a superior form of porkies management rather than porkie studies for what they are... It means one believes a lot about fairy tales, myths and fanciful stories without understanding the reality around...  

Divine retribution? Baloney. Reward for spreading baloney? Outrageous...

From the SMH

THE ultra-conservative Catholic bishop Richard Williamson has written an unctuous apology to the Pope in the wake of global outrage over his public denial of the Holocaust.

Bishop Williamson, who forms part of the traditionalist Fraternita' San Pio, has used his blog, Dinoscopus, to beg forgiveness for his "intemperate" remarks denying existence of the gas chambers - but also crows about the Pope's decision to rescind the group's excommunication in a bid to heal a 20-year schism within the Catholic Church.

Bishop Williamson's blog letter, illustrated with a caricature of his head on a dinosaur's body [Gus bold], is addressed to a fellow traditionalist, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

He wrote: "Amidst this tremendous media storm stirred up by imprudent remarks of mine on Swedish television, I beg of you to accept, only as is properly respectful, my sincere regrets for having caused to yourself and to the Holy Father so much unnecessary distress and problems.

----------------------

Compared to this apologetic imprudent fellow bishop, the pope appears as a charming felon first class... But then who am I to interpret the entrails in the inner sanctum of a dinosaur species? 

The Vatican has ordered an ultra-traditionalist bishop to publicly recant his views denying the Holocaust.

A statement said Bishop Richard Williamson must "unequivocally" distance himself from his statements to serve in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican also said that the Pope had not been aware of the bishop's views when he lifted excommunications on him and three other bishops last month.

---------------------------

So, the pope is a non-aware ignoramus?... 

Should the pope have been made aware of the bishop views before lifting excommunication? Should the pope surf the net to find the truth about the bishop... and discover porn... and find relative enlightenment at the same time?...

remember the bishop only apologised to the church for the trouble he caused not for holding his views...

See toon at top...

Andreas Whittam Smith: The blindness of a Pope led by his bureaucrats

It is hard to believe that Pope Benedict knew nothing of 'Bishop' Williamson

Friday, 6 February 2009

Pope Benedict must have thought he knew exactly what he was doing when, on 21 January, he lifted the excommunication of four bishops, among them a Holocaust-denying Englishman, Richard Williamson. It turned out to be an enormous misjudgement as the unprecedented rebuke earlier this week by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, shows.

But it was part of a process that began more than 20 years ago when Mr Williamson first came into the Pope's field of vision. For the Pope, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's doctrinal policeman, had tried to broker a deal between a breakaway group of traditionalist clergy and the Vatican.

A French Archbishop, Marcel-François Lefebvre, led the rebels, who included among their number, Mr Williamson. He had been illegally ordained as a priest by the Archbishop in 1976.

Here, then, are the main characters. "Father" Williamson, educated at Winchester College and Cambridge University, whose parents were Anglicans, worked as a teacher in Africa for a few years before being received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1971. Monsignor Lefebvre was born in northern France. During the Second World War the Monsignor's father worked for the French Resistance. But his son, the priest who became an archbishop, supported the Vichy government that ruled France on behalf of Nazi Germany.

Joseph Ratzinger, born in Bavaria, unwilling member of the Hitler Youth and the German Army during the war, ordained in 1945, brilliant theologian, stout defender of the faith during his long service as a cardinal, a conservative Pope. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor since 2005, daughter of a Lutheran pastor, brought up in communist East Germany.

Archbishop Lefebvre and nearly 500 priests founded their own traditionalist Catholic organisation, the Society of St Pius X in 1970. It was a revolt against the substantial reforms that the Second Vatican Council had carried through in the 1960s, of which the most visible to lay people was the virtual abolition of the Latin mass. The traditionalists also objected to the Church's increased openness to other other religions. For them, the Jews were still the "enemies of Christ".

---------------------

... ritualised mess-ups...

From Unleashed...

This partial dismantling of Vatican II has been part of a deal to return fringe conservatives to within the fold of the Church - a Faustian bargain which has done the Church no credit.

The Vatican has rejected the suggestion that lifting the excommunication endorses Williamson's denial of the Holocaust, while some of his colleagues have distanced themselves from his claims. And the Pope, who has visited Auschwitz, has expressed his "full and unquestionable solidarity with our (Jewish) brothers", hoping "the memory of the Shoah [Holocaust] will induce humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of hate", and warning "against denial and reductionism".

But Williamson's rehabilitation has far-reaching implications. It sends a signal - from the office of the Pope, no less - that an individual who denies the Holocaust can nevertheless be accepted as a bishop of the Catholic Church. It sends a message that denial of the murder of six million Jews might be regarded as a blemish on an individual's record, but not a significant enough blemish to preclude that person from holding a position of authority, respect and honour in the Catholic world community.

This cannot but undermine the moral authority of the Vatican and the Catholic Church.

There is an odious corollary to this development. Racist extremists everywhere are getting the message that their bizarre views, while not openly endorsed by the Church, will be tolerated. German neo-Nazi websites and blogs have published contributions supporting Williamson, deriving comfort from the fact that even men of God - supposedly - may tell lies about the most egregious vilification, persecution and genocide in history without serious consequences.

The apology which Williamson belatedly proffered compounded the injury. Describing his remarks as "imprudent", he proceeded to say that "all that matters is the Truth Incarnate" - injurious words which imply an attempt to defend the indefensible.

-----------------------

But then in the comment below the unleashed:

In spite of restrictive “Holocaust denial” laws, public censure, intimidation, relentless “Holocaust remembrance” campaigns, and even physical attacks, an informed skepticism about the standard Holocaust story has been growing steadily around the world.

This is a healthy trend. Every chapter of history, including the World War II treatment of Europe’s Jews, should be open to objective, critical study. Unfettered debate and informed skepticism about history -- even “official” history -- is essential in a free, open, and mature society.

-------------------

Not denying that one has the right to deny whatever, it is an ugly trend for some people to deny the closest version to the truth and choose a fanciful view of history. If this trend was adopted in telephony for example, we'd use a block of wood as a phone and hope for the best. It would not work. Or we could fill our car tank with concrete and hope that it would work. It won't. Certain things work because of cause and effect — History, despite a few possible interpretation, is in the same boat. Put too much crap in it and it will sink in fluid stupidity. Creationism does that too, sink in stupid morass.

I have known and still know a few Auschwitz survivors, whose tattooed arm still carry this infamous camp registration number. Some able bodies went and worked in several camps as gas chamber operators, others worked in the munition slave factory — those who tired or became sick were sent to the chambers, with the old and the young too useless to work. Whether six million Jews perished or three million died is debatable, but it is a great number between these two values. One of my next door neighbour in Yourp lost his wife and six kids in the gas fires, while himself was worked to skin and bones exhaustion on building railway lines. Some survivors of Auschwitz were mostly young adults who went on the long march and despite the lack of food and oncoming sickness were saved by approaching allied armies.

May humanity avoid repeating these atrocities where the illusion of god become the only thing left. May the deny-ers deny in the privacy of their own homes or use a block of wood as a cell phone to let the world know about their version of history. The pope screwed up. See toon at top...

And goodness knows if I don't put the boot into Israel for doing what it's doing to the palestinians... Jewish or not, I will expose their present hypocritical duplicity.

Argentina has ordered an ultra-traditionalist British bishop who denies the Holocaust to leave the country or face expulsion.

The interior ministry said Richard Williamson had been given 10 days to leave Argentina.

Earlier this month the bishop was removed from his post as the head of a Roman Catholic seminary in Argentina.

The Vatican has rejected an apology by a British bishop who denied the full extent of the Holocaust.

It said the bishop needed to "unequivocally and publicly" withdraw his comments.

Earlier, Jewish leaders said the bishop had failed to address the issue of whether he believed that the Holocaust was a lie.

Richard Williamson said if he had known the full harm his comments would cause, he would not have made them.

-------------------

Ah.... "The I would not have guessed" excuse... see toon at top. it's irrelevant but okay...

Pope Benedict XVI has ordered a probe into the Legionaries of Christ, after the conservative order revealed its late founder had fathered a child.

The Vatican said a team of priests would carry out the investigation to help the Mexican order to deal with its problems with "truth and transparency".

In February, the order said its founder Marcial Maciel, who died in 2008, had fathered a daughter with a mistress.

The Vatican disciplined Father Maciel in 2006 over sexual abuse allegations.

Father Maciel was banned from exercising his ministry in public and told to retire to a life of prayer and penitence, following allegations that he sexually abused about 30 boys and young men over a period of 30 years.

--------------

John Paul II is credited with helping to end Communist rule in Europe, especially in his native Poland.

But the beatification process of Pius XII, who was Pope during the Second World War, has been a source of tension with some Jewish groups.

They have accused him of not doing enough to prevent the deaths of Jews during the Holocaust.

Jewish groups had asked the Pope to freeze the process that could lead to eventual sainthood for Pius until more Second World War archives could be studied.

But the Vatican has defended the wartime pontiff, saying he saved many Jews by having them hidden in religious institutions in Rome and abroad.

Pope Benedict approved a decree recognising Pius' "heroic virtues" meaning that he will have the title "venerable".

It puts him two steps away from eventual sainthood - he must first be beatified and then canonised.

Miracle

Pope Benedict has also approved the "heroic virtues" decree for his immediate predecessor, John Paul II, whose papacy lasted 27 years.

Just a month after John Paul's death in April 2005, Pope Benedict waived a five-year waiting period before the sainthood process could begin.

The next step will be the recognition of a miracle attributed to John Paul II, usually a medical cure with no scientific explanation.

--------------

see toon at top...

MOSCOW (AP) -- The head of the Russian Orthodox Church says that, although the church views homosexuality as a sin, homosexuality is a personal choice.

Patriarch Kirill says gays and lesbians must not be persecuted or discriminated against in any way, though the church still opposes same-sex marriages.

The patriarch's statements, a breakthrough for the Russian church, were made during a meeting Wednesday with visiting Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland.

Opposition to gay rights remains widespread in Russia, where homosexuality was decriminalized only in 1993.

Several high-profile Russian politicians have spoken against gay rights. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has described homosexuality as ''satanic'' and blamed homosexuals for spreading AIDS.

-----------------------

The global gay rights movement was yesterday celebrating the passage of a bill in the Mexico City legislature legalising gay marriage, making the huge and overwhelmingly Catholic megalopolis the first territory anywhere in Latin America to put same-sex couples on the same standing as heterosexuals.

The law, which is likely to be signed soon by the city's increasingly high-profile leftist Mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, was passed by a vote of 39 votes to 20 in the city assembly on Monday to loud chants from supporters in the galleries of "Yes, We could. Yes, we could" – words that will become "We do" for some couples early in the new year.

It was a victory not just for gay rights activists in Mexico and across Latin America but also for the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) which has controlled government of the sprawling Mexican capital since 1997.

----------------

see pope at top...

The Pope has called for peace and the protection of children as he celebrated a Mass to mark the start of 2010.

Pope Benedict XVI said peace began with mutual respect between people, regardless of their ethnicity or faith.

He said the shared characteristics of children such as laughter and tears made it clear all men were brothers.

Marking the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Peace, the Pope appealed to armed groups to "stop, reflect and abandon the way of violence".

"Respect others, regardless of their skin colour, nationality, language, religion," he said.

--------------------------

Good MAN, this pope... But... no mention of sisters since it's clear "all men are brothers" and women are a different species in some people's mind... As the Non Sequitur toon explains today (SMH 02/01/10) in a series of vignettes:

WOMAN: OK question #1... The best way to put any argument behind us is ...?

MAN: for me to apologise

WOMAN: and part 2 of that queation... What if it turned out that I was completely irrefutably wrong?

... time lapses...

MAN: for me to apologise profusely

WOMAN: oooh... Bonus points!

-------------------

But jokes apart, any man who is equally sharing his life with a woman could get offended by the pope's deliberate omission of the sisterhood, unless the meaning was lost in translation... OR could it be that the media is set on rattling Gus' gumboots by misreporting what was said...?

Yes, who could not remember the times when the pope was a woman? Read carefully, especially "usurped" and "historians":

From Wikipedia

Pope Joan is a woman who had usurped the Papacy hiding his true sexual identity. His pontificate is generally placed between 855 and 858, that is to say between that of Leo IV and Benedict III, at the time of the theft of Anastasius the Librarian. The character is considered legendary by historians...

Was Pope Joan a lesbian as well? It would not matter though, but for the toon at top of this line of comments...

Yes, the message of peace is good. Not being a pope, I can only write or say the word "peace"... The pope has a ritualised message to sell — with front seats in heaven as the first prize, after a supreme being decides our fate according to our sins. I only say peace, just because...

-------------

Meanwhile, the smell of sulphur is fought out with incent burning...

The book documents the Catholic Church's often hostile dealings with the world of science and the arts, including documents from the heresy trial against Galileo and correspondence exchanged with Erasmus, Voltaire and Mozart.

In a letter dated 1246 from Grand Khan Guyuk to Pope Innocent IV, Genghis Khan's grandson demands that the pontiff travel to central Asia in person - with all of his ''kings'' in tow - to ''pay service and homage to us'' as an act of ''submission'', threatening that otherwise ''you shall be our enemy''.

Another formal letter in the archive highlights the papacy's political role. In 1863 Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States, wrote to Pope Pius IX claiming that the civil war in America was entirely due to ''northern aggression''.

Other letters in the archive are more personal. In a 1550 note, Michelangelo demands payment from the papacy which was three months late, and complains that a papal conclave had interrupted his work on the dome of St Peter's Basilica.

------------------------

Nothing much has changed. Artists are screwed, developers get hindered by the bureaucracy (hehe)... and we all blame the supreme authority: the government, which in turn can blame god, or the voters... May be I should send a letter to the pope explaining in detail my ferocious existential atheism and why we can see the universe while the universe cannot see us.

Peace...

----------------------

Ooooh, and I nearly forgot:

The non-feminist sister of the poison pen should you be a greenie has turned to stab a few Blueys in her review of the film Avatar...

"The snarling vipers of left-wing Hollywood have been let off the leash in a way previously unmatched in a high-priced blockbuster. In fact Avatar is reputed to be the most expensive movie ever made, with a budget of $US500 million.

Cameron has a simple formula:

Humans bad.

Planet (Gaia) good.

Noble savages good.

Flaky pagan worship good.

America bad.

American military very bad.

Capitalism bad.

Mining bad. Raping planet.

The only good soldier is a traitor.

Try as you might, by the second half of the movie, having sucked you in with its rich visuals and the sweetness of the disabled US marine Jake Sully (played by the Australian Sam Worthington), it's impossible to ignore the heavy-handed jibes. One gleeful Hollywood blogger sums up by saying the conservative pro-life US politician Sarah Palin would hate the movie "because Avatar hates her and her kind."

Cameron proudly declares Avatar is some sort of allegory for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the capitalist, imperialist Christian West the villain.

-----------------------

Cameron makes sense to me... The good people are blue, aren't they?. But could they have been of other colours in the movie? Is blue the best colour to see in 3D? In our little brains, do we wish that uniformity to be the key of belonging, while the diversity of life on earth is puzzling?... I wonder what the woman pope would make of all this...

But then Avatar the movie is a Rupert movie... The smart lovely swine. Such a fiendish sense of humour — unless he did not read the script. While most languages explain Avatar as near demi-gods, the French (older meaning of the word in that culture) relates the avatars to gremlins — those who stop your car from starting or those who drop a flower pots on your head, from the third floor...

And I'm prepared to believe that in Avatar, the sisterhood is treated equally... No idea.

Peace. See toon at top.

--------------------

And in regard to the colour blue:

IN AN era when the mail brings junk and bills, the arrival of a postcard on a blue square of cardboard is proving to be a lifesaver.

The postcards, sent to hundreds of people in NSW who have attempted suicide, have halved the rate of repeat attempts, a goal that has eluded researchers for decades.

"It's an extraordinarily cheap intervention," said Gregory Carter, of the University of Newcastle, part of a team that has pioneered the strategy in Australia.

A staggering 65,000 Australians a year attempt suicide, according to the 2007 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing, and about 15 per cent make a repeat attempt within 12 months. If people are not helped, some will eventually kill themselves.

Expensive and intensive therapy had worked with particular groups, Professor Carter said. But there was a need to find a cheap strategy that worked more broadly.

As part of a five-year study involving 772 people, the specialist toxicology service at the Calvary Mater Hospital in Newcastle made basic postcards.

The message was simple: "Dear [name], It has been a short time since you were here at the Newcastle Mater Hospital and we hope things are going well for you. If you wish to drop us a note we would be happy to hear from you."

Two doctors' names were on the card as well as the hospital's address and phone number.

---------------------------

Smart, helpful and honest.

Peace.

An atheist group in the Irish Republic has defied a new blasphemy law by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations on its website.

Atheist Ireland says it will fight any action taken against it in court.

The quotations include the words of writers such as Mark Twain and Salman Rushdie, but also Jesus Christ, the Prophet Muhammad and Pope Benedict XVI.

The new law makes blasphemy a crime punishable by a fine of up to 25,000 euros (£22,000; $35,000).

The government says it is needed because the republic's 1937 constitution only gives Christians legal protection of their beliefs.

The new law was passed in July 2009 but came into force on 1 January.

-------

 see toon at top.

Pope Benedict XVI's personal secretary has visited the mentally disturbed woman who assaulted the pontiff at Mass on Christmas Eve.

Monsignor Georg Gaenswein saw Susanna Maiolo at a psychiatric clinic near Rome at the pontiff's request.

The Vatican confirmed the visit after Italy's Il Giornale newspaper said it had taken place on New Year's Day.

It added that a judicial case opened against Ms Maiolo by the Vatican authorities would "run its course".

------------------

Hopefully, the church will forgive ... or accept the woman is "deranged"... see toon at top

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch says there have been "very early" talks with director James Cameron about making a sequel to his box office record-breaking film Avatar.

Mr Murdoch also said the initial DVD release of Avatar, which was made by News Corp studio 20th Century Fox, would not feature the 3D effects of the movie theatre version.

"We certainly plan to release the DVD as soon as possible," he told analysts during a conference call to discuss News Corp's second-quarter earnings.

"But it is continuing, for a great period it seems, in the cinemas."

Mr Murdoch said that as for a sequel, there have been "very early talks about it" with Cameron and "we'll be pushing for one."

---------------------

and remember Miranda Devine's shredder ( a little bit down from the top of link) :

"The snarling vipers of left-wing Hollywood have been let off the leash in a way previously unmatched in a high-priced blockbuster. In fact Avatar is reputed to be the most expensive movie ever made, with a budget of $US500 million.

Cameron has a simple formula:

Humans bad.

Planet (Gaia) good.

Noble savages good.

Flaky pagan worship good.

America bad.

American military very bad.

Capitalism bad.

Mining bad. Raping planet.

The only good soldier is a traitor.

Try as you might, by the second half of the movie, having sucked you in with its rich visuals and the sweetness of the disabled US marine Jake Sully (played by the Australian Sam Worthington), it's impossible to ignore the heavy-handed jibes. One gleeful Hollywood blogger sums up by saying the conservative pro-life US politician Sarah Palin would hate the movie "because Avatar hates her and her kind."

Cameron proudly declares Avatar is some sort of allegory for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the capitalist, imperialist Christian West the villain.

------------------

To Miranda I proposed the flollowing critique...:

"The good people are blue, aren't they?. But could they have been of other colours in the movie? Is blue the best colour to see in 3D? In our little brains, do we wish that uniformity to be the key of belonging, while the diversity of life on earth is puzzling?... I wonder what the woman pope would make of all this...

But then Avatar the movie is a Rupert movie... The smart lovely swine. Such a fiendish sense of humour — unless he did not read the script. While most languages explain Avatar as near demi-gods, the French (older meaning of the word in that culture) relates the avatars to gremlins — those who stop your car from starting or those who drop a flower pots on your head, from the third floor...

And I'm prepared to believe that in Avatar, the sisterhood is treated equally.."

...

--------------------

But back in 2005

TG Kerr commented :

... Now, the News Corp boss has spoken of his intent to build a network that will "redefine the portal". In an April speech to American newspaper editors he said: "We have to refashion what our web presence is. It can't just be what it too often is today: a bland repurposing of our print content. The challenge for us is to create an internet presence compelling enough for users to make us their home page." He went on to pursue two themes - the provision of deeply local and personalised news and the creation of "virtual communities" linking coverage to blogs and opening up sites to feedback. ...

Does interactive entertainment mean gamesters and others will pay to have the Murdochs watching over their online choices? What else is at stake, if it isn't the "rights" to spy on us, to log our preferences, and sell them off to the highest bidders?

Is Rupert the tenth Avatar, and in collusion with Beazley?
From Beazley calls for practicality in terrorism fight
... "We need spies ... "

-------------------

May be... but uncle Rupe sees dollars where he sees them... and this is commendable: The weak inherits the earth. So the myth continues... unless this time like with Star Wars "The Empire Strikes Back", it's the due revenge of the loaded-with-guns-and-money armies... Rupert read the script or/and saw the cash rolling in. Unless he's just become a loony leftie and pigs will fly...

The [UK] Government will not push through proposals that churches argue would restrict their ability to deny jobs to gay people and transsexuals, Equality Minister Harriet Harman confirmed today.

Her remarks came days after Pope Benedict XVI warned that the Equality Bill ran contrary to "natural law" and restricted the freedom of religious communities.

The Government was defeated three times in the Lords last month as church leaders led by the Archbishop of York feared it would restrict their ability to control who they employed.

Ms Harman said a Government amendment to the Bill had only sought to "make the distinction between religious and non-religious jobs clearer".
During Commons exchanges on upcoming business, she said the amendment would not be brought back to Parliament and "the law will remain as it was".

Asked to clarify the situation by Labour former minister Kitty Ussher (Burnley), Ms Harman said: "The Government's policy is clear and has not changed.
"Our view is and remains that when it comes to religious organisations employing people they should comply with the law that applies with all other employers - whether it's the requirement to have written contracts, to pay sick pay or to pay the minimum wage and not to sack people unfairly or to discriminate against them."
She said "specifically religious" work was exempt from the non-discriminatory laws.

------------------

see toon at top. If asked, lie or tell?... Argh, get a job in a secular humanist existential place... or lie till the law is changed.

From the Guardian

The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.

Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood.

The explosive claims about Balducci's private life have caused grave embarrassment to the Vatican, which has yet to publicly comment on the affair.

While Catholicism does not condemn homosexuality outright, its teaching is that homosexual acts "are intrinsically disordered". The Catechism of the Catholic church states unequivocally: "Under no circumstances can they be approved."

Balducci was arrested on 10 February, suspected of involvement in widespread corruption. A senior Italian government official, he is alleged to have to steered public works contracts towards favoured bidders. He has not been charged.

It was during this investigation into corruption that wiretaps revealed his alleged sexual activity. In one conversation, Ehiem tells Balducci: "I saw your call when I was in the Vatican, because I was doing rehearsals … in the choir … in St Peter's." He then suggests Balducci meet a man who he describes is "two metres tall … 97 kilos … aged 33, completely active."

Balducci is also a senior adviser to the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, the department that oversees the Roman Catholic church's worldwide missionary activities.

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This enforced 'respect' is a creeping vine: it soon extends from ideas to institutions

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Imagine if this happened at The Independent. Imagine I discovered there was a paedophile ring running our crèche, and the Editor issued a stern order that it should be investigated internally with "the strictest secrecy". Imagine he merely shuffled the paedophiles to work in another crèche at another newspaper, and I agreed, and made the kids sign a pledge of secrecy. We would both – rightly – go to prison. Yet because the word "religion" is whispered, the rules change. Suddenly, otherwise good people who wouldn't dream of covering up a paedophile ring in their workplace think it would be an insult to them to follow one wherever it leads in their Church. They would find this behaviour unthinkable without the irrational barrier of faith standing between them and reality.

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read more at the Independent.

Please note I do not believe in "evil". I only think some people can do really bad things... Evil tends to imply that an anti-divine force is dictating our behaviour, basically making us irresponsible. in fact most of us are responsible for the results of our actions. Those badly behaved people who we deem are "mentally" irresponsible usually are sent to the loony bin or prison.

Dozens of Italian women who have had relationships with Roman Catholic priests or lay monks have endorsed an open letter to the pope that calls for the abolition of the celibacy rule. The letter, thought by one signatory to be unprecedented, argues that a priest "needs to live with his fellow human beings, experience feelings, love and be loved".

It also pleads for understanding of those who "live out in secrecy those few moments the priest manages to grant [us] and experience on a daily basis the doubts, fears and insecurities of our men".

The issue was put back on the Vatican's agenda in March when one of Pope Benedict's senior advisers, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, said the abolition of the celibacy rule might curb sex abuse by priests, a suggestion he hastily withdrew after Benedict spoke up for "the principle of holy celibacy".

The authors of the letter said they decided to come into the open after hearing his retort, which they said was an affirmation of "the holiness of something that is not holy" but a man-made rule. There are many instances of married priests in the early centuries of Christianity. Today, priests who follow the eastern Catholic rites can be married, as can those who married before converting to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism.

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The Vatican has expressed shock at raids, including the "violation" of a cathedral crypt, by Belgian police investigating alleged child sex abuse.

As well as searching a couple of main Church offices and a cardinal's home, police had drilled holes in two archbishops' tombs, said the Church.

Prosecutors said the raids were over alleged "abuse of minors committed by a certain number of Church figures".

Belgium is one of many countries where the Church has been hit by sex scandal.

In April, the Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned after admitting he had sexually abused a boy more than 20 years ago.

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A Sydney court has heard a former priest who sexually abused 39 young boys preyed on them because he felt sorry for them.

John Sidney Denham pleaded guilty to sexually abusing the boys at schools in Sydney, Newcastle, other parts of the Hunter Valley and Taree.

Lawyers are making their final submissions to judge Helen Syme as she considers his sentence for the offences, which date back to 1968.

Denham has described himself as a "mere scumbag paedophile".

The 67-year-old told the District Court that he spent the past 25 years trying to figure out why he did it.

In an apparent about-turn, Pope Benedict XVI said today that his visit to Britain, which ended on Monday, had enabled him "to see how much the Christian legacy is still strong and still active at every level of social life".

The pope, who warned against "aggressive forms of secularism" after landing in Edinburgh last Thursday, appeared to have been deeply impressed by what he saw and heard on his trip.

Addressing his weekly general audience in St Peter's Square, he described "four intense and very beautiful days" in which he had had the opportunity to get to know "a people rich in culture and faith".

After any visit away from Rome, it is customary for popes to refer to their experiences at their next public audience, but these comments are normally banal.

On this occasion, Benedict seemed to be making clear that his views on the UK had undergone a radical change as a result of his visit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/22/pope-christianity-britain-uk

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Gus: the enlightened poms enlightened the pope...

The Catholic Bishop of Toowoomba on Queensland's Darling Downs has quit after a row with the Pope.

In a letter to the Toowoomba diocese, Bishop William Morris says he has been forced into early retirement after a five-year investigation sparked by a "disaffected" group.

Bishop Morris says he has been targeted over his comments five years ago that the Catholic Church to be more open towards ordaining married men and women to help counter a looming shortage of priests.

He says his views have been deliberately misinterpreted.

He has been a priest since 1969 and the Toowoomba bishop for 18 years.

In his farewell address at the weekend, Bishop Morris said Pope Benedict had decided he should be replaced.

The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, John Bathersby, says he has received no statement from Rome relating to the diocese of Toowoomba.

The Vatican is expected to release an official statement at 8:00pm (AEST).

The vicar-general for the diocese, Father Peter Dorfield, also said earlier today he was awaiting a formal announcement from the Vatican.

"We are advised that this announcement will express his acceptance of early retirement but we understand that because of the setting, it is much stronger than that," he said.

"It is the sort of early retirement that you cannot take so in effect it is a removal from office."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/02/3204821.htm

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/toowoomba-floods/story-fn7mdad8-1225989504384

The devil may wear Prada, but a Sicilian bishop has set out to show Satan does not have a stranglehold on designer clothing by ordering new vestments from Giorgio Armani.

Bishop Domenico Mogavero drew compliments from churchgoers when he turned out for mass on Monday on the Mediterranean island of Pantelleria in green silk vestments designed by Armani and decorated with symbols of vines, wheat, shells and starfish.

Mogavero said the vestments had turned heads, particularly among female parishioners, but warned he had no intention of turning the aisle into a catwalk.

"This is all not about having brands in church or indulging in the fashion of the moment, but about wearing something beautiful to give glory to God," said Mogavero, 64, who donned the vestments at a ceremony for the opening of a church on the tiny volcanic island.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/03/bishop-domenico-mogavero-armani-italy

The Victorian Government has cast the rules of Parliament aside to reintroduce a bill that will allow faith-based groups to discriminate on grounds such as religion, marital status and gender.

In a historic move, the Government used its numbers to suspend the rules of Parliament and conduct a second vote on the Equal Opportunity Amendment Bill, which was defeated last week.

Despite attempts by the Opposition to stop the second vote on changes to the laws, the bill was passed on Wednesday night.

The controversial amendment was defeated last week when Community Services Minister Mary Wooldridge missed the vote.

Labor tried to prevent the second vote, saying it was an unprecedented move.

But the bill passed the Lower House 43 votes to 42, following 18 speakers and almost three-and-a-half hours of debate. The bill will proceed to the Upper House, where the Government also has a slim majority.

A bitter debate ensued in the Lower House, with Premier Ted Baillieu labelled Jeff Kennett's "Mini-me" and Attorney-General Robert Clark accused of being homophobic.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/02/3233202.htm?section=justin

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