Germany: ‘End of reduced electricity prices for industry’
7 March 2013
Presseurop
Süddeutsche Zeitung
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Süddeutsche Zeitung, 7 March 2013
The European Commission has announced the opening of an investigation to establish if German industry benefits from state aid that distorts fair competition.
Since 2011, German firms, which consume large amounts of power, have not been obliged to pay for electricity network licences — an advantage that has enabled them to save €805m.
The Commission launched the procedure in the wake of complaints from consumer and energy supply associations.
Legacy of Trianon still haunts Central and Eastern Europe
- Comment [109]
Editor's Note: The following essay was written by Joseph Imre, an historian, political scientist, and civil servant active in the Hungarian community in Canada.
Hungarians around the globe marked an ominous and despairing memorial this June 4. Ninety-one years ago, in the turmoil and chaos of post-war Europe, the Treaty of Trianon (signed June 4, 1920) forever altered the regional ethnic structure of Central and Eastern Europe. A treaty designed for peace destabilized a continent already mired in violent historical legacies. The Treaty of Trianon truncated over two-thirds of the former Kingdom of Hungary into new nation-states placing 3.5 million ethnic Hungarians under foreign and hostile rule. Trianon created one of the largest ethnic displacements Europe has ever witnessed and ensured an enduring legacy of endemic deficiency to protect and preserve minorities.
The creation of Czechoslovakia; the annexation of Transylvania to Romania; the awarding of Burgenland to Austria; and the integration of Croatia, Bácska and the Banat into Yugoslavia from the remnants of the former Hungarian Kingdom, ensured a constant state of mistrust and conflict guided by growing greed and revenge in the anticipated decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Census data compiled in 1910 reveals a strikingly multi-ethnic kingdom balanced by the structures of privileged order and restrained nationalism. However, that polyglot empire, while extremely centralized, divulged considerable autonomy to it minorities. The rise of ethnic identities and nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – coupled with oppressive and old feudal social structures within the Habsburg lands – justified, within the principles of self-determination, a modest redrawing of borders along ethnic lines. Those principles however were abandoned as alliances, fabrications, secret treaties, hypocrisy and self-interest framed the peace negotiations. Trianon largely became a fait accompli.
World War I and the ensuing new European order would change the status quo dynamics and serve as the forbearer of instability and ethnic division in Central and Eastern Europe. The Paris Peace Conference – and its dictated peace settlements – is now widely accepted to be the root cause of World War II and the continued ethnic agitation of present day. The disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the Balkan wars; the splitting of the Czech and Slovak Republics; and thwarted attempts at autonomy and self-rule in Transylvania, Transcarpathia, and Vojvodina all have roots in the legacy of Trianon and the failure of peacemakers to uphold the principles of self-determination.
Memorials such as these have a tendency to reopen historical wounds. With ninety-one years now past since Trianon, Hungarian minorities have struggled to maintain their numerical consistency with just over 2 million in present-day Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. Almost a century of survival against state sponsored discrimination, ethnic cleansing, and forced assimilation has degraded a once proud unity and purpose for Hungarian minorities. However, discrimination against Hungarian minorities continues unabated and remains unchallenged by vague and often ambiguous treaties on minority rights and blatant violations by states which comprise sizable minority enclaves. Trianon may have given birth to new nations and new identities; but failed to bring the lasting peace envisioned by its creators. Then British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, noted in 1919:
"No settlement which contravenes the principles of eternal justice will be a permanent one…We must not allow any sense of revenge, any spirit of greed, and grasping desire to over-ride the fundamental principle of righteousness"
Like Germany, Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria, Hungary merits a certain level of responsibility for the war but not as much as was eventually bestowed on it. Hungarian elites and landed gentry were supportive at the outbreak of war and the possibility of extending a Hungarian sphere of influence in the Balkans, but only in so far as their duty to the Emperor and the Kingdom itself. However, proportionally, no other European state was dismembered with the ferocity and conviction as Hungary. No other nation suffered greater punishment at the hands of the victors and successor states. Few minorities, in a European context, would be left to states determined to eradicate – dare I say exterminate – their minorities as the Hungarians were.
Under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles Germany lost a mere 13 percent of its former territories and colonies. The Treaty of Neuilly severed Bulgaria's access to the Aegean Sea but affected minimal territorial loses of approximately 8 percent. The Treaty of Sèvres, and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne, witnessed the slow disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and its sphere of influence but no ancestral lands were removed. The Treaty of Saint Germaine-en-Laye severed non-Germanic lands from the Habsburgs but awarded Burgenland, a part of Hungary, to Austria nonetheless. Hungary was to cede upwards of 72 percent of its ancestral lands and, as a result, abide by harsh and catastrophic economic constraints. Trianon, like much of the Paris negotiations, was, in the words of the eminent British economist John Maynard Keynes: a Carthaginian peace. It may indeed be a stretch to even append the term peace to the Paris conference at all.
The twenty-first century has failed to afford any relief to the legacy of Trianon. Admission to international organizations and conventions on human rights by all of the regions states has fallen short of protecting ethnic minorities or addressing past historical injustices. Although the issue of Hungarian minorities has remained non-violent in its manifestations, one need not look far to witness the enduring division caused by Trianon in the former Yugoslavia for example. The European Union's vague and often ambiguous minority protection framework has left gaping holes in continental and international legislation governing minority protection and human rights. This has resulted in blatant violations of minority rights in states with considerable minority populations and has often jeopardized regional stability and cooperation.
Escalations in political and ethnic tensions between Hungary and its neighbouring states has been buoyed by the rise of nationalistic governments in Slovakia, instability in the Balkans, and the passing of new citizenship legislations in Hungary. With only 21 years since the states of Central and Eastern Europe threw off the chains of Soviet oppression, the process of state and identity building continues. Ethnic cohesion is seen as a threat to statehood and therefore serves as a smokescreen. That smokescreen has left not only enduring hatreds but a perplexing ethnic problem: millions of Hungarians forced to live in states with abhorrent human rights records on ancestral lands. The rationale for which may never be fully understood.
Since joining NATO and the EU divisive ethnic issues have subsided as regional states focus their attention on internal reform and meeting political and economic pressures from Brussels. However, the legacy of an inequitable peace still haunts the future; and a resurgence of nationalism – albeit a restrained variant – has marked a disturbing trend across the region. In the context of European history the legacy of Trianon, still fresh, shapes the political landscape. Although territorial revisions are distant as a solution ethnic models such as autonomy, devolution, or self-determination are viable. While the very credibility of continental and international organizations has been questioned, the "Hungarian question" only affords time to the successor states to further degrade and destroy Hungarian minority enclaves.
If, in the words of David Lloyd George, the Paris peace violated and contravened the very principles that Europe stands for then a deserved redressing of Trianon is valid. Peace was not achieved and ethnic cohesion among the ethnicities of the region has never and will never be in full harmony. Trianon may not be an isolated event but its legacy and effect have ensured that the potential for conflict will always be in place.
Propaganda and populism aside, we must recognize that the very norms for which so many lives have been lost, and so many impasses overcome, fail to protect those who live in minority status. If we continue to pay lip service to those values we risk undermining the `European project' and, by effect, appeasing those nations such as Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Serbia who believe that there very future depends on suppressing their multi-ethnic character. While others will point to Hungary's intention of keeping the issue of Trianon alive, it is the neighbouring states who live the guilt of a host of heinous crimes against basic human rights. If any lesson may be learned by states with Hungarian minorities it is that lands may be appropriated but the spirit of a people and their cultural identity can survive.
As the inheritors of this ominous legacy we must shoulder a heavy burden to ensure justice is done not only for Hungarian minorities but all minorities. There is a belief that the safety of the European Union or international legislation is enough to protect minority communities. History has proven otherwise. Trianon has and will continue to symbolize not only a gross violation of human rights but a case of our own collective failures. As a new generation re-learns the "Hungarian question" we can only hope that new solutions may be found within the confines of international diplomacy and law. The legacy of Trianon haunts the region and, until corrected in some form, the historical narrative of Central and Eastern Europe will remain unfinished.
http://www.politics.hu/20110615/legacy-of-trianon-still-haunts-central-and-eastern-europe/
__._,_.___
Catholic church has paid €3.1m to abuse victims so far
Friday 08 March 2013
Five of the seven Catholic church abuse victims to get the maximum compensation payment of €100,000 are women, the Volkskrant reports on Friday.
The Volkskrant says this is notable because most attention has been paid to the abuse of young men at boarding schools. In addition, women do not account for many of the 127 compensation payouts made by the middle of last month.
Bart Holthuis, chairman of the committee allocating compensation, says the women who have received compensation have all had serious psychological and physical problems deriving from years of abuse. They have attempted suicide and failed to build a normal relationship.
Family friend
These women were often abused for a long period at home by a chaplain or priest who was considered a friend of the family.
So far the church authorities have paid out €3.1 million to abuse victims. Compensation is made on a sliding scale of five.
On Monday, the Deetman Commission, which carried out the original investigation into church abuse, is presenting the results of a new report focusing on the abuse of women and girls.
Lessons
Meanwhile, a history researcher in Brabant has published a paper which shows trainee priests were given special lessons about sex from 1900 to 1965. These lessons not only included sexual positions but sex with animals, children and dead bodies.
‘Catholic spiritual leaders were actually very well informed about sex,’ René Bastiaanse of the Brabants Historisch Informatiecentrum, told news agency ANP.
The aim of providing such detailed knowledge was to help priests react to the confession of ‘sinners’, Bastiaanse said.
7 March 2013
Presseurop
Süddeutsche Zeitung
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 7 March 2013Legacy of Trianon still haunts Central and Eastern Europe
- Comment [109]
Editor's Note: The following essay was written by Joseph Imre, an historian, political scientist, and civil servant active in the Hungarian community in Canada.
Hungarians around the globe marked an ominous and despairing memorial this June 4. Ninety-one years ago, in the turmoil and chaos of post-war Europe, the Treaty of Trianon (signed June 4, 1920) forever altered the regional ethnic structure of Central and Eastern Europe. A treaty designed for peace destabilized a continent already mired in violent historical legacies. The Treaty of Trianon truncated over two-thirds of the former Kingdom of Hungary into new nation-states placing 3.5 million ethnic Hungarians under foreign and hostile rule. Trianon created one of the largest ethnic displacements Europe has ever witnessed and ensured an enduring legacy of endemic deficiency to protect and preserve minorities.
The creation of Czechoslovakia; the annexation of Transylvania to Romania; the awarding of Burgenland to Austria; and the integration of Croatia, Bácska and the Banat into Yugoslavia from the remnants of the former Hungarian Kingdom, ensured a constant state of mistrust and conflict guided by growing greed and revenge in the anticipated decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Census data compiled in 1910 reveals a strikingly multi-ethnic kingdom balanced by the structures of privileged order and restrained nationalism. However, that polyglot empire, while extremely centralized, divulged considerable autonomy to it minorities. The rise of ethnic identities and nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – coupled with oppressive and old feudal social structures within the Habsburg lands – justified, within the principles of self-determination, a modest redrawing of borders along ethnic lines. Those principles however were abandoned as alliances, fabrications, secret treaties, hypocrisy and self-interest framed the peace negotiations. Trianon largely became a fait accompli.
World War I and the ensuing new European order would change the status quo dynamics and serve as the forbearer of instability and ethnic division in Central and Eastern Europe. The Paris Peace Conference – and its dictated peace settlements – is now widely accepted to be the root cause of World War II and the continued ethnic agitation of present day. The disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the Balkan wars; the splitting of the Czech and Slovak Republics; and thwarted attempts at autonomy and self-rule in Transylvania, Transcarpathia, and Vojvodina all have roots in the legacy of Trianon and the failure of peacemakers to uphold the principles of self-determination.
Memorials such as these have a tendency to reopen historical wounds. With ninety-one years now past since Trianon, Hungarian minorities have struggled to maintain their numerical consistency with just over 2 million in present-day Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. Almost a century of survival against state sponsored discrimination, ethnic cleansing, and forced assimilation has degraded a once proud unity and purpose for Hungarian minorities. However, discrimination against Hungarian minorities continues unabated and remains unchallenged by vague and often ambiguous treaties on minority rights and blatant violations by states which comprise sizable minority enclaves. Trianon may have given birth to new nations and new identities; but failed to bring the lasting peace envisioned by its creators. Then British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, noted in 1919:
"No settlement which contravenes the principles of eternal justice will be a permanent one…We must not allow any sense of revenge, any spirit of greed, and grasping desire to over-ride the fundamental principle of righteousness"
Like Germany, Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria, Hungary merits a certain level of responsibility for the war but not as much as was eventually bestowed on it. Hungarian elites and landed gentry were supportive at the outbreak of war and the possibility of extending a Hungarian sphere of influence in the Balkans, but only in so far as their duty to the Emperor and the Kingdom itself. However, proportionally, no other European state was dismembered with the ferocity and conviction as Hungary. No other nation suffered greater punishment at the hands of the victors and successor states. Few minorities, in a European context, would be left to states determined to eradicate – dare I say exterminate – their minorities as the Hungarians were.
Under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles Germany lost a mere 13 percent of its former territories and colonies. The Treaty of Neuilly severed Bulgaria's access to the Aegean Sea but affected minimal territorial loses of approximately 8 percent. The Treaty of Sèvres, and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne, witnessed the slow disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and its sphere of influence but no ancestral lands were removed. The Treaty of Saint Germaine-en-Laye severed non-Germanic lands from the Habsburgs but awarded Burgenland, a part of Hungary, to Austria nonetheless. Hungary was to cede upwards of 72 percent of its ancestral lands and, as a result, abide by harsh and catastrophic economic constraints. Trianon, like much of the Paris negotiations, was, in the words of the eminent British economist John Maynard Keynes: a Carthaginian peace. It may indeed be a stretch to even append the term peace to the Paris conference at all.
The twenty-first century has failed to afford any relief to the legacy of Trianon. Admission to international organizations and conventions on human rights by all of the regions states has fallen short of protecting ethnic minorities or addressing past historical injustices. Although the issue of Hungarian minorities has remained non-violent in its manifestations, one need not look far to witness the enduring division caused by Trianon in the former Yugoslavia for example. The European Union's vague and often ambiguous minority protection framework has left gaping holes in continental and international legislation governing minority protection and human rights. This has resulted in blatant violations of minority rights in states with considerable minority populations and has often jeopardized regional stability and cooperation.
Escalations in political and ethnic tensions between Hungary and its neighbouring states has been buoyed by the rise of nationalistic governments in Slovakia, instability in the Balkans, and the passing of new citizenship legislations in Hungary. With only 21 years since the states of Central and Eastern Europe threw off the chains of Soviet oppression, the process of state and identity building continues. Ethnic cohesion is seen as a threat to statehood and therefore serves as a smokescreen. That smokescreen has left not only enduring hatreds but a perplexing ethnic problem: millions of Hungarians forced to live in states with abhorrent human rights records on ancestral lands. The rationale for which may never be fully understood.
Since joining NATO and the EU divisive ethnic issues have subsided as regional states focus their attention on internal reform and meeting political and economic pressures from Brussels. However, the legacy of an inequitable peace still haunts the future; and a resurgence of nationalism – albeit a restrained variant – has marked a disturbing trend across the region. In the context of European history the legacy of Trianon, still fresh, shapes the political landscape. Although territorial revisions are distant as a solution ethnic models such as autonomy, devolution, or self-determination are viable. While the very credibility of continental and international organizations has been questioned, the "Hungarian question" only affords time to the successor states to further degrade and destroy Hungarian minority enclaves.
If, in the words of David Lloyd George, the Paris peace violated and contravened the very principles that Europe stands for then a deserved redressing of Trianon is valid. Peace was not achieved and ethnic cohesion among the ethnicities of the region has never and will never be in full harmony. Trianon may not be an isolated event but its legacy and effect have ensured that the potential for conflict will always be in place.
Propaganda and populism aside, we must recognize that the very norms for which so many lives have been lost, and so many impasses overcome, fail to protect those who live in minority status. If we continue to pay lip service to those values we risk undermining the `European project' and, by effect, appeasing those nations such as Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Serbia who believe that there very future depends on suppressing their multi-ethnic character. While others will point to Hungary's intention of keeping the issue of Trianon alive, it is the neighbouring states who live the guilt of a host of heinous crimes against basic human rights. If any lesson may be learned by states with Hungarian minorities it is that lands may be appropriated but the spirit of a people and their cultural identity can survive.
As the inheritors of this ominous legacy we must shoulder a heavy burden to ensure justice is done not only for Hungarian minorities but all minorities. There is a belief that the safety of the European Union or international legislation is enough to protect minority communities. History has proven otherwise. Trianon has and will continue to symbolize not only a gross violation of human rights but a case of our own collective failures. As a new generation re-learns the "Hungarian question" we can only hope that new solutions may be found within the confines of international diplomacy and law. The legacy of Trianon haunts the region and, until corrected in some form, the historical narrative of Central and Eastern Europe will remain unfinished.
http://www.politics.hu/20110615/legacy-of-trianon-still-haunts-central-and-eastern-europe/
Bart Holthuis, chairman of the committee allocating compensation, says the women who have received compensation have all had serious psychological and physical problems deriving from years of abuse. They have attempted suicide and failed to build a normal relationship.
Family friend
These women were often abused for a long period at home by a chaplain or priest who was considered a friend of the family.
So far the church authorities have paid out €3.1 million to abuse victims. Compensation is made on a sliding scale of five.
On Monday, the Deetman Commission, which carried out the original investigation into church abuse, is presenting the results of a new report focusing on the abuse of women and girls.
Lessons
Meanwhile, a history researcher in Brabant has published a paper which shows trainee priests were given special lessons about sex from 1900 to 1965. These lessons not only included sexual positions but sex with animals, children and dead bodies.
‘Catholic spiritual leaders were actually very well informed about sex,’ René Bastiaanse of the Brabants Historisch Informatiecentrum, told news agency ANP.
The aim of providing such detailed knowledge was to help priests react to the confession of ‘sinners’, Bastiaanse said.
Berlusconi visited by "Nazi doctors", says PDL whip
(AGI) - Rome, Mar 9 - "A Stalinist court sent Nazi doctors to check on Berlusconi. They have issued a disgusting verdict," said PDL party whip Fabrizio Cicchitto. Doctors earlier declared Berlusconi fit to stand trial, while the former premier said he was not fit due to an eye problem. Cicchitto added: "At this point we are facing persecution by fanatics who have lost all sense of limits. We believe the situation is unsustainable from any point of view, both legal and institutional." .
__._,_.___
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, told TMZ: "Lucy Pinder shouldn't have any problem turning men's heads, so it is all the more gratuitous to see her wearing a priest's stole, stitched with crosses, nicely covering her plus-sized chest."
And he blasted: "If Lucy has any guts, perhaps next time she'll carefully drape herself in some Islamic garb during Ramadan. And then run for the hills."
A Loaded magazine spokesman told The Sun: "It wasn't aimed with the intention of upsetting the Catholic Church or the Vatican.
"However if they do want to consider Lucy Pinder for the Papal vacancy we will put it to her."
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4831262/Catholics-fury-at-Loadeds-Lucy-Pinder-Pope-cover-shoot.html
Catholics Support Gay Marriage More than Americans as a Whole
A new poll from Quinnipiac University finds the majority of American Catholics support marriage equality
http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2013/03/08/catholics-support-gay-marriage-more-americans-whole
Papal conclave: LA Catholics' turmoil at sex abuse past
While their former archbishop takes part in the conclave to choose the next pope, Catholics in Los Angeles deal with his complicated legacy. Will clergy sexual abuse - and its cover-up by church elders - harm the Church beyond repair?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21636704
North American Catholics want a liberal pope
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/north-american-catholics-want-a-liberal-pope/article9561407/
Among Catholics, increasing support for same-sex marriage
After surveying 497 adult Catholics and asking 1,944 registered voters nationwide, the poll found 54% of Catholic voters supporting the right for same-sex couples to marry, a jump from last December when 49% of Catholic supported it.
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/08/among-catholics-increasing-support-for-same-sex-marriage/
The Church doctrine, believers disconnect
Polls show most Canadian Catholics disagree with official stance on married and female priests, birth control, abortion and homosexuality
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Church+doctrine+believers+disconnect/8073921/story.html
Roman Catholic priests in Scotland were 'out of control sexually', claims former advisor
http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/roman-catholic-priests-in-scotland-were-out-of-control-sexually-claims-former-advisor_834086.html
Church modernisation is a mistake: Africa
“Modernisation has spoiled Catholics a little bit and they think they have to do whatever they want,” said Joseph Lwevuze, 58, who grows pineapples, coffee and other crops in a nearby village and teaches catechism at his local church.
“Homosexuality is a globalisation issue,” he said to illustrate his point. “It's a virus, if I can use today's computer language. It's a computer virus that's spreading. Even animals do not do it.”
Demands from Europe or the United States for reform of Church attitudes meet stiff opposition here. “The new pope needs to maintain and even tighten traditional Church teaching,” said brickmaker Frederick Lule, 25, who struggles to feed his wife and two children but honours the Catholic ban on artificial birth control and abortion.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/church-modernisation-is-a-mistake-africa-1.1483551
Why American Catholics Don't Understand Church Tradition
http://www.policymic.com/articles/28847/why-american-catholics-don-t-understand-church-tradition
The Catholic Church Is Out Of Touch With Its Members? Survey Results Questioned
“The survey doesn’t adequately reflect the distinction between practicing and non-practicing Catholics,” said Mark Brumley, president and CEO of Ignatius Press. “And while it is helpful to know what people say they think, what is right or wrong isn’t determined by a survey. The confused results show that the Church needs to be clearer, firmer and more persuasive in presenting her message, and not let people with little understanding of that message call the shots.
http://www.albanytribune.com/08032013-the-catholic-church-is-out-of-touch-with-its-members-survey-results-questioned/
Only two papal candidates 'clean' of sex abuse scandals, says victims group
A clergy abuse victims group has named cardinals from Austria and the Philippines as the only papal contenders untainted by sex abuse scandals
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/9917261/Only-two-papal-candidates-clean-of-sex-abuse-scandals-says-victims-group.html
Popes and demons: Mysterious Vatican bank poses problem for new pontiff
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/08/vatican-bank/
Pope Benedict's Latest Take on Islam
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Under Pope Benedict XVI's reign, the Vatican dossier on Islam could be entitled: "Regensburg, and Everything After." Regensburg was the professor Pope's landmark 2006 discourse at his former university that included a nasty historical citation about the prophet Mohammed and provocatively asked if Islam lacks reason, making it inherently prone to violence. The worldwide protests among Muslims, including a handful of church burnings and the killing of a nun, forced the Pope to quickly change his approach, and soften his tone.
But while he has spent the past two-plus years reaching out to Islamic leaders, Benedict has subtly tried to keep alive the hard questions he posed at the German university. Benedict has expanded on this formula since landing Friday in the moderate Muslim kingdom of Jordan, the first stop on his eight-day Holy Land pilgrimage. He told King Abdullah II upon his arrival in Amman that he has "deep respect" for Islam, and on Saturday he was welcomed in the country's largest mosque and gave another fascinating — if less radioactive — philosophical treatise. (See pictures chronicling the reign of Benedict XVI.)
Indeed, it is in dissecting this Pope's ideas — often now cloaked in more diplomatic language that was absent in Regensburg — that we can see that he is still preoccupied with the contemporary interplay (or lack thereof) of faith and reason, and the risk of rising inter-religious conflict. Speaking after a visit inside the al-Hussein Ben-Talal mosque, the Pope acknowledged that "tensions and divisions between the followers of different religious traditions, sadly, cannot be denied." But Benedict said that Muslims and Christians have a shared obligation to counter the contemporary idea that "religion is necessarily a cause of division in our world." Instead, he said, faith is in fact necessary in a world in which reason alone can become a form of extremism. "When human reason humbly allows itself to be purified by faith... it is strengthened to resist presumption and reach beyond its own limitations." (Check out a discussion on why the Pope can't help
the Christians in the Middle East.)
This idea of a faithless allegiance to reason as the cause of rising secularism is a concern of both Muslim and Christian leaders, and was a much less cited theme of his Regensburg lecture. But the source of tension two years ago was the flipside: Benedict's contention that Islam has an absolutist conception of God that doesn't leave room for reason. On Saturday, however lightly, he seemed to return to this point. "Christians describe God, among other ways, as creative Reason, which orders and guides the world," the Pope said. "Muslims worship God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, who has spoken to humanity." The Pope seems to still believe that this distinction — between Christian faith that is "purified" by human reason, and Muslim faith that is simply received from God — is worth deeper exploration with his Islamic counterparts. (Read about the five things the Pope must do on his Mideast trip.)
"Religion," he said at an earlier discourse Saturday, "can be corrupted .... when pressed into the service of ignorance or prejudice, contempt, violence and abuse." He called for a "mature belief in God." The speech at the mosque intertwined theology and a more nuanced view of current events than the purely philosophical discourse in 2006. "Often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division and at times even violence in society."
Jordan is the ideal setting to return to these sensitive themes, home to the royal Hashemite lineage that traces back to Mohammed, and a modern tradition of religious tolerance. This was also where a group of Islamic scholars from around the world first launched a response to Regensburg, which led to the creation of an official Muslim-Catholic dialogue that kicked off with a summit at the Vatican in November on the religions' shared principles of love of God and love of neighbor.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1897119,00.html
Pope Benedict's 2006 Regensburg Address - A Refresher Course
http://catholicfriendsofisrael.blogspot.ca/2009/04/pope-benedicts-2006-regensburg-address.html
http://popebenedictxvinews.blogspot.ca/2006/09/pope-benedict-xvi-on-faith-reason-and.html
Faith and reason
The main point of the Regensburg address was that faith and reason need each other as paths to truth. Benedict defended this as an essential part of Christian belief because the God who reveals Himself (faith) is also the author of the natural order and the human capacity to understand it (reason). The Pope highlighted that the prologue of John's Gospel begins, 'In the beginning was the word (logos),' and logos is the Greek word for reason. God is reasonable, and so to act contrary to reason is to act contrary to God.
Benedict asks if Islam conceives of God in the same way. Does Islam have an equivalent to the divine logos? Benedict raised the question of whether the Islamic conception of God as utterly transcendent, beyond all human categories, means that God is beyond reason itself. The suggestion is not that Allah is crazy or insane, but rather that he is not bound by a reason accessible to human beings.
Faith without reason gives rises to fundamentalism. Reason without faith produces a secularism that cannot address the most fundamental of human questions about origin, destiny and meaning. The bulk of Benedict's address was directed against the latter phenomenon, criticizing a modern secularism that has nothing to say to people of faith, and nothing to say about the foundations of human culture. In criticizing the neglect of reason in favour of faith alone, Benedict criticized a major figure in the history of Christian philosophy (Duns Scotus) who he considered to have made this mistake.
Growth of Islamic violence
So why, if that was Benedict's main point, get into Islam at all? Why the incendiary late-14th century quotation from Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus: 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'
One of the potential consequences of a faith-only fundamentalism is violence. Violent force - which by its nature does not seek to persuade - can grow out of a zeal to convert without recourse to reason. It is simply a fact that Islamic violence is a growing problem around the world. Muslims themselves are the first victims of it, but Christians in Islamic countries regularly face harassment and persecution. Benedict wants to clarify that the roots of this violence lie in a perversion of Islam, not its authentic theology. That's a task only Muslims can accomplish, but the Pope has a pulpit sufficient to draw attention to the issue.
http://www.saintanthonyofpadua.net/messaggero/pagina_stampa.asp?r=&id=346
A Loaded magazine spokesman told The Sun: "It wasn't aimed with the intention of upsetting the Catholic Church or the Vatican.
"However if they do want to consider Lucy Pinder for the Papal vacancy we will put it to her."
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4831262/Catholics-fury-at-Loadeds-Lucy-Pinder-Pope-cover-shoot.html
Catholics Support Gay Marriage More than Americans as a Whole
A new poll from Quinnipiac University finds the majority of American Catholics support marriage equality
http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2013/03/08/catholics-support-gay-marriage-more-americans-whole
Papal conclave: LA Catholics' turmoil at sex abuse past
While their former archbishop takes part in the conclave to choose the next pope, Catholics in Los Angeles deal with his complicated legacy. Will clergy sexual abuse - and its cover-up by church elders - harm the Church beyond repair?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21636704
North American Catholics want a liberal pope
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/north-american-catholics-want-a-liberal-pope/article9561407/
Among Catholics, increasing support for same-sex marriage
After surveying 497 adult Catholics and asking 1,944 registered voters nationwide, the poll found 54% of Catholic voters supporting the right for same-sex couples to marry, a jump from last December when 49% of Catholic supported it.
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/08/among-catholics-increasing-support-for-same-sex-marriage/
The Church doctrine, believers disconnect
Polls show most Canadian Catholics disagree with official stance on married and female priests, birth control, abortion and homosexuality
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Church+doctrine+believers+disconnect/8073921/story.html
Roman Catholic priests in Scotland were 'out of control sexually', claims former advisor
http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/roman-catholic-priests-in-scotland-were-out-of-control-sexually-claims-former-advisor_834086.html
Church modernisation is a mistake: Africa
“Modernisation has spoiled Catholics a little bit and they think they have to do whatever they want,” said Joseph Lwevuze, 58, who grows pineapples, coffee and other crops in a nearby village and teaches catechism at his local church.
“Homosexuality is a globalisation issue,” he said to illustrate his point. “It's a virus, if I can use today's computer language. It's a computer virus that's spreading. Even animals do not do it.”
Demands from Europe or the United States for reform of Church attitudes meet stiff opposition here. “The new pope needs to maintain and even tighten traditional Church teaching,” said brickmaker Frederick Lule, 25, who struggles to feed his wife and two children but honours the Catholic ban on artificial birth control and abortion.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/church-modernisation-is-a-mistake-africa-1.1483551
Why American Catholics Don't Understand Church Tradition
http://www.policymic.com/articles/28847/why-american-catholics-don-t-understand-church-tradition
The Catholic Church Is Out Of Touch With Its Members? Survey Results Questioned
“The survey doesn’t adequately reflect the distinction between practicing and non-practicing Catholics,” said Mark Brumley, president and CEO of Ignatius Press. “And while it is helpful to know what people say they think, what is right or wrong isn’t determined by a survey. The confused results show that the Church needs to be clearer, firmer and more persuasive in presenting her message, and not let people with little understanding of that message call the shots.
http://www.albanytribune.com/08032013-the-catholic-church-is-out-of-touch-with-its-members-survey-results-questioned/
Only two papal candidates 'clean' of sex abuse scandals, says victims group
A clergy abuse victims group has named cardinals from Austria and the Philippines as the only papal contenders untainted by sex abuse scandals
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/9917261/Only-two-papal-candidates-clean-of-sex-abuse-scandals-says-victims-group.html
Popes and demons: Mysterious Vatican bank poses problem for new pontiff
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/08/vatican-bank/
Pope Benedict's Latest Take on Islam
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Under Pope Benedict XVI's reign, the Vatican dossier on Islam could be entitled: "Regensburg, and Everything After." Regensburg was the professor Pope's landmark 2006 discourse at his former university that included a nasty historical citation about the prophet Mohammed and provocatively asked if Islam lacks reason, making it inherently prone to violence. The worldwide protests among Muslims, including a handful of church burnings and the killing of a nun, forced the Pope to quickly change his approach, and soften his tone.
But while he has spent the past two-plus years reaching out to Islamic leaders, Benedict has subtly tried to keep alive the hard questions he posed at the German university. Benedict has expanded on this formula since landing Friday in the moderate Muslim kingdom of Jordan, the first stop on his eight-day Holy Land pilgrimage. He told King Abdullah II upon his arrival in Amman that he has "deep respect" for Islam, and on Saturday he was welcomed in the country's largest mosque and gave another fascinating — if less radioactive — philosophical treatise. (See pictures chronicling the reign of Benedict XVI.)
Indeed, it is in dissecting this Pope's ideas — often now cloaked in more diplomatic language that was absent in Regensburg — that we can see that he is still preoccupied with the contemporary interplay (or lack thereof) of faith and reason, and the risk of rising inter-religious conflict. Speaking after a visit inside the al-Hussein Ben-Talal mosque, the Pope acknowledged that "tensions and divisions between the followers of different religious traditions, sadly, cannot be denied." But Benedict said that Muslims and Christians have a shared obligation to counter the contemporary idea that "religion is necessarily a cause of division in our world." Instead, he said, faith is in fact necessary in a world in which reason alone can become a form of extremism. "When human reason humbly allows itself to be purified by faith... it is strengthened to resist presumption and reach beyond its own limitations." (Check out a discussion on why the Pope can't help
the Christians in the Middle East.)
This idea of a faithless allegiance to reason as the cause of rising secularism is a concern of both Muslim and Christian leaders, and was a much less cited theme of his Regensburg lecture. But the source of tension two years ago was the flipside: Benedict's contention that Islam has an absolutist conception of God that doesn't leave room for reason. On Saturday, however lightly, he seemed to return to this point. "Christians describe God, among other ways, as creative Reason, which orders and guides the world," the Pope said. "Muslims worship God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, who has spoken to humanity." The Pope seems to still believe that this distinction — between Christian faith that is "purified" by human reason, and Muslim faith that is simply received from God — is worth deeper exploration with his Islamic counterparts. (Read about the five things the Pope must do on his Mideast trip.)
"Religion," he said at an earlier discourse Saturday, "can be corrupted .... when pressed into the service of ignorance or prejudice, contempt, violence and abuse." He called for a "mature belief in God." The speech at the mosque intertwined theology and a more nuanced view of current events than the purely philosophical discourse in 2006. "Often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division and at times even violence in society."
Jordan is the ideal setting to return to these sensitive themes, home to the royal Hashemite lineage that traces back to Mohammed, and a modern tradition of religious tolerance. This was also where a group of Islamic scholars from around the world first launched a response to Regensburg, which led to the creation of an official Muslim-Catholic dialogue that kicked off with a summit at the Vatican in November on the religions' shared principles of love of God and love of neighbor.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1897119,00.html
Pope Benedict's 2006 Regensburg Address - A Refresher Course
http://catholicfriendsofisrael.blogspot.ca/2009/04/pope-benedicts-2006-regensburg-address.html
http://popebenedictxvinews.blogspot.ca/2006/09/pope-benedict-xvi-on-faith-reason-and.html
Faith and reason
The main point of the Regensburg address was that faith and reason need each other as paths to truth. Benedict defended this as an essential part of Christian belief because the God who reveals Himself (faith) is also the author of the natural order and the human capacity to understand it (reason). The Pope highlighted that the prologue of John's Gospel begins, 'In the beginning was the word (logos),' and logos is the Greek word for reason. God is reasonable, and so to act contrary to reason is to act contrary to God.
Benedict asks if Islam conceives of God in the same way. Does Islam have an equivalent to the divine logos? Benedict raised the question of whether the Islamic conception of God as utterly transcendent, beyond all human categories, means that God is beyond reason itself. The suggestion is not that Allah is crazy or insane, but rather that he is not bound by a reason accessible to human beings.
Faith without reason gives rises to fundamentalism. Reason without faith produces a secularism that cannot address the most fundamental of human questions about origin, destiny and meaning. The bulk of Benedict's address was directed against the latter phenomenon, criticizing a modern secularism that has nothing to say to people of faith, and nothing to say about the foundations of human culture. In criticizing the neglect of reason in favour of faith alone, Benedict criticized a major figure in the history of Christian philosophy (Duns Scotus) who he considered to have made this mistake.
Growth of Islamic violence
So why, if that was Benedict's main point, get into Islam at all? Why the incendiary late-14th century quotation from Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus: 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'
One of the potential consequences of a faith-only fundamentalism is violence. Violent force - which by its nature does not seek to persuade - can grow out of a zeal to convert without recourse to reason. It is simply a fact that Islamic violence is a growing problem around the world. Muslims themselves are the first victims of it, but Christians in Islamic countries regularly face harassment and persecution. Benedict wants to clarify that the roots of this violence lie in a perversion of Islam, not its authentic theology. That's a task only Muslims can accomplish, but the Pope has a pulpit sufficient to draw attention to the issue.
http://www.saintanthonyofpadua.net/messaggero/pagina_stampa.asp?r=&id=346
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