Pope Accepts Resignation of Irish Bishop

Bishop John Magee handed in his resignation to Pope Benedcit XVI on Wednesday due to his failure to report child-molesting clergy under his authority to the police. The resignation was accepted by the Pope.

Along with his resignation, the 73 year-old Bishop issued an apology to victims of these pedophile priests. "To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon."

The Bishop’s resignation marks another step in extensive defensive maneuevers the Vatican is presently involved in over accusations that they have been protecting child-abusers for too long. Just last week the Pope himself issues an unprecedented letter to Ireland which addressed the almost 20 years of cover-up scandals there.
Ireland, however, is not the only European country to be demanding answers from the Vatican.

Also, on Wednesday the German government announced a strong panel of experts to investigate the extent of pedophile activity in Catholic and other institutions for children. This could well open the door for abuse victims to pursue clergy and other church officials for civil damages and criminal liability, the Washington Post said.

(Read the full story at http://washingtonpost.com/faith Image portrays a man walking past the Papal Cross in Dublin's Phoenix Park.)

Nigeria Begin Prosecutions

Nigerian police spokesman, Mohammed Lerama, recently stated that authorities were planning to begin prosecuting around 200 suspects who allegedly had been involved in the slaughter of hundreds of people living in predominantly Christian villages in the Jos area. The two separate attacks were believed to have been carried out by Muslim extremists. Charges of terrorism and homicide will be laid.
The directory of Open Door’s Africa urged people to remember the daily fear that local Nigerian Christians were being forced to live under.

"I think it is also important to understand that the Nigerian Christians are not super human beings. We need to understand that those Christians in northern Nigeria face discrimination, humiliation and attacks on almost a daily basis," he stated. "They have built and rebuilt homes and churches so many times. They have gone to morgues to look for the bodies of their loved ones so often.”

The director went onto to say that local pastors were reporting that local people were becoming extremely reluctant to forgive these attacks, the Christian Post reports.

(Read the full story at www.christianpost.com)

Massive Church-Based Humanitarian Agency Initiated

Wednesday saw the formal unveiling of ACT Alliance, a merger of the disaster relief network ACT International and its partner organization ACT Development. ACT Alliance now acts as an umbrella body and coordinates all agencies related to the World Council of Churches in the areas of humanitarian emergencies and poverty reduction.

The general secretary of ACT Alliance, said that this new body provides the opportunity “to better link emergency humanitarian assistance and sustainable development.”

He went on to say that “When the emergency is over, and the funds run out, churches continue to be present; they are the organization at the end of the street or village, which remains when all others have gone. The ACT Alliance, with our faith to guide us and the continued support of all our partners and friends to sustain our work, can continue to bring relief to the needy, support to the oppressed and development to the impoverished."

In the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami, church-based relief agencies were critiqued for the lack of teamwork which resulted in redundant works and wastage of resources. Thus, ACT is an attempt to redress this situation. The world wide fellowship of churches were much more effectively organized through ACT during the Haiti earthquake, and the combination of the two agencies is an attempt to even further improve communication and teamwork.

WCC General Secretary the Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit said on Wednesday that “the ACT Alliance is a genuine expression of the ecumenical movement, the call to be one so that the world can believe that God is a loving and caring God for all humankind.”
ACT Alliance is an umbrella covering for more than 100 organizations working in long-term development and humanitarian assistance, and employs about 30,000 staff and volunteers working in 125 countries the Christian Post said.

(Read the full story at http://christianpost.com)

Last Supper Food Portions Becoming ‘Super-Sized’!

The apostles are eating more and more! An interesting study done by scholars shows that artistic illustrations of the Last Supper depict the food portions growing ever larger over the course of history. Between the years 1000 and 2000 the food on the plates has increased by 70% and the bread by 23%.

While the Gospels tell of several “super-sizing” miracles that Christ was involved in (the fish and loaves miracle for example), this latest substantial increase of food can be linked more to artistic perceptions than to Christ himself. A team of scholars have studied 52 artist’s renditions of the Last Supper and published their findings online on Tuesday in the International Journal of Obesity.

Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab and author of "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think " was quoted as saying “I think people assume that increased serving sizes, or 'portion distortion,' is a recent phenomenon, but this research indicates that it's a general trend for at least the last millennium."

To support their findings, Wansink and his brother Craig, a biblical scholar at Virginia Wesleyan College, studied 52 depictions of the Last Supper painted between the year 1000 and the year 2000. They used computers to compare the size of the disciple’s heads with the size of their plates, food and bread they found that food portions increased dramatically over the period of a millennium.

The Wansinks, are using this data to argue that portion growth may have a provenance far older than industrial farming and the economics of takeout food. Rather they propose that it is a natural result of “dramatic socio-historic increases in the production, availability, safety, abundance and affordability of food" over the millennium in question, said The Los Angeles Times.

(Read the full story at http://latimes.com/news)

Afghan Women Concerned That Hard-Fought Social Improvements Will Be Lost

The head-to-toe burqas that made women a faceless symbol of the Taliban's violently repressive rule are no longer required here. Yet many Afghan women say they still feel voiceless eight years into a war-torn democracy, and they point to government plans to forge peace with the Taliban as a prime example.

Gender activists say they have been pressing the ruling administration for a part in any deal-making with Taliban fighters and leaders, which is scheduled to be finalized at a summit in April. Instead, they said, they have been met with a silence that they see as a dispiriting reminder of the limits of progress Afghan women have made since 2001.

"We have not been approached by the government -- they never do," said Samira Hamidi, country director of the Afghan Women's Network, an umbrella group. "The belief is that women are not important,'' she said, describing a mind-set that she said "has not been changed in the past eight years."

The Taliban's repressive treatment of women helped galvanize international opposition in the 1990s, and by some measures democracy has completely changed Afghan women's lives. Their worry now is not about a Taliban takeover, Hamidi said, but that male leaders, behind closed doors and desperate for peace, might not compel Taliban leaders to accept, however grudgingly, that women's roles have altered.
Those concerns share roots with the misgivings voiced by many observers, including some U.S. officials, about Afghan efforts to forge a settlement with the Taliban, whose leaders promote an Islamist ideology that seems wholly at odds with rights the Afghan constitution guarantees.

In today's Afghanistan, females make up one-quarter of parliament, fill one-third of the nation's classrooms and even compete on "Afghan Idol."

But violence against them remains "endemic," according to the State Department. The percentage of female civil servants is steadily falling. Just one of 25 cabinet members is a woman, and female lawmakers say their opinions are often ignored.
(Read the full story at http://washingtonpost.com/faith - Image from www.rockpa.org)

Further Muslim-Christian Violence in Nigeria

Attackers killed at least 11 people Wednesday in a region of Nigeria that has been convulsed by violence between Muslims and Christians.

Muslim herdsmen, some dressed in military uniforms, attacked a predominantly Christian village at about 1 a.m. Wednesday near the city of Jos, close to where a machete-wielding Muslim group killed hundreds earlier this month, said Choji Gyang, special adviser on religious affairs to the governor of the Nigerian state of Plateau.

The dead included women and children, he said. The attackers, from the Fulani ethnic group, also injured at least four others and stole 120 cattle. Two people are still missing.

The violence has put much of oil-rich Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, on edge, with rumors circulating of more attacks. Authorities in Lagos took the unusual step of sending a text message to residents to try to put them at ease.

"Please be informed that the story of Fulanis trooping into Lagos for the past three days to cause chaos is baseless," the message said. "All security agencies have investigated this rumor individually and collectively and found that there's no iota of truth in it. Be advised to go about your lawful business without fear.
"All agencies remain committed to keep our state and country safe. We are fully alert. Thank-you and pass this message onto others."

Thousands of people in Plateau state have been killed in similar outbreaks of violence in the last ten years, said Corinne Dufka, a senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Though the violence often pits Christians and Muslims against each other, it has more to do with disputes over access to natural resources than religion, according to John Onaiyekan, the archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo also has said that the violence is ignited more by ethnic, social, and economic problems than religion.
"If you have one group or a community that has land that's been encroached upon by another community or even by itinerant cattle farmers, then the people who lay claim to the land will fight back," he recently said.

"If there are job opportunities in an area, and persons believe they are indigenous to that area, and (are) not getting enough out of the jobs that are available, they will fight those who are getting the jobs."

(For the full story please go to http://edition.cnn.com - Image from CNN.com)

Another Sex Scandal Rocks the Catholic Church

Brazilian authorities are investigating three priests accused of sexually abusing altar boys in Rio de Janiero after a video allegedly showing one case of abuse was broadcast on television, police and church officials said Tuesday.

The case came to light after the SBT network aired a video purportedly showing an 82-year-old priest having sex with a 19-year-old altar boy who worked for him for four years. Other young men appeared on the report saying that they, too, had been abused by Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa.

Other priests under investigation are Monsignor Raimundo Gomes, 52, and Father Edilson Duarte, 43, for allegedly having sexual relations with boys and young men.
According to a church statement, the three priests are "supposedly involved in acts (yet to be proven) of sexual abuse." The statement did not say whether the men admit or deny guilt. None of the priests could be located to ask about the case, and the church would not provide contact details for them.

A church official in the Penedo archdiocese, in the northeastern state of Alagoas, said the three have been suspended. A police official said the men are free pending the investigation, which should last until about a month. Both the church official and the policeman spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss any details pertaining to the case.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said officials there were aware of the case.

In its report last week, SBT showed footage of a man who looks like Barbosa having sex with the 19-year-old. It said the footage was secretly filmed in January 2009 by a 21-year-old man who charges Barbosa had abused him since age 12.
SBT said the video was sent anonymously to the network, and reporters went to the town of 200,000 people to investigate last month.

An SBT reporter visited Barbosa's house to conduct an interview and confront him with the allegations. Before raising the allegations of sexual abuse, the reporter asks if the priest had ever sinned.
"Who has never committed a sin?" Barbosa responds.

The priest is then asked if the region has problems with pedophilia.
"I think it is more (a problem) of homosexuality than pedophilia," Barbosa says.
Asked directly if he ever abused boys, Barbosa says he could only answer such a question "in confession." He then ends the interview, which was aired Thursday and posted on SBT's YouTube page.

Bishop Valerio Breda released a statement saying that in light of the "grave and lamentable facts made public on television," Barbosa and the two other priests had been suspended.

"We reproach, without restriction and with hearts broken by shame and sadness, the facts in the report which, despite their not having been proven, have outraged human and Christian conscience," Breda wrote.

He added that none of the alleged victims or their families had ever contacted the church regarding the allegations of abuse. Breda said the church was cooperating with police and would also conduct its own investigation.

(For the full story please go to http://www.google.com - Image from Google maps)