Internationale Vrouwendag, reproduktie en de Bonte Was. Aartsbishop confesses: by excommunition I risk the lives of abused children.

BBC
Sunday, 8 March 2009
By Mike Sergeant

"I will not yield, I will not fall, I will eat dynamity and one day I will explode like a volcano"

Eva Gore-Booth uit: song for a raggy boy

Suicide vest or sex work? Fate of Iraq's grieving women

The shame of Iraq's pariah widows
By Mike Sergeant

BBC News, Baghdad

Sunday, 8 March 2009

Her husband and three brothers were killed. Her parents were already dead. Her house was burnt down. She was pregnant at the time and lost the baby.
But, in the months that followed, Nadia Hussein had to endure much more.

Now she lives at a refuge for women in the centre of Baghdad.
She spends her days cooking and feeding the pigeons. It's a place for her to escape the many dangers widows face in Iraq.

'Nephew beat me'

"After my husband died, I found work as a house keeper," she told me.
"A man and his brother tried to make advances on me. They tried to sexually assault me. I refused.
"My nephew, who is an alcoholic, also used to beat me and accuse me of bad things."
Nadia said the people at the refuge are now her only family. But she still asks for their approval before doing anything or going anywhere.
Her story is not particularly unusual. Accurate figures are hard to obtain, but even before the invasion in 2003, there were hundreds of thousands of widows in Iraq.

Many lost husbands in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. At the height of the violence of recent years, up to 100 women a day were becoming widows.
Almost everywhere you go in Baghdad, you can see them begging at traffic lights and outside mosques - dressed from head to toe in black.
The women are supposed to be given just over $1 (£0.70) a day from the government.
But a survey by the charity Oxfam has discovered that less than a quarter actually get the money.

'Will of God'
Many face physical and sexual abuse. Some are told to marry men who already have wives.

Shia tradition also permits "temporary marriages" - which only last for a matter of days or weeks.
A few widows have themselves wanted to die violently - there have been many attacks by female suicide bombers.
Umm Harith was trained to carry one out but she backed away from going through with it.
"When my husband died I felt very isolated," she said. "He always wanted me to be a suicide bomber.
"When he was killed, I wanted to blow myself up. I wanted to kill the people who took away the person who was most precious to me."
Most of the widows we spoke to in Baghdad, though, do not seem to be interested in revenge.
They accept what has happened to them as the "will of God".
Indeed those who campaign on their behalf say one of the hardest things is getting the widows to think that they deserve better lives.

"It's not just about legislation," said Hana Adwar, a campaigner for women's rights.
"The problem is the way people behave inside the family. The question is how to change attitudes and behaviour towards them."
Nightclub dancers

She estimates that 40% of all prostitutes in Iraq are widows.

Improvements in security have certainly led to some shady opportunities for those who have lost their husbands and income. Nightclubs have started to reopen in Baghdad.
We visited one of them. The scene would previously have been unthinkable.
Men were sitting around drinking alcohol, listening to music and being entertained by women dancing.
Involvement in any of those activities a couple of years ago could have got you killed in Iraq.

I talk to the singer who works there. He says women are employed just to dance and talk to the customers.
But he tells me there are many other nightclubs in Baghdad where widows will leave with men for the right price.

There are a few places in this city where the women can get help.
At one centre, they are being taught the skills they need to find jobs - like IT and nursing.
Many are illiterate, though, and jobs are hard to come by.

The support available is dwarfed by the scale of the problem.
Just 120 - of the many tens of thousands who lost husbands since 2003 - have been given somewhere to live at a trailer park on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Respect
Haifa Raheem is one of them.
Inside her aluminium trailer, there is almost no furniture and just a few mats on the floor.
She lives here with her seven children and her mother. The family is almost entirely dependent on handouts.
"It's horribly hot in the summer," she said. "Staying here is better than nothing.
"But it's so difficult for women and girls to walk around freely - because of our traditions and our culture."

There's talk of passing new laws, and finding extra money for the hundreds of thousands of widows.

But campaigners say what they need more than anything is more respect in Iraqi society.

foto's: BBC en Shirin Neshat

Irish bishop, aide to popes, quits in sex inquiry

Sat Mar 7, 2009
DUBLIN (Reuters) - An Irish bishop who served as a private secretary to three popes has quit his daily duties to deal with a sex-abuse inquiry in his diocese, the Roman Catholic Church said on Saturday.

John Magee, bishop of Cloyne in the south of Ireland since 1987, has been under fire for his handling of reports of sexual abuse in his diocese.

The church's moral authority in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Ireland has been eroded in recent years following a string of clerical sex abuse scandals, many of them involving priests molesting young boys.

The church has been faulted in large part for appearing to cover up the scandals, often by transferring priests to different parishes after complaints were made.

Magee had faced calls to resign since a commission set up by the church found last year his diocese had exposed children to risk by not responding appropriately to abuse allegations.

Magee will keep his title as bishop but Pope Benedict has appointed Archbishop Dermot Clifford as apostolic administrator to run the diocese, the church said.

"The decision of the Holy Father to grant that request is an indication of the importance which the Church gives to safeguarding children and caring for the needs of victims," Cardinal Sean Brady, archbishop of Armagh and primate of All Ireland, said in a statement.
Magee, born in 1936 in Northern Ireland, welcomed Clifford's appointment.

"This appointment will enable Bishop Magee to devote the necessary time and energy to cooperating fully with the government Commission of Inquiry into child protection practices and procedures in the Diocese of Cloyne, as he has already committed himself to do," the diocese quoted Magee as saying on its website.

Magee served as private secretary to popes Paul VI, Pope John Paul I and Pope John Paul II and in 1982 he was appointed Master of Pontifical Ceremonies.

Rabbi cross-examines daughter in sex trial

JTA
March 4, 2009

NEW YORK (JTA) -- A fervently Orthodox rabbi accused of sex crimes cross-examined his own daughter.
Rabbi Israel Weingarten, whose daughter accuses him of molesting her from age 9 to 16, is representing himself at the trial in Brooklyn federal court.
Weingarten, 59, questioned his daughter Tuesday, the day after she testified to the abuse she allegedly suffered by her father.
The presiding judge called the situation "awkward" and "fairly untenable," The Associated Press reported.
A member of a Satmar Chadisic community in upstate New York, Weingarten was arrested last year on charges he traveled outside the country to have sex with a minor. He is said to face up to 210 months in prison under sentencing guidelines.
In his opening statement Monday, he said he was falsely accused by his daughter, now 27, and asked jurors not to judge him by his Chasidic garb, which he compared to that worn by George Washington.
"I'm not that different when it comes to our forefathers who were fighting for freedom," he said.

SOS vrouwen en kinderen eerst; engeltjesmakers

Van sommige gelovigen vraag je je toch werkelijk af hoe die in godsnaam ooit aan een kind zijn gekomen.
Dat waren kennelijk spermabanken en vrouwen anonieme niet bestaande mensen.

anno 2009:

Forum: Actuele zaken. Geplaatst op 6/3 '09 14:29u. Onderwerp: Excommunicatie na
abortus (posts: 10, views: 0)

Abortus is en blijft moord op onschuldige kinderen zonder verweer. Nooit gehoord van keizersnede voor een geboorte? En later eventueel adoptie?

De moordaanslagen van de brave katholieke haan zonder kop rollen je te gemoed
Zelden, ik denk zelfs nooit, zo'n acurate samenvatting van de historische realiteit van zorg- afhankelijke kinderzorg gezien.

Dank U, Heer ( én vele vroede vrouwen)voor humane gezondheidszorg en wetgeving.
En voor de omkering in spermabankbeleid vanzelfsprekend.

Moge de paus, voor hen voor wie Deus Caritas Est te moeilijk is, opschieten met een kennelijk noodzakelijke dogma over schaap-en geitenneuken op basis waarvan ex-communicatie volgt.
Kan die Kerk daarna weer door over abortus en euthanasie.

Brazilie excomunicatie na abortus

Twee kinderverkrachtingen, beide door stiefvaders, gevolgd door zwangerschappen en levensnoodzakelijke abortussen deze week in Brazilië.

En ongelooflijke reacties van een kennelijk volslagen wereldvreemde imorele randidioot: Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, aartsbischop.

In Brazilie is abortus wettelijk verboden. Rond een miljoen illegale abortussen en de gevolgen ervan , een ziekenhuis verklaart dat er meer dan 215.000 levensnoodzakelijke post-abortieve curatages uitgevoerd worden, zijn de 4e doodsoorzaak bij vrouwen.

De wet voorziet wél in abortusmogelijkheden in geval van zwangerschap na verkrachting of levensgevaar voor de moeder.
De Kerk steigert tegenover wanneer de overheid als bij carnaval condooms wil uitdelen.

En toen ging meisjes verkrachting, in beide gevallen door een stiefvader, gevolgd door zwangerschap samen met het criminaliseren van vrouwen en hun gezondheidszorg...

En meende een imorele herder zijn punt maken ten koste van een 9 jarig kind, haar moeder en gezondheidszorgers.
Walgelijk genoeg een vent die, volgens de berichten, al knap wat strijd - maar dan met volwassenen! - voert om zijn kerkhierarchische positie.

Net zo min als ik een verkrachter of een andere tegen geloofswaarden ingaande leugenaar erken als priester erken ik géén mannen die maatschappelijk ethisch-theologische debatten voeren over de rug van een klein kind als te respecteren gezaghebbenden.

Zoals burgerlijk recht noodzakelijke gedragsregulering is maar daarmee niet automatisch rechtvaardigheid of zelfs moreel acceptabel is, is wat dat soort figuren dan wél zouden zijn slechts een canoniek rechterlijk vraag, die met mijn geloof niets te maken heeft.

De realiteitszin van gelovig lid te zijn van een geloofsgemeenschap die óók een misdadige (mannen)machtsorganisatie is.

Een kennelijk niets wetende moeder gaat met haar 9 jarige dochter naar een arts, om geconfronteerd te worden met dat haar al 3 jaar misbruikte dochters buikpijn een levensgevaarlijke tweelingzwangerschap is, wiens man tijdens een vluchtpoging wordt opgepakt, waarbij duidelijk wordt de stiefvader ook al jaren haar 14 jarige geestelijk gehandicapte dochter misbruikt, krijgt midden in al die ellende niet alleen politie en de parochie priester maar ook halsoverkop de gemijterde kerkprovincie - uitermate laks, understatement, in haar optreden tegen de pedofilie in eigen geledingen en kennelijk geen cent vertrouwen in haar parochiepriester, met een advocaat(!!).

Als die man, namens God, net zo gekeken heeft als op sommige foto's heeft het mens alleen al daardoor tot drie dagen na haar begrafenis de nachtmerries van. Door mijn schuld, door mijn allergrootste schuld.

Wanneer zij vervolgens het juridisch enig mogelijke doet in een levenbedreigende situatie van haar dochter, vragen om een abortus, meent het gemijterde gezag, haar aan te moeten klagen voor moord.

Om een dag later, wanneer de zwangerschap inderdaad beeindigd is en het kind gecurateerd moet worden, kennelijk om politieke redenen hard behoefte hebbend aan een zalig verklaring van haar aan haar zwangerschappen overleden kind, nog steeds de noodzakelijke hulp te onthouden en haar notabene kerkelijk te ex-communiceren.

En met haar de gezondheidswerkers die hun, ongetwijfeld afschuwelijk moeilijke, verantwoordelijkheid namen.

Dat de mijter daarmee onderwijl ook nog eens een krankzinnige toer uithaalde richting het Vaticaan met haar actuele problemen rond ex-communicatie al dan niet en wie dan wel van een kerkleer afwijzende én maatschappelijk uiterst onaanvaardbare club en het rookgordijn rond Murial Maciel Delgollado waarbij maar liefst de hoogste geledingen van die kerkelijke hierarchie persoonlijk bij betrokken zijn..... tja...

Een nachtmerrie en van die momenten dat je alleen maar kunt hopen op hele goede Zorg die menswaardig Leven weer dragelijk maken.

Misschien wel het moment om je handen te vouwen of een kaarsje op te steken voor die Zorgverleners, de moeder en het oudere zusje van dat wurm, je vragen stellend - meiden, wat nu? - zelfs tegen alle instincten in hopend dat de vader zijn gevangenschap zal overleven.


Een vent die een gods held wilde zijn. Wat een held, over de rug van een een kind.
Precies zoals dit 9 jarige urm waarover het openbaar ministerie van Pernambuco besloot dat zij niet terug mag naar haar eigen plek, maar in Recife zal moeten blijven: moge hij verbannen worden. En dat lijkt mij nog een zeer milde vervloeking!

De verbanning om haar eigen bestwil uit Pernambuco was niet alleen ten gevolge van de daden van die misbruikende stiefvader.
Daaraan hielp ook een publiciteitgeile-mijter-namens- god mee!



Braziliaanse instellingen die de rechten van de vrouwen, kinderen en adolescenten verdedigen, kanten zich vierkantig tegen de maatregel van de katholieke kerk. Theoloog en ex-professor van het PUC (katholieke universiteit) in São Paulo João Batistiole verklaarde: "Dit is een harde houding die moeilijk te begrijpen is, de mening van een instituut. Ik denk dat de kerk hierdoor aan geloofwaardigheid inboet bij zijn gelovigen".


"De wet schrijft voor dat een zwangerschap mag worden afgebroken in geval van verkrachting, of als het leven van de moeder in het geding is. Verder is het alleen de mening van de kerk. Ik ben hierdoor erg geschokt", liet Minister van Gezondheid José Gomes Temporão in een verklaring weten.
Zijn hierbij aanwezige collega van Milieu Carlos Minc, voegde daaraan toe "Ik wil hier een uitspraak doen als gewone burger: ik ben erg verontwaardigd. Dit kind werd het slachtoffer van seksueel geweld, heeft al een enorm trauma te verwerken. De kerk, in plaats van hulp te verlenen, maakt dit alles nog erger. Het slachtoffer word hier gecriminaliseerd".


Volgens de artsen gaat het, goddank! met het kind inmiddels goed.

Abortus tweeling 9-jarige na verkrachting door stiefvader

Zo schreed de beschaving voort...

Geplaatst door Theo Borgermans op donderdag 5 maart 2009 om 14:00u

SAO PAULO (RKnieuws.net) - Bij de negenjarige Braziliaanse die zwanger was van een tweeling, is abortus gepleegd. Ze was verkracht door haar stiefvader.

Abortus is normaal gesproken illegaal in Brazilië, maar omdat het leven van het kind in gevaar was, lieten de autoriteiten de ingreep toe. De kerk is woedend en schreeuwt moord en brand.De katholieke kerk dreigt met een aanklacht tegen de moeder van het meisje wegens moord. Het kind had de tweeling gewoon ter wereld moeten brengen, stelde de advocaat van het aartsbisdom Olinda en Recife. De verkrachter zit inmiddels achter slot en grendel. Hij misbruikte het meisje sinds haar zesde.

Onderzoek naar gezinnen die Jeugdzorg ontvluchten
donderdag, 05 maart 2009

(Novum) - De Tweede Kamer wil een onderzoek naar het aantal
gezinnen dat de grens over vlucht om te voorkomen dat de kinderen onder
toezicht worden gesteld of uit huis worden geplaatst. Kamerleden van PvdA, VVD
en CDA, die samen een meerderheid vormen in de Tweede Kamer, zeggen dit
donderdagavond in een uitzending van televisieprogramma Netwerk.
Uit de uitzending blijkt dat in ieder geval tientallen families uit angst voor Bureau
Jeugdzorg de grens over trekken. Een medewerker van het Comité Bijzondere
Jeugdzorg in Maaseik, die het noorden van het Belgische Limburg als werkterrein
heeft, vertelt zo'n tien tot vijftien Nederlandse gezinnen te begeleiden. Dat is
zo'n vijf tot acht procent van het hele dossierbestand van het bureau in
Maaseik.

Prachtig voorbeeld van leren van die kerkelijke Charitas! De Barnardo's van deze wereld zouden trots op ze zijn geweest.

Goodbye gruel world 1

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2009/03/01/confirma-corte-de-california-improcedencia-de-demanda-contra-rivera-carrera



California: confirma corte improcedencia de recurso contra Rivera Carrera
La demanda fue interpuesta hace 3 años por proteger presuntamente a un sacerdote acusado de pederastia.
La Jornada On Line Publicado: 01/03/2009 18:29
México, DF. La Corte Superior de California en Estados Unidos confirmó la improcedencia de la demanda interpuesta hace tres años por la Red de Sobrevivientes de Abusos Sexuales de Sacerdotes (SNAP) en contra de Norberto Rivera Carrera por presuntamente proteger al sacerdote Nicolás Aguilar, a quien se le imputa el abuso sexual de 40 niños en México y 27 en Estados Unidos.
Antes de finalizar con la misa del primer domingo de Cuaresma, Rivera Carrera dio a conocer la resolución emitida a su favor por la Corte de California en el caso en el que se le acusaba junto con la diócesis de Tehuacán, Puebla.
En la resolución se establece que California carece de competencia para intervenir en la demanda, dado que el actor de la misma, Joaquín Aguilar, es mexicano y reclama hechos presuntamente acontecidos en la ciudad de México en 1994, cuando el cardenal Rivera Carrera aún no era arzobispo de México.
El abogado en México del jerarca católico, Bernardo Fernández del Castillo, dio lectura al comunicado en el que informa que el pasado 4 de febrero la Corte Superior de California nuevamente se declaró sin competencia y da carácter de improcedente a la demanda de Joaquín Aguilar contra el cardenal por el caso de encubrimiento al sacerdote pederasta Nicolás Aguilar.
"Con lo anterior, la Suprema Corte de Justicia del Estado de California confirma la sentencia emitida el 17 de octubre de 2007 por el Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Los Ángeles, California”, dijo.
Los cargos de la SNAP contra Rivera Carrera son negligencia, retención de pruebas, conspiración para la pederastia y tratos con un delincuente. La acusación incluyó al cardenal Roger Mahony, arzobispo de Los Ángeles, California, debido a que ambos jerarcas habrían protegido a Nicolás Aguilar.

Goodbye gruel world ; Goede Herder Good Shepherd Bon Pasteur Gute Hirte Bom Pastor

Until their doors were closed in 1996, the Irish branch of the Roman Catholic Church sent more than 30,000 "fallen women"--prostitutes, single mothers, social activists, the poor and orphaned--to Dickensian forced-labor camps called Magdalene asylums.

Speaking was not allowed, food consisted of foul gruel; each day was a grind of backbreaking work in the for-profit laundries, uneasy sleep in hard-bed barracks, and punishment under the watch of sadistic Sisters of Mercy.

The unfortunate inmates sometimes lived out their entire lives inside institution walls.

The Magdalene Sisters, director/writer Peter Mullan's heartfelt indictment of this long obscure atrocity, is righteous, but its characters are unnecessarily reductive representatives of Innocence and Evil, with scant interest spent on the gray areas that inform the most awful actions.

The Magdalene Sisters opens with a series of miscalculations that reoccur throughout the film.

At a 1964 Dublin wedding, a priest, accompanied by a group of Gaelic musicians, pounds with mounting creepy ecstasy on a drum while Mullan crosscuts to young Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff) being raped by her cousin, to shots of crucifixes, and then to pious local menfolk.
As the music climaxes, it fairly well looks like the priest will do the same.

After this blunt hammering of the film's themes, Margaret is sent packing by her never-seen parents to a cold, miserable Magdalene asylum run by queen bitch Sister Bridget (Geraldine McEwan, easily out-eviling Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched).
We then journey through several overly compressed years in the spiritual charnel house as seen through the eyes of two other victims: Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone), a spirited minx, imprisoned for being attractive and looking at boys; and Rose (Dorothy Duffy), damned to the asylum when she conceives a child outside of wedlock.

The film achieves its first, no-caveats fine moment when two of the girls attempt to escape. Eventually, one succeeds, but the other gives in to long term Stockholm syndrome--believing herself to be unable to function in the real world, she turns back to the asylum to finish her life sentence. In-between, the film is a relentless horror-show litany of church-sanctioned awfulness. Whippings, starvation, isolation--nothing is spared in the church's efforts to turn their charges into hopeless, scripture-quoting automatons.

(The Vatican has condemned the film.)

How does one add nuance to such a tale of indisputable power abuse? Mullan, a fine, accomplished actor (The Claim, Trainspotting) and promising director, never finds out. With his tendency for over-underlining his scenes and a too sober tone, Mullan also allows the film's events to slide dangerously close to camp.

Two particularly demented nuns round up the girls for an accounting of their sins, which necessitates the girls stripping down to their christening suits.
As the nuns cackle with sadistic Sapphic intent, and the roving camera shows all, you could be excused for thinking you had stumbled in on a midnight Apex screening of Catholic Teen Love Slaves.

Overstatement again undermines things with the appearance of Crispina (Eileen Walsh), who, under Mullan's micromanaged direction, starts out a sweet simpleton but quickly dissolves into a Snake Pit-level wild-eyed and drooling insane person. You'd have to look to Crispin Glover to find a similar level of alienating histrionics.

On the other hand, the incredibly skilled Noone allows her Bernadette a recurring strain of nastiness without betraying her character's core decency. The film's second triumph comes when Bernadette tends to a dying woman who earlier went mad and then betrayed her.
Bernadette mocks the pitiful old woman but spares her a final delicate kiss.

It would have helped if Mullan had explored something beyond blunt (if repressed) sexual power as a motivation for his cruel nuns and pompous clergy.
More importantly, we never learn why the girls' parents are so eagerly complicit in their children's doom.

Still, it isn't so much Mullan's rookie-director gaffes that rob his film of its aggregate power, as it is current events outperforming historic awfulness.

To a degree, many of us have become numbed by the Catholic Church's dumbfounding day-in, day-out support of serial child-rapist priests, its traditional limits on women's rights, and recent anti-gay spew.
And our reaction to this film, like so many other more
important things, suffers for it.

Foto's: Nederland, Velp en Frankrijk, Angers, Arras, Bury, Loos, Marseille, Poitiers, Rouen, Sens, Straatsburg.

Dank je, J!

Appellation Contrôlée

Vatican's stance on UN drugs policy 'risks lives'

Duncan Campbell
The Guardian, Friday 27 February 2009

The Vatican has been accused of putting the lives of thousands at risk by attempting to influence UN drugs policy on the eve of a major international declaration.

The Vatican's objection to "harm reduction" strategies, such as needle exchange schemes, has ignited a fierce debate between the US and the EU over how drugs should be tackled.

A new UN declaration of intent is due to be signed in Vienna on 11 March. However, there are major disagreements between member countries over whether a commitment to "harm reduction" should be included in the document, which is published every 10 years.

Now the Vatican has issued a statement that claims that using drugs is "anti-life" and "so-called harm reduction leads to liberalisation of the use of drugs". The Vatican's last-minute intervention appears to have led to Italy withdrawing from the EU consensus on the issue and thrown the talks over the declaration into confusion.

In 1998, the declaration of intent was "a drug-free world - we can do it", which critics claimed was unrealistic and did not address the complex nature of drug treatment. In favour of including support for a harm reduction clause are most EU countries, Brazil and other Latin American countries, Australia and New Zealand. They argue that some commitment to tackling HIV and addiction through needle exchange programmes and methadone and other drugs should be included. Opposed to this are the US, Russia and Japan. The US position has been that such inclusion sends the wrong message, although there have been indications a more liberal policy might be adopted under Barack Obama.

"By making a statement against harm reduction, the Vatican has indicated that its moral objection to drug use is more important than its commitment to the sanctity of life," said Release, the UK-based drugs and legal advice charity.

"If the Vatican is allowed to influence the UN to adopt a naïve and ineffective drug policy, it will needlessly lead to the increased spread of blood-borne viruses and the death of thousands more people from HIV/Aids."

Release argues that drug treatment programmes are vital for people suffering from HIV/Aids and that not to accept this will put their lives at risk. "Needle and syringe exchange programmes have significantly contributed to the reduction of HIV transmission among people who use drugs," it said.

A spokesman for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) confirmed last night that "there are still differences of opinion" over the statement.

Other drug charities and foundations have also been critical of the Vatican's move. Mike Trace, chairman of the International Drug Policy Consortium, said: "Progressive governments, including the UK, are now faced with the dilemma of trying to rescue reasonable support for harm reduction or not sign the declaration."

Antonio Costa, the head of UNODC, has claimed harm reduction has been appropriated by "a vocal minority". He said in a speech last November: "This kind of harm reduction can prevent the spread of blood-borne diseases. But it does not solve the underlying problem, and can even perpetuate drug use."

bron

Description: Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ, addresses Card. Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State, during the inauguration ceremony of the new campus of Regina Apostolorum University on Via degli Aldobrandeschi in Rome.

Latin America: Mexican Catholic Church in Narco-Dollar Embarrassment

Mexican bishops deny church accepts donations from drug lords

Apr-7-2008By Brigitte Schmitt and David Agrenhttp://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801870.htm%22%3E

Catholic News Service

MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- Several Mexican bishops denied that the Catholic Church accepts donations from drug lords after the president of the Mexican bishops' conference said drug traffickers have been "very generous" to the church.

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City said the church condemns drug trafficking as a social evil and that it never accepts drug money. "The money that comes from narcotics trafficking is ill-gotten and therefore can't be cleaned through charity projects," he said April 5 in a statement released by the archdiocese.

Auxiliary Bishop Marcelino Hernandez Rodriguez of Mexico City emphasized during his homily April 6 that money laundering carried out by making donations to the church is completely unacceptable.

Archbishop Jose Martin Rabago of Leon, former president of the Mexican bishops' conference, categorically denied that clergy in his region accept donations from drug traffickers. He rejected suggestions that the church would sanction contributions from traffickers for social projects.

On several occasions, church officials have made it clear the church preaches salvation and that everyone who honestly repents will be forgiven. But this does not mean the church approves of drug trafficking or would accept "dirty money," said Archbishop Martin.
Bishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Texcoco, president of the Mexican bishops' conference, acknowledged that murderous narcotics trafficking gangs provide funding for the construction of churches in some of the country's most impoverished villages.

"They are generous and often they provide money for building a church or chapel," Bishop Aguiar said after the bishops' conference meeting April 1-4. He added that drug kingpins undertake other forms of "charity" by financing public works projects.

"In the communities where they work ... they will install electricity, establish communication links, highways (and) roads," he said in comments that received nationwide media attention.
The bishop emphasized that the church does not condone narcotics trafficking, but also that he was "saying how it is." He added that narcotics traffickers often come to prelates in search of spiritual guidance."There has been a rapprochement with them as it's known that discretion is going to be kept,"

Bishop Aguiar said. "What they want is to encounter peace in their consciences. What they're going to get from us is a sharp response: Change your life."
Comments from Catholic officials on the subject of donations from narcotics trafficking have been less clear in past years.
The late Bishop Ramon Godinez Flores of Aguascalientes drew intense criticism in 2005 after he said in a television interview that the church had no responsibility for scrutinizing the sources of large donations and that "all money can be transformed just as a corrupted person can also be transformed."His statements were quickly disavowed.

The Mexican government has been waging an ongoing battle against well-armed narcotics trafficking gangs. The battle, which has been a priority for President Felipe Calderon, has already claimed more than 857 lives in 2008, according to the Grupo Reforma newspaper chain, and largely has been carried out by members of the Mexican military.

To paint picture of stability, government ignored guerrillas - Chiapas, Mexico uprising

Cover Story National Catholic Reporter

Jan14, 1994 by John Ross