Saturday, December 31, 2022
Biden pardons 6 convicted of murder, drug, alcohol crimes
Story by By DARLENE SUPERVILLE and COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press • Yesterday 12:50 PM
The Associated Press
Biden pardons 6 convicted of murder, drug, alcohol crimes
KINGSHILL, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — President Joe Biden has pardoned six people who have served out sentences after convictions on a murder charge and drug- and alcohol-related crimes, including an 80-year-old woman convicted of killing her abusive husband about a half-century ago and a man who pleaded guilty to using a telephone for a cocaine transaction in the 1970s.
President Joe Biden salutes as he boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022. Biden and his family are traveling to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, to celebrate New Year. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)© Provided by The Associated Press
The pardons, announced Friday, mean the criminal record of the crimes is now purged. They come a few months after the Democratic president pardoned thousands of people convicted of “simple possession" of marijuana under federal law. He also pardoned three people earlier this year and has commuted the sentences of 75 others.
Biden's stance on low-level crimes, particularly low-level drug possession, and how those crimes can impact families and communities for decades to come has evolved over his 50 years in public service. In the 1990s, he supported crime legislation that increased arrest and incarceration rates for drug crimes, particularly for Black and Latino people. Biden has said people are right to question his stance on the bill, but he also has encouraged them to look at what he's doing now on crime.
The pardons were announced while the president was spending time with his family on St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The White House said those pardoned are people who went on to serve their communities. It said the pardons reflect Biden’s view people deserve a second chance.
Those granted pardons are:
— Beverly Ann Ibn-Tamas, 80, of Columbus, Ohio. At age 33, Ibn-Tamas was convicted of killing her husband. She testified that her husband beat her, verbally abused her and threatened her. She told jurors that she shot him moments after he had assaulted her, while she was pregnant. The judge refused to allow expert testimony on battered woman syndrome, a psychological condition that can develop among victims of domestic violence. Ibn-Tamas got one to five years of incarceration with credit for time served. Her appeal was among the first by someone with battered woman syndrome, and her case has been studied by academics.
— Charles Byrnes-Jackson, 77, of Swansea, South Carolina. Byrnes-Jackson pleaded guilty to possession and sale of spirits without tax stamps when he was 18, and it involved a single illegal whiskey transaction. He tried to enlist in the Marines but was rejected because of the conviction.
— John Dix Nock III, 72, of St. Augustine, Florida. Nock pleaded guilty to using his property as a grow-house for marijuana 27 years ago. He didn't cultivate the plants, but he got six months of community confinement. He now operates a general contracting business.
— Gary Parks Davis, 66, of Yuma, Arizona. When Davis was 22, he admitted using a telephone for a cocaine transaction. He served a six-month sentence on nights and weekends in a county jail and completed probation in 1981. After the offense, the White House says, Davis earned a college degree and worked steadily, including owning a landscaping business and managing construction projects. He has volunteered at his children’s high school and in his community.
— Edward Lincoln De Coito III, 50, of Dublin, California. De Coito pleaded guilty at age 23 to being involved in a marijuana trafficking conspiracy. He was released from prison in December 2000 after serving nearly two years. Before the offense, De Coito had served honorably in the U.S. Army and the Army Reserves and had received numerous awards.
— Vincente Ray Flores, 37, of Winters, California. As a 19-year-old, Flores consumed ecstasy and alcohol while serving in the Air Force, later pleading guilty at a special court-martial. He was sentenced to four months of confinement, loss of $2,800 in pay and a reduction in rank. Flores participated in a six-month rehab program that gives select enlisted offenders a chance to return to duty after therapy and education. His reduction in rank was amended, and he remains on active duty, earning medals and other awards for his service.
___
Long reported from Washington.
Friday, December 30, 2022
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Zelensky, BlackRock CEO agree to coordinate efforts to rebuild Ukraine
28.12.2022 12:00
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and Larry Fink, CEO of the world's largest investment company BlackRock, discussed the coordination of efforts of potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of Ukraine.
The meeting was held in a video conference format, Ukrinform reports, referring to the president’s press service.
According to the preliminary agreements between Volodymyr Zelensky and Larry Fink, the BlackRock team has been working for several months on a project to advise the Ukrainian government on how to structure the country’s reconstruction funds.
The President and BlackRock CEO agreed to focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of Ukraine, channelling investment into the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy.
During the conversation, it was emphasized that certain BlackRock leaders plan to visit Ukraine next year.
The President thanked Larry Fink for the work of the professional team that BlackRock formed to structure the reconstruction projects.
As reported, the Ministry of Economy signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the investment company BlackRock to agree a framework for consultative assistance regarding the development of a special platform for attracting private capital to restore Ukraine and support the economy.
Photo: President’s Office
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and Larry Fink, CEO of the world's largest investment company BlackRock, discussed the coordination of efforts of potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of Ukraine.
The meeting was held in a video conference format, Ukrinform reports, referring to the president’s press service.
According to the preliminary agreements between Volodymyr Zelensky and Larry Fink, the BlackRock team has been working for several months on a project to advise the Ukrainian government on how to structure the country’s reconstruction funds.
The President and BlackRock CEO agreed to focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of Ukraine, channelling investment into the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy.
During the conversation, it was emphasized that certain BlackRock leaders plan to visit Ukraine next year.
The President thanked Larry Fink for the work of the professional team that BlackRock formed to structure the reconstruction projects.
As reported, the Ministry of Economy signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the investment company BlackRock to agree a framework for consultative assistance regarding the development of a special platform for attracting private capital to restore Ukraine and support the economy.
Photo: President’s Office
The Great Carbon Con Is Coming to an End
MICHELLE YOU
Dec 20, 2022 7:00 AM
No more fluffy climate goals and emissions offsets. Businesses will soon be expected to show real progress.
ILLUSTRATION: YO HOSOYAMADA
A year after COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference which took place in November 2021, the number of FTSE 100 companies vowing to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 grew by 37 percent to 82 percent. Among the pledgers were some of the world’s biggest companies: Amazon, Apple, Ford, IBM, JP Morgan, Mars, and many others. But climate action is not just on the minds of industry giants: it’s a growing concern for every business as scrutiny grows.
Making a pledge is the easy part. In 2023, we will see businesses held to account for what they actually deliver. Organizations will be forced to show that the commitments they’ve made are meaningful, providing transparent and ongoing proof that they are taking necessary actions to reduce their carbon emissions.
Growing skepticism of over-ambitious, opaque, and even fraudulent climate pledges is turning up the heat on businesses. Already, we’re seeing customers voting with their wallets, employees choosing employers based primarily on net zero credentials, and investors making choices about what to fund based on tangible climate action. To put that in numbers, as many as 60 percent of millennials are willing to pay more for truly sustainable products; two-thirds of people are more likely to work for a company with strong and meaningful environmental policies; and research by Amazon has found that as many as 83 percent of investors want to invest in more sustainable startups.
For too long, businesses have been pouring investment into traditional emissions-avoidance offsets—paying someone else to reduce future emissions to compensate for their own. Emissions-avoidance offsets include clean cookstove projects, investment in renewable energy, and forestry protection.
As attention turns to delivery in 2023, awareness will grow that these traditional offsets are at best a distraction that doesn’t count towards net zero, and at worst are downright fraudulent. Until now, carbon avoidance offsets have been an easy, cheap way for businesses to tick the box of sustainability, letting them spin a story about commitment and willingness to tackle the climate crisis. In 2021, more than $1 billion of offsets were sold.
In 2023, businesses feeling pressure from all sides will need to look to other solutions if they want to demonstrate delivery. For instance, awareness of carbon-removal technologies has grown. There is now a broader understanding and acceptance that these technologies, which actively suck carbon out of the atmosphere through direct air capture, enhanced weathering, and other methods, are critical to reaching our global climate goals. And progress has been made—in 2022, a host of major players in Silicon Valley, including Google, Meta and Shopify, formed an alliance to commit $925 million in carbon removal by 2030. While this is a promising step, access to and investment in carbon-removal technologies must become mainstream if they are to go from being in their infancy to scaling at the pace the planet needs them to.
In 2023, a climate pledge will only be a baseline, the bare minimum. People across the board will demand more from the business they work for, spend money with, and invest in. Those that can’t demonstrate tangible progress towards their net zero goals will be left behind.
A year after COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference which took place in November 2021, the number of FTSE 100 companies vowing to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 grew by 37 percent to 82 percent. Among the pledgers were some of the world’s biggest companies: Amazon, Apple, Ford, IBM, JP Morgan, Mars, and many others. But climate action is not just on the minds of industry giants: it’s a growing concern for every business as scrutiny grows.
Making a pledge is the easy part. In 2023, we will see businesses held to account for what they actually deliver. Organizations will be forced to show that the commitments they’ve made are meaningful, providing transparent and ongoing proof that they are taking necessary actions to reduce their carbon emissions.
Growing skepticism of over-ambitious, opaque, and even fraudulent climate pledges is turning up the heat on businesses. Already, we’re seeing customers voting with their wallets, employees choosing employers based primarily on net zero credentials, and investors making choices about what to fund based on tangible climate action. To put that in numbers, as many as 60 percent of millennials are willing to pay more for truly sustainable products; two-thirds of people are more likely to work for a company with strong and meaningful environmental policies; and research by Amazon has found that as many as 83 percent of investors want to invest in more sustainable startups.
For too long, businesses have been pouring investment into traditional emissions-avoidance offsets—paying someone else to reduce future emissions to compensate for their own. Emissions-avoidance offsets include clean cookstove projects, investment in renewable energy, and forestry protection.
As attention turns to delivery in 2023, awareness will grow that these traditional offsets are at best a distraction that doesn’t count towards net zero, and at worst are downright fraudulent. Until now, carbon avoidance offsets have been an easy, cheap way for businesses to tick the box of sustainability, letting them spin a story about commitment and willingness to tackle the climate crisis. In 2021, more than $1 billion of offsets were sold.
In 2023, businesses feeling pressure from all sides will need to look to other solutions if they want to demonstrate delivery. For instance, awareness of carbon-removal technologies has grown. There is now a broader understanding and acceptance that these technologies, which actively suck carbon out of the atmosphere through direct air capture, enhanced weathering, and other methods, are critical to reaching our global climate goals. And progress has been made—in 2022, a host of major players in Silicon Valley, including Google, Meta and Shopify, formed an alliance to commit $925 million in carbon removal by 2030. While this is a promising step, access to and investment in carbon-removal technologies must become mainstream if they are to go from being in their infancy to scaling at the pace the planet needs them to.
In 2023, a climate pledge will only be a baseline, the bare minimum. People across the board will demand more from the business they work for, spend money with, and invest in. Those that can’t demonstrate tangible progress towards their net zero goals will be left behind.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
Monday, December 26, 2022
Sunday, December 25, 2022
Saturday, December 24, 2022
"one cutteth a tree out of the forest"
For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
Jeremiah 10:3-5.
Friday, December 23, 2022
Thursday, December 22, 2022
Transcript: Pope Francis’s speech to Congress
Pope Francis addresses a joint meeting of Congress urging lawmakers to take action on climate change, and sharing his views on the death penalty and immigration. (AP)
The following is the prepared text of Pope Francis’s address to a joint meeting of Congress, delivered Thursday in Washington.
Mr. Vice-President,
Mr. Speaker,
Honorable Members of Congress,
From his private meeting with President Obama to giving the first-ever papal address before a joint session of Congress, Pope Francis did not shy away from politics during his three-day stop in Washington, D.C. (Julie Percha/The Washington Post)
Dear Friends,
I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility.
Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.
Yours is a work which makes me reflect in two ways on the figure of Moses. On the one hand, the patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of peoples to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation. On the other, the figure of Moses leads us directly to God and thus to the transcendent dignity of the human being. Moses provides us with a good synthesis of your work: you are asked to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face.
Today I would like not only to address you, but through you the entire people of the United States. Here, together with their representatives, I would like to take this opportunity to dialogue with the many thousands of men and women who strive each day to do an honest day’s work, to bring home their daily bread, to save money and –one step at a time – to build a better life for their families. These are men and women who are not concerned simply with paying their taxes, but in their own quiet way sustain the life of society. They generate solidarity by their actions, and they create organizations which offer a helping hand to those most in need.
I would also like to enter into dialogue with the many elderly persons who are a storehouse of wisdom forged by experience, and who seek in many ways, especially through volunteer work, to share their stories and their insights. I know that many of them are retired, but still active; they keep working to build up this land. I also want to dialogue with all those young people who are working to realize their great and noble aspirations, who are not led astray by facile proposals, and who face difficult situations, often as a result of immaturity on the part of many adults. I wish to dialogue with all of you, and I would like to do so through the historical memory of your people.
My visit takes place at a time when men and women of good will are marking the anniversaries of several great Americans. The complexities of history and the reality of human weakness notwithstanding, these men and women, for all their many differences and limitations, were able by hard work and self-sacrifice – some at the cost of their lives – to build a better future. They shaped fundamental values which will endure forever in the spirit of the American people. A people with this spirit can live through many crises, tensions and conflicts, while always finding the resources to move forward, and to do so with dignity. These men and women offer us a way of seeing and interpreting reality. In honoring their memory, we are inspired, even amid conflicts, and in the here and now of each day, to draw upon our deepest cultural reserves.
Highlights from Pope Francis’s second full day in the U.S.
The pontiff became the first pope to address a joint meeting of Congress. He also paid visits to St. Patrick’s Church and Catholic Charities before departing for New York.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Addresses Joint Meeting of Congress
NOTE: Speech begins @ approximately 20:00 Mins.
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Monday, December 19, 2022
Who Runs the World? Dismantling the Matrix, Confronting the Shadow
Who Runs the World? Dismantling the Matrix, Confronting the Shadow
David DeGraw
Dec 17
I don’t have much time to write, but out of love and respect for you and your family, I have a duty and responsibility to post the truth here in very clear language.
Some people will instantly dismiss this, roll their eyes and scroll away… tragically, they do so at their own peril.
Truth is not for the faint of heart, we have many battle scars to prove that.
However, if you want to survive, please hear me out.
Ease your preconceived notions for a few minutes, because if you are not proactively defending yourself, you will be completely enslaved soon.
Sounds like hyperbole, nonetheless, it is a very real present danger.
In fact, you are surrounded, and the predators are closing in, right now.
Everyone is under individual-specific attack.
Full Spectrum Unconventional Warfare.
You need to understand the battlefield to effectively navigate the covert oppressive forces that are spiraling around you.
As crazy as this all sounds, we can explain it to you in detail.
We are at war, every one of us, whether you want to believe it or not is irrelevant.
World War III has been launched against you, against us, to enslave as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.
Gaining A.I. control over as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, that is the Globalist’s New World Order strategic agenda.
As they describe it, “manufacturing bodies and minds” is the new A.I.-driven arms race.
Hence, COVID, with the experimental mRNA gene-editing nanotech bull market to kick things off.
And that’s just one piece to the puzzle, reality is so far from the absurd illusions that the old mainstream media cast.
Unlearn all that propaganda, quickly, the mainstream media is a cesspool of misinformation, a clusterfink of psychological operations run amok.
Sunday, December 18, 2022
Pope Francis puts Matteo Ricci on path to sainthood
December 17, 2022
A portrait of Matteo Ricci, date unknown. (Wikimedia Commons)
Recognizing that Matteo Ricci “lived the Christian virtues to a heroic degree,” Pope Francis has officially put the famous 16th-century Italian Jesuit missionary to China on the path to sainthood.
On Dec. 17, the Vatican announced that the pope has authorized Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints, to promulgate a degree recognizing “the heroic virtues of the Servant of God, Matteo Ricci, a professed priest of the Society of Jesus, [who was] born at Macerata, Italy, on Oct. 6, 1552, and died in Peking [now Beijing], China, on May 11, 1610.”
Pope Francis described Father Ricci as "a man of encounters, who went beyond being a foreigner and became a citizen of the world.”
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Pope Francis is known to be inspired by Father Ricci, and the decree comes on the pope’s 86th birthday today. The Vatican’s announcement is also an important one for the Catholic Church in China and its 12 million members.
In a meeting last May with a delegation from the University of Macerata, Pope Francis described Father Ricci as a “champion” of the “culture of dialogue.” He said, the Jesuit missionary is famed not only for his actions and his writings, but for being "a man of encounters, who went beyond being a foreigner and became a citizen of the world.”
Father Ricci began his missionary work in China in 1582 when he arrived in Macau, then a Portuguese colony. Moving to mainland China, where he adopted the Chinese style of life and became fluent in the Chinese language, he spent the remaining 27 years of his life in China.
Father Ricci made history in 1601 by becoming the first European to enter China’s Forbidden City in Peking (now Beijing); the Wanli Emperor of China’s Ming dynasty had invited him because of his knowledge of astronomy and calendrical science. Known as “Li Madou” to the Chinese, Father Ricci produced scholarly works in optics, astronomy, music, geography, geometry and numerous other fields.
Known as “Li Madou” to the Chinese, Father Ricci produced scholarly works in optics, astronomy, music, geography, geometry and numerous other fields.
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Father Ricci subsequently converted several prominent Chinese officials to Christianity, including Xu Guangqi, a Chinese scholar and a high-ranking official in the Chinese government. Xu Guangqi’s cause for sainthood is also under consideration and had been hoped to be announced together with the cause of Father Ricci, but that was not possible due to the difficulty of getting access to the necessary documentation in the Diocese of Shanghai.
Father Ricci cooperated together with Xu Guangqi and others in translating Western classics like Euclid’s Elements into Chinese and translating important Confucian texts into Latin. In an unprecedented honor, at his death he became the first Westerner to be buried in Imperial Ground in the capital city by a special decree of the Chinese emperor. (Previously, all foreigners who died in China were taken to Macau for burial). His grave is in the Zhalan Cemetery on the grounds of the Beijing Administrative College, previously the Beijing Communist Party School.
The Chinese recognize Father Ricci as a bridge builder between the East and the West, and have honored him by commemorating him in the Millenium Monument in Beijing, the only other Westerner so honored is Marco Polo.
The diocesan phase of Father Ricci’s cause was opened in 1984. Documentation attesting to his achievements and personal holiness was collected and sent to the Vatican’s congregation (now dicastery) for the causes of the saints in 2014. In Rome, the postulator of the cause prepared what is known as the “positio,” a summary of the documentary evidence from the diocesan phase that aims to prove that Ricci lived the Christian life and virtues in a heroic way. The Christian virtues are of two kinds: the “cardinal” virtues of justice, temperance, prudence and fortitude, and the “theological” virtues of faith, hope and love.
The positio was then submitted to a committee of nine theologians, who concluded by voting that Matteo Ricci had lived a Christian life to a heroic degree. Father Ricci’s cause was next examined by the cardinals and bishops who are members of the dicastery. After their vote in favor of the cause, the pope authorized the dicastery to draft a decree declaring Father Ricci “Venerable.”
In order for the pope to declare him blessed (the next step on the path to sainthood), the postulator of the cause will need to provide evidence of a miracle through the intercession of Matteo Ricci; by Vatican convention, a second miracle will be needed for him to be declared a saint.
Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner met Pope Francis before Aaron Judge signing
Published December 8, 2022 5:55pm EST
Steinbrenner might have prayed Judge would choose Yankees in free agency
By Scott Thompson | Fox News
The Aaron Judge sweepstakes seemed to be swaying in the direction of the San Francisco Giants, though that report was later backtracked. Even so, many believed Judge was going to play for his hometown team instead.
That is until Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner got on the phone to call Judge and ask what he needed to remain in pinstripes.
But that phone call didn't come until Steinbrenner met Pope Francis during his vacation in Italy.
FILE - New York Yankees' Aaron Judge (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
The Aaron Judge sweepstakes seemed to be swaying in the direction of the San Francisco Giants, though that report was later backtracked. Even so, many believed Judge was going to play for his hometown team instead.
That is until Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner got on the phone to call Judge and ask what he needed to remain in pinstripes.
But that phone call didn't come until Steinbrenner met Pope Francis during his vacation in Italy.
FILE - New York Yankees' Aaron Judge (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
A photo was posted via YES Network that showed Steinbrenner about to shake hands with Pope Francis on Dec. 1.
Five days later, Steinbrenner called Judge from Italy when the Giants seemed to be gaining some traction to figure out how to keep their perennial All-Star and potential next captain in the Bronx, per SNY.
The answer was an extra year to make it a total of nine at $360 million. The Yankees had a deal.
Judge ended up turning down the Giants and reportedly the San Diego Padres and their $400 million offer.
FILE - New York Yankees' Aaron Judge ended up turning down the Giants and reportedly the San Diego Padres and their $400 million offer. (Thomas A. Ferrara/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
With the massive multiyear deal, which is now the highest AAV for a position player in MLB history, the SNY report says it’s "likely" the Yankees will also name Judge their next captain since Derek Jeter.
After winning the AL MVP this past season with his record-setting performance, Judge was always going to cash in after leaving the Yankees’ Opening Day offer on the table and betting on himself.
FILE - Hal Steinbrenner, managing general partner of the New York Yankees (J. Conrad Williams Jr./Newsday RM via Getty Images)
New York is ultimately where he wanted to be, but it was never a sure-fire decision. Steinbrenner sealed the deal, and perhaps it had a bit of a divine touch.
Scott Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Friday, December 16, 2022
Thursday, December 15, 2022
Wednesday, December 14, 2022
Pope asks world leaders for clemency for prisoners in run-up to Christmas
Pope Francis washes the feet of prison inmates during Holy Thursday Mass (ANSA)
POPE
POPE
Pope Francis writes a letter to Heads of State asking them to grant a pardon to prison inmates who are "are held to be eligible to benefit from such a provision."
By Salvatore Cernuzio
Pope Francis has asked for a "gesture of clemency" for prison inmates in the run-up to Christmas.
In a letter addressed to all Heads of State, he invites them to make a symbolic gesture "towards our brothers and sisters who are deprived of their liberty and who are held eligible to benefit from such a provision".
“So that this time marked by tensions, injustice and conflicts may be opened to the grace that comes from the Lord.”
This is the motivation reported in a statement issued on Monday by the Director of the Vatican Press Office, Matteo Bruni.
Washing the feet of prisoners: "God always forgives"
The request for clemency for prisoners has distant roots that go back to the Great Jubilee Year 2000 when St. Pope John Paul II asked the world's rulers for a pardon for prisoners in the 11-page document for the Jubilee in Prisons.
It was late June, a little over a week later, when on 9 July Pope John Paul II visited Rome's Regina Coeli prison as part of the Jubilee of Prisoners, and in the name of Jesus who was "imprisoned, mocked, judged and condemned", asked "the competent authorities" for a reduction of the sentence to allow prisoners to build a new life once out of prison.
This request was reiterated again on 14 November 2002 to senators and deputies he met during his visit to the Italian Parliament.
The 2016 Jubilee for Prisoners
Following in his predecessor's footsteps, Pope Francis has shown his closeness to prison inmates in the course of many of his apostolic visits and in other instances, in particular during the Holy Thursday ceremony of the washing of the feet.
During the 2016 Holy Year of Mercy, on the occasion of the Jubilee of Prisoners on 6 November, during the Angelus after Mass in St. Peter's Basilica with prisoners, he urged governments to grant them "an act of clemency".
On that occasion, Pope Francis issued an appeal “in favour of improving the living conditions in prisons throughout the world, that the human dignity of detainees be fully respected.“
He also reflected on "the need for a criminal justice system that is not exclusively punitive, but open to hope and the prospect of reintegrating the offender into society.“
“In a special way, I submit for the consideration of the competent civil authorities of every country the possibility that, in this Holy Year of Mercy, an act of clemency be carried out for those prisoners who are held to be eligible to benefit from such a provision.”
Today, as we near Christmas, he issues a similar invitation.
Copyright © 2017-2022 Dicasterium pro Communicatione - All rights reserved.
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Monday, December 12, 2022
Roundtable COVID-19 Vaccines What They Are, How They Work and Possible Causes of Injuries 12-7-22
NOTE:
The Discussion begins @ approximately 6:26:00 Mins.
The Reinvention of the Catholic Church
Scandals have taken a toll, and faith is flagging in Europe and the U.S. But Catholicism isn’t on the wane—it’s changing in influential ways.
Photo-illustration by Chantal Jahchan. Source: Vatican Pool / Getty.
DECEMBER 11, 2022, 7 AM ET
In may 2021, a time when public gatherings in England were strictly limited because of the coronavirus pandemic, the British tabloids were caught off guard by a stealth celebrity wedding in London. Westminster Cathedral—the “mother church” of Roman Catholics in England and Wales—was abruptly closed on a Saturday afternoon. Soon the groom and bride arrived: Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds, a Catholic and a former Conservative Party press officer with whom he had fathered a child the previous year. A priest duly presided over the marriage, despite the fact that the Catholic Church opposes divorce and sex outside marriage, and that Johnson had been married twice before and had taken up with Symonds before securing a divorce. It was an inadvertently vivid display of the Church’s efforts to accommodate its teachings to worldly circumstances.
That same month, Church-state relations in the United States took a fresh turn when the Supreme Court decided to hear a case from Mississippi that challenged the legal right to abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade. The Court’s decision reflected the power of its conservative majority, whose six members include five traditionalist Catholics. And it augured an eventual victory in a 50-year campaign against legal abortion, a movement anchored from the start in the Church teaching that life begins at conception—an absolute position on an issue that ordinary Catholics, like most other Americans, disagree about. The victory came this past June, when the Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Together, these episodes point up an incongruous recent development: the Catholic Church’s assertive presence in public life even as Catholic faith and practice recede in families, schools, and neighborhoods in America and across Europe. As John T. McGreevy observes in Catholicism: A Global History From the French Revolution to Pope Francis, signs that the Church has lost vitality are abundant. Europe has seen parish closures, shrinking numbers of priests, dwindling attendance at weekly Mass, and steady departures from the faith. In the U.S., more than a third of people raised Catholic “no longer identify as such.” The clerical sexual-abuse scandals have ravaged the Church’s credibility, cost it billions of dollars, and put some of its leaders under criminal investigation.
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Catastrophic Contagion
LESSONS FROM THE EXERCISE
PARTICIPANTS
PHOTOS AND VIDEOS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our Work > Tabletop Exercises > Catastrophic Contagion > About Catastrophic Contagion
Catastrophic Contagion
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in partnership with WHO and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, conducted Catastrophic Contagion, a pandemic tabletop exercise at the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on October 23, 2022.
The extraordinary group of participants consisted of 10 current and former Health Ministers and senior public health officials from Senegal, Rwanda, Nigeria, Angola, Liberia, Singapore, India, Germany, as well as Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The exercise simulated a series of WHO emergency health advisory board meetings addressing a fictional pandemic set in the near future. Participants grappled with how to respond to an epidemic located in one part of the world that then spread rapidly, becoming a pandemic with a higher fatality rate than COVID-19 and disproportionately affecting children and young people.
Participants were challenged to make urgent policy decisions with limited information in the face of uncertainty. Each problem and choice had serious health, economic, and social ramifications.
Lessons | Participants | Photos and Videos | Acknowledgments
Here We Go! Bill Gates, Johns Hopkins, & the WHO Just Simulated Another Pandemic
Almost 3 years to the day, the same people behind Event 201 just completed a desktop simulation for a new Enterovirus originating near Brazil. The virus has a higher fatality rate than COVID-19 and disproportionately affects children.
Saturday, December 10, 2022
Friday, December 09, 2022
COP27: What was agreed at the Sharm el Sheikh climate conference?
By Esme Stallard
BBC News Climate and Science
8 December 2022
A new global climate pact - the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan - was agreed at the COP27 summit.
It included a historic commitment by richer nations to give money to developing nations to help them recover from the damage and economic losses wreaked from ongoing climate change impacts.
This comes after a year of devastating climate change-related disasters, from severe floods in Pakistan to ongoing drought in East Africa.
But there was also disappointment expressed by some world leaders that there was no agreement to reduce fossil fuel usage.
What was in the COP27 Plan?
The plan - although not legally binding - has provided new ambitions for the world's nations on climate change.
New money
For the first time countries agreed to establish a "loss and damage" fund.
This will be a pot of money to help poorer nations recover from the impacts of climate change, such as destroyed homes, flooded land or lost income from dried-out crops.
Previously, these countries have only received money for mitigation - efforts to move away from fossil fuels, and adaptation. This is money to prepare for the future impacts of climate change.
The issue of loss and damage has been highly controversial. Richer nations have previously not wanted to agree to a new fund as they thought it would make them liable to cover all economic losses from climate change.
How much countries will get from the fund - and by when - is still to be decided.
Thursday, December 08, 2022
Computer Science Students Face a Shrinking Big Tech Job Market
A new reality is setting in for students and recent graduates who spent years honing themselves for careers at the largest tech companies.
Annalice Ni, 22, was disappointed when Meta laid her off from her job as a software engineer last month. Now she is using the opportunity to expand her career horizons.Credit...Jason Henry for The New York Times
By Natasha Singer and Kalley Huang
Natasha Singer and Kalley Huang report on tech companies and their societal impacts.
Dec. 6, 2022
By Natasha Singer and Kalley Huang
Natasha Singer and Kalley Huang report on tech companies and their societal impacts.
Dec. 6, 2022
Ever since she was a 10th grader in Seattle, Annalice Ni wanted to develop software for a prominent tech company like Google. So she went to great lengths to meet the internship and other résumé criteria that make students attractive hires to the biggest tech firms.
In high school, Ms. Ni took computer science courses, interned at Microsoft and volunteered as a coding teacher for younger students. She majored in computer science at the University of Washington, earning coveted software engineering internships at Facebook. After graduating from college this year, she moved to Silicon Valley to start her dream job as a software engineer at Meta, Facebook’s parent company.
Then last month, Meta laid off more than 11,000 employees — including Ms. Ni.
“I did feel very frustrated and disappointed and maybe a bit scared because all of a sudden, I didn’t know what to do,” Ms. Ni, 22, said of her unexpected career setback. “There’s not much I could have done, especially in college, more than I already did, better than I already did.”
Over the last decade, the prospect of six-figure starting salaries, perks like free food and the chance to work on apps used by billions led young people to stampede toward computer science — the study of computer programming and processes like algorithms — on college campuses across the United States. The number of undergraduates majoring in the subject more than tripled from 2011 to 2021, to nearly 136,000 students, according to the Computing Research Association, which tracks computing degrees at about 200 universities.
Tuesday, December 06, 2022
Monday, December 05, 2022
New York City to Involuntarily Remove Mentally Ill People From Streets
Mayor Eric Adams directed the police and emergency medical workers to hospitalize people they deemed too mentally ill to care for themselves, even if they posed no threat to others.
In a speech on Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams issued a directive telling city agencies to transport people with severe mental illness to hospitals.Credit...Benjamin Norman for The New York Times
By Andy Newman and Emma G. Fitzsimmons
Published Nov. 29, 2022
Updated Dec. 1, 2022
Acting to address “a crisis we see all around us” toward the end of a year that has seen a string of high-profile crimes involving homeless people, Mayor Eric Adams announced a major push on Tuesday to remove people with severe, untreated mental illness from the city’s streets and subways.
Mr. Adams, who has made clearing homeless encampments a priority since taking office in January, said the effort would require involuntarily hospitalizing people who were a danger to themselves, even if they posed no risk of harm to others, arguing the city had a “moral obligation” to help them.
Acting to address “a crisis we see all around us” toward the end of a year that has seen a string of high-profile crimes involving homeless people, Mayor Eric Adams announced a major push on Tuesday to remove people with severe, untreated mental illness from the city’s streets and subways.
Mr. Adams, who has made clearing homeless encampments a priority since taking office in January, said the effort would require involuntarily hospitalizing people who were a danger to themselves, even if they posed no risk of harm to others, arguing the city had a “moral obligation” to help them.
Sunday, December 04, 2022
Why paganism and witchcraft are making a comeback
Opinion, Analysis, Essays
CULTURE & LIFESTYLE
On a recent trip to Salem, Massachusetts, I overheard the same question: Is magic really real? For me, the answer is yes.
Witches take part in the Witches' Magic Circle in Salem, Mass., on Oct. 31, 2018. Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images file
Oct. 30, 2022, 7:00 AM EDT
Oct. 30, 2022, 7:00 AM EDT
By Antonio Pagliarulo, author of the forthcoming “The Evil Eye: The History, Mystery, and Magic of the Quiet Curse”
Two weeks ago in the run-up to Halloween, I visited Salem, Massachusetts, for the first time since the pandemic began. In renewing my annual Halloween pilgrimage, I was bowled over by what I found in the Witch City: bigger crowds, longer lines and a wider and welcome array of merchandise geared toward many different religious traditions and ethnic identities.
Amid the curious crowds in black capes and conical hats, bags overflowing with DIY spell kits and candles to enhance prosperity, I overheard the same question: Is magic really real?
Witchcraft, which includes Wicca, paganism, folk magic and other New Age traditions, is one of the fastest-growing spiritual paths in America.
For me, the answer is yes.
I am one of a million-plus Americans who — whether proudly, secretly or dabbling through the power of consumerism — practice some form of witchcraft. Witchcraft, which includes Wicca, paganism, folk magic and other New Age traditions, is one of the fastest-growing spiritual paths in America.
In 1990, Trinity College in Connecticut estimated there were 8,000 adherents of Wicca. In 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau figure was 342,000. A 2014 Pew Research Center study increased that projection several times over in assessing that 0.4% of Americans identified as pagan, Wiccan or New Age. (Most modern pagan worship, of which Wicca is one type, draws on pre-Christian traditions in revering nature.) By 2050, it said, the number of Americans practicing “other religions” — faiths outside Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism — would triple “due largely to switching into other religions (such as Wicca and pagan religions).”
The precise number of witches in America is difficult to determine because many practitioners are solitary and, either by choice or circumstance, do not openly identify as such. But the growth is evident, especially to those who’ve made it their life’s work to study the community.
“It’s clearly increasing,” said Helen A. Berger, who spoke to me on the phone last week. Berger is one of the foremost academic experts on contemporary witchcraft and paganism in America and draws knowledge about its appeal from surveys she’s co-conducted on the pagan community.
All of Us Are in Danger: When Anti-Government Speech Becomes Sedition
By John Whitehead, 06 October, 2022
Anti-government speech has become a four-letter word.
In more and more cases, the government is declaring war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.
Indeed, there is a long and growing list of the kinds of speech that the government considers dangerous enough to red flag and subject to censorship, surveillance, investigation and prosecution: hate speech, conspiratorial speech, treasonous speech, threatening speech, inflammatory speech, radical speech, anti-government speech, extremist speech, etc.
Things are about to get even dicier for those who believe in fully exercising their right to political expression.
Indeed, the government’s seditious conspiracy charges against Stewart Rhodes, the founder of Oath Keepers, and several of his associates for their alleged involvement in the January 6 Capitol riots puts the entire concept of anti-government political expression on trial.
Enacted during the Civil War to prosecute secessionists, seditious conspiracy makes it a crime for two or more individuals to conspire to “‘overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force’ the U.S. government, or to levy war against it, or to oppose by force and try to prevent the execution of any law.”
It’s a hard charge to prove, and the government’s track record hasn’t been the greatest.
It’s been almost a decade since the government tried to make a seditious conspiracy charge stick—against a small Christian militia accused of plotting to kill a police officer and attack attendees at his funeral in order to start a civil war—and it lost the case.
Although the government was able to show that the Hutaree had strong anti-government views, the judge ruled in U.S. v. Stone that “[O]ffensive speech and a conspiracy to do something other than forcibly resist a positive show of authority by the Federal Government is not enough to sustain a charge of seditious conspiracy.”
Whether or not prosecutors are able to prove their case that Rhodes and his followers intended to actually overthrow the government, the blowback will be felt far and wide by anyone whose political views can be labeled “anti-government.”
In a First, Rich Countries Agree to Pay for Climate Damages in Poor Nations
After 30 years of deadlock, a new U.N. climate agreement aims to pay developing countries for loss and damage caused by global warming. But huge questions remain about how it would work.
Climate activists at a protest on Saturday at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.Credit...Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters
By Brad Plumer, Lisa Friedman, Max Bearak and Jenny Gross
By Brad Plumer, Lisa Friedman, Max Bearak and Jenny Gross
Nov. 19, 2022
SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — Negotiators from nearly 200 countries concluded two weeks of talks early Sunday in which their main achievement was agreeing to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters made worse by the pollution spewed by wealthy nations that is dangerously heating the planet.
The decision regarding payments for climate damage marked a breakthrough on one of the most contentious issues at United Nations climate negotiations. For more than three decades, developing nations have pressed for loss and damage money, asking rich, industrialized countries to provide compensation for the costs of destructive storms, heat waves and droughts fueled by global warming.
But the United States and other wealthy countries had long blocked the idea, for fear that they could be held legally liable for the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.
The agreement hammered out in this Red Sea resort town says nations cannot be held legally liable for payments. The deal calls for a committee with representatives from 24 countries to work over the next year to figure out exactly what form the fund should take, which countries should contribute and where the money should go. Many of the other details are still to be determined.
The creation of a loss and damage fund was almost derailed by disputes that ran into the dawn hours of Sunday over other elements of a broader agreement, including how deeply countries should cut their emissions and whether to include language that explicitly called for a phaseout of fossil fuels, including coal, natural gas and oil. By 5 a.m. in Egypt, negotiators were still debating those other measures.
Developing nations — largely from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and South Pacific — fought first to place the loss and damage fund on the formal agenda of the two-week summit. And then they were relentless in their pressure campaign, arguing that it was a matter of justice, noting they did little to contribute to a crisis that threatens their existence. They made it clear that a summit held on the African continent that ended without addressing loss and damage would be seen as a moral failure.
“The announcement offers hope to vulnerable communities all over the world who are fighting for their survival from climate stress,” said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s minister for climate change. “And gives some credibility to the COP process.”
Saturday, December 03, 2022
Friday, December 02, 2022
Thursday, December 01, 2022
Pope to Bartholomew: Only dialogue and encounter can overcome conflicts
Pope Francis and H.B. Batholomew I of Constantinople (Vatican Media)
A Vatican Delegation led by Cardinal Sandri visits Istanbul for the occasion of the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle and conveys Pope Francis’ “fraternal affection” to the Ecumenic Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew. In his message the Pope says that one of the most fruitful areas of cooperation between the Patriarchate and the Catholic Church is interreligious dialogue to promote peace.
By Lisa Zengarini
Following a long-standing tradition, on the occasion of today’s Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, patron saint of Constantinople, Pope Francis has sent a delegation to Istanbul to convey his greetings and the assurance of his “fraternal affection” to the Ecumenic Patriarch Bartholomew.
The annual exchanges of Delegations
The visit is part of the annual exchange of Delegations between the Holy See and the Patriarchate for their respective patronal feasts, on 29 June in Rome, the Feast of St. Peter and Paul, and on 30 November in Istanbul.
In his message, Pope Francis notes that these visits are “an expression of the depth of the bonds” uniting the Catholic and Orthodox Church of Constantinople and “a visible sign” of their “cherished hope for ever deeper communion”, which he says is “an irrevocable commitment for every Christian” as well as “an urgent priority in today’s world”.
“Today’s world is greatly in need of reconciliation, fraternity and unity.”
Divisions are the result of sinful action
The Pope further highlights the need to continue analyzing the historical and theological reasons at the origin of the ongoing divisions between the two Churches “in a spirit that is neither polemical nor apologetic but marked instead by authentic dialogue and mutual openness”.
Likewise, he continues, they must “acknowledge that divisions are the result of sinful actions and attitudes which impede the work of the Holy Spirit, who guides the faithful into unity in legitimate diversity”.
They are therefore called “to work towards the restoration of unity between Christians not merely through signed agreements but through fidelity to the Father’s will and discernment of the promptings of the Spirit”.
“We can be thankful to God that our Churches are not resigned to past and current experiences of division, but, on the contrary, through prayer and fraternal charity are seeking instead to achieve full communion that will enable us one day, in God’s time, to gather together at the same Eucharistic table”
The Pope remarks that as they journey together toward the goal of unity, the Catholic Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate are already working together for the common good of the human family in many areas including safeguarding creation, defending the dignity of every person, combatting modern forms of slavery, and promoting peace.
Dialogue and encounter are the only viable path for overcoming conflicts
One of the most fruitful areas of such cooperation, the message says, is interreligious dialogue.
The Pope recalls in particular his recent Apostolic Journey to Bahrain for the occasion of the Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence”, reiterating once again that “Dialogue and encounter are the only viable path for overcoming conflicts and all forms of violence”.
Prayers for the victims of the recent attack in Istanbul
Concluding his message Pope Francis recalls the victims of the recent terrorist attack in Istanbul on 12 November, entrusting them to the mercy of God, while praying he will convert the hearts of those who commit or support such evil actions.
Greetings to Bartholomew during the Wednesday General Audience
The Pope greeted his “dear brother” Bartholomew again during his Wednesday General audience. After his Catechesis, he asked the intercession of the Apostles Peter and Andrew for unity among Christians and peace in the world, especially in “tormented Ukraine”
“May the intercession of the holy brother Apostles Peter and Andrew soon allow the Church to fully enjoy her unity and peace to the whole world, especially at this moment to dear and tormented Ukraine, always in our hearts and in our prayers.”
May St Andrew "teach us to seek the Messiah at every moment of our lives and to proclaim him with joy to all those around us", he then said addressing the Spanish-speaking pilgrims.
The Vatican Delegation
According to the Holy See’s Press Office, the Pope’s message was consigned to H.B. Batholomew by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri and read out at the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy presided over by the Ecumenical Patriarch, His Holiness Bartholomew, in the Patriarchal church of St. George at the Fanar.
The Prefect Emeritus of the Dicastery for the Oriental Churches is accompanied by Mgr. Andrea Palmieri, Undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity. After the Liturgy presided over by the Ecumenic Patriarch, the Vatican Delegation, joined by the Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey, Archbishop Marek Solczyński. met with the Patriarch and held conversations with the Synodal Commission in charge of relations with the Catholic Church.
A Vatican Delegation led by Cardinal Sandri visits Istanbul for the occasion of the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle and conveys Pope Francis’ “fraternal affection” to the Ecumenic Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew. In his message the Pope says that one of the most fruitful areas of cooperation between the Patriarchate and the Catholic Church is interreligious dialogue to promote peace.
By Lisa Zengarini
Following a long-standing tradition, on the occasion of today’s Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, patron saint of Constantinople, Pope Francis has sent a delegation to Istanbul to convey his greetings and the assurance of his “fraternal affection” to the Ecumenic Patriarch Bartholomew.
The annual exchanges of Delegations
The visit is part of the annual exchange of Delegations between the Holy See and the Patriarchate for their respective patronal feasts, on 29 June in Rome, the Feast of St. Peter and Paul, and on 30 November in Istanbul.
In his message, Pope Francis notes that these visits are “an expression of the depth of the bonds” uniting the Catholic and Orthodox Church of Constantinople and “a visible sign” of their “cherished hope for ever deeper communion”, which he says is “an irrevocable commitment for every Christian” as well as “an urgent priority in today’s world”.
“Today’s world is greatly in need of reconciliation, fraternity and unity.”
Divisions are the result of sinful action
The Pope further highlights the need to continue analyzing the historical and theological reasons at the origin of the ongoing divisions between the two Churches “in a spirit that is neither polemical nor apologetic but marked instead by authentic dialogue and mutual openness”.
Likewise, he continues, they must “acknowledge that divisions are the result of sinful actions and attitudes which impede the work of the Holy Spirit, who guides the faithful into unity in legitimate diversity”.
They are therefore called “to work towards the restoration of unity between Christians not merely through signed agreements but through fidelity to the Father’s will and discernment of the promptings of the Spirit”.
“We can be thankful to God that our Churches are not resigned to past and current experiences of division, but, on the contrary, through prayer and fraternal charity are seeking instead to achieve full communion that will enable us one day, in God’s time, to gather together at the same Eucharistic table”
The Pope remarks that as they journey together toward the goal of unity, the Catholic Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate are already working together for the common good of the human family in many areas including safeguarding creation, defending the dignity of every person, combatting modern forms of slavery, and promoting peace.
Dialogue and encounter are the only viable path for overcoming conflicts
One of the most fruitful areas of such cooperation, the message says, is interreligious dialogue.
The Pope recalls in particular his recent Apostolic Journey to Bahrain for the occasion of the Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence”, reiterating once again that “Dialogue and encounter are the only viable path for overcoming conflicts and all forms of violence”.
Prayers for the victims of the recent attack in Istanbul
Concluding his message Pope Francis recalls the victims of the recent terrorist attack in Istanbul on 12 November, entrusting them to the mercy of God, while praying he will convert the hearts of those who commit or support such evil actions.
Greetings to Bartholomew during the Wednesday General Audience
The Pope greeted his “dear brother” Bartholomew again during his Wednesday General audience. After his Catechesis, he asked the intercession of the Apostles Peter and Andrew for unity among Christians and peace in the world, especially in “tormented Ukraine”
“May the intercession of the holy brother Apostles Peter and Andrew soon allow the Church to fully enjoy her unity and peace to the whole world, especially at this moment to dear and tormented Ukraine, always in our hearts and in our prayers.”
May St Andrew "teach us to seek the Messiah at every moment of our lives and to proclaim him with joy to all those around us", he then said addressing the Spanish-speaking pilgrims.
The Vatican Delegation
According to the Holy See’s Press Office, the Pope’s message was consigned to H.B. Batholomew by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri and read out at the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy presided over by the Ecumenical Patriarch, His Holiness Bartholomew, in the Patriarchal church of St. George at the Fanar.
The Prefect Emeritus of the Dicastery for the Oriental Churches is accompanied by Mgr. Andrea Palmieri, Undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity. After the Liturgy presided over by the Ecumenic Patriarch, the Vatican Delegation, joined by the Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey, Archbishop Marek Solczyński. met with the Patriarch and held conversations with the Synodal Commission in charge of relations with the Catholic Church.
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Monday, November 28, 2022
Sunday, November 27, 2022
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Friday, November 25, 2022
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Germany: Adventist Conductor Herbert Blomstedt Awarded the Federal Cross of Merit
Photo: Paul Yates
THE SWEDISH CONDUCTOR HERBERT BLOMSTEDT TURNED 95 THIS YEAR.
NOV 14, 2022APD, EUDNEWS.
GERMANY: ADVENTIST CONDUCTOR HERBERT BLOMSTEDT AWARDED THE FEDERAL CROSS OF MERIT
On November 10, the Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt was awarded the Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his life's work at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.
The Prime Minister of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, presented the award and paid tribute to Blomstedt with the words: "Maestro Blomstedt, we are all full of admiration for your vitality and mental elasticity, for your strength without doggedness," reported Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk in its TV programme MDR-Aktuell.
In a statement distributed in advance, Kretschmer described Blomstedt as a "bridge builder in the best sense of the word". He stands for the unifying function of culture in Europe and throughout the world. Blomstedt had already received the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2003. Now he also holds the award with a star.
"Music is his source of strength"
"I am, of course, delighted to be honoured with such an award by a country in which I have lived for a long time and [in which I] had been the leader of two of the best orchestras - namely the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Staatskappelle Dresden," Herbert Blomstedt told MDR. Despite a fall, the consequences of which forced him to conduct sitting down, he feels "as fit as ever". Music is his source of strength, "that can't be ignored", according to the MDR report.
Conductor of numerous orchestras
Blomstedt was born, to an Adventist pastor couple, on July 11, 1927, in the USA, but moved with his parents to their native Sweden at the age of two. He received his first musical education at the Royal Conservatory in Stockholm and at Uppsala University. He later studied conducting at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, contemporary music in Darmstadt, and Renaissance and Baroque music at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, and worked under Igor Markevitch in Salzburg and Leonard Bernstein in Tanglewood/USA.
In February 1954, Blomstedt made his conducting debut with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. Later, as principal conductor, he led important Scandinavian orchestras such as the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Danish and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestras, staying with the latter until 1983. From 1975 to 1985, he was principal conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. For the next ten years, he was music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. From 1996 to 1998, he was principal conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg, and he conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1998 to 2005. To this day, he regularly conducts concerts of various major orchestras in America, Japan and Europe. He currently conducts concerts in the Leipzig Gewandhaus and was a guest in the Dresden Frauenkirche in cooperation with the Sächsische Staatskapelle in the summer.
Numerous awards
Herbert Blomstedt is an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and has received several honorary doctorates. He remains associated with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, of which he was the 18th Kapellmeister, as an honorary conductor. Six other orchestras also awarded him this distinction: the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Japan, the Danish and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestras as well as the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and the Staatskapelle Dresden, which had already honoured him with the Golden Honorary Pin in 2007.
In 2013, a biography about Herbert Blomstedt was published, entitled "Mein Leben - ein grosser Gesang (My life - a great song)". It is not commercially available and was written by freelance author Ursula Weigert for his friends.
His vitality was “a gift”
In an interview with the New York Times newspaper in February 2017, Blomstedt talked about the secret of how he manages this workload at his age.
"It is a gift," Blomstedt emphasised. Asked about his weekly day of rest, the conductor explained why he does not rehearse on the Sabbath (Saturday) but does perform with the orchestras: "I thought of my father [who was a pastor]: He prepared his sermon very thoroughly during the week. On Fridays, at sunset, he would close his books and spend time with the family; but on the Sabbath he would preach the sermon. I love to rehearse, to work with the orchestra. But on Sabbath we don't practise anymore - we just play what we have rehearsed together. And that is a blessing for all of us," says Blomstedt.
Blomstedt Prize for students at Friedensau University of Applied Sciences
Herbert Blomstedt has also endowed a prize himself. In memory of his wife Waltraud, who died in 2003, the Adventist Theological College Friedensau near Magdeburg has been awarding the "Waltraud and Herbert Blomstedt Prize" since 2008. The prize is awarded to Friedensau students for excellent bachelor’s or master's theses in the fields of theology and Christian social work or for a particularly worthy artistic achievement in the field of music.
To read the original article, please go here.
Pope sacks leadership of worldwide Catholic charity, names commissioner
November 22, 2022 1:24 PM EST
By Philip Pullella
Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Nick Macfie and Bill Berkrot
By Philip Pullella
Pope Francis holds a mass at Asti Cathedral, in Asti, Italy November 20, 2022. Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS
VATICAN CITY, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Tuesday fired the entire leadership of the Roman Catholic Church's worldwide charity arm following accusations of bullying and humiliation of employees, and appointed a commissioner to run it.
The surprise move involved the executives of Caritas Internationalis (CI), a Vatican-based confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social services organisations working in more 200 countries.
The sackings of the executive level of CI, which has more than a million staff and volunteers around the world, were announced in a papal decree released by the Vatican press office.
A separate statement from the Vatican's development department, which oversees CI, said a review of the workplace environment this year by external management and psychological experts found malaise and bad management practices at its headquarters.
Current and former staffers told Reuters of cases of verbal abuse, favouritism, and general human resources mismanagement that had led some staff to leave. CI is based in a Vatican-owned building in Rome.
"No evidence emerged of financial mismanagement or sexual impropriety, but other important themes and areas for urgent attention emerged from the panel's work," the statement from the development office said.
"Real deficiencies were noted in management and procedures, seriously prejudicing team spirit and staff morale," it said.
It said that while "financial matters have been well-handled and fundraising goals regularly achieved", management norms and procedures had to be improved.
A CI spokesperson referred all questions to the statement.
Among those affected by the decree was Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who was nominally president of Caritas but was not involved in the day-to-day operations. His main job at the Vatican is head of the Church's missionary arm.
The president's position is traditionally held by a cardinal.
Tagle, a Filipino who is often considered a possible future pope, will step down as president but remain in a new role to help the commissioner keep up relations with national Caritas offices and prepare for election of a new leadership next year.
Two current Caritas insiders and one former staffer, all of whom spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said the decree was aimed at the management practices by the office of the outgoing secretary general and the board.
The former staffer said employees had left jobs at the headquarters because of a climate of bullying, fear and "ritual humiliation".
Apart from Tagle and one priest, all members of the CI executive were lay people.
(This story has been corrected to say that departures were in Rome, not outside Italy in paragraph 14).
VATICAN CITY, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Tuesday fired the entire leadership of the Roman Catholic Church's worldwide charity arm following accusations of bullying and humiliation of employees, and appointed a commissioner to run it.
The surprise move involved the executives of Caritas Internationalis (CI), a Vatican-based confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social services organisations working in more 200 countries.
The sackings of the executive level of CI, which has more than a million staff and volunteers around the world, were announced in a papal decree released by the Vatican press office.
A separate statement from the Vatican's development department, which oversees CI, said a review of the workplace environment this year by external management and psychological experts found malaise and bad management practices at its headquarters.
Current and former staffers told Reuters of cases of verbal abuse, favouritism, and general human resources mismanagement that had led some staff to leave. CI is based in a Vatican-owned building in Rome.
"No evidence emerged of financial mismanagement or sexual impropriety, but other important themes and areas for urgent attention emerged from the panel's work," the statement from the development office said.
"Real deficiencies were noted in management and procedures, seriously prejudicing team spirit and staff morale," it said.
It said that while "financial matters have been well-handled and fundraising goals regularly achieved", management norms and procedures had to be improved.
A CI spokesperson referred all questions to the statement.
Among those affected by the decree was Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who was nominally president of Caritas but was not involved in the day-to-day operations. His main job at the Vatican is head of the Church's missionary arm.
The president's position is traditionally held by a cardinal.
Tagle, a Filipino who is often considered a possible future pope, will step down as president but remain in a new role to help the commissioner keep up relations with national Caritas offices and prepare for election of a new leadership next year.
Two current Caritas insiders and one former staffer, all of whom spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said the decree was aimed at the management practices by the office of the outgoing secretary general and the board.
The former staffer said employees had left jobs at the headquarters because of a climate of bullying, fear and "ritual humiliation".
Apart from Tagle and one priest, all members of the CI executive were lay people.
(This story has been corrected to say that departures were in Rome, not outside Italy in paragraph 14).
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Monday, November 21, 2022
Sunday, November 20, 2022
U.N. Climate Talks End With a Deal to Pay Poor Nations for Damage
Nations reached a landmark deal to compensate developing nations for climate harm. But some leaders said the summit didn’t go far enough in addressing the root causes of global warming.
Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, seated, reading a statement at the closing session of climate talks in Sharm el Sheikh.Credit...Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters
By Brad Plumer, Max Bearak, Lisa Friedman and Jenny Gross
By Brad Plumer, Max Bearak, Lisa Friedman and Jenny Gross
Nov. 20, 2022, 3:33 a.m. ET
SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — Diplomats from nearly 200 countries concluded two weeks of climate talks on Sunday by agreeing to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters made worse by the greenhouse gases from wealthy nations.
The decision on payments for loss and damage caused by global warming represented a breakthrough on one of the most contentious issues at United Nations climate negotiations. For more than three decades, developing nations have pressed rich, industrialized countries to provide compensation for the costs of destructive storms, heat waves and droughts linked to rising temperatures.
But the United States and other wealthy countries had long blocked the idea, for fear that they could face unlimited liability for the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.
The loss and damage agreement hammered out in this Red Sea resort town makes clear that payments are not to be seen as an admission of liability. The deal calls for a committee with representatives from 24 countries to work over the next year to figure out exactly what form the fund should take, which countries and financial institutions should contribute, and where the money should go. Many of the other details are still to be determined.
Developing countries hailed the deal as a landmark victory.
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NY Fed launches 12-week CBDC pilot program with major banks
(Kitco News) - The New York Fed announced on Tuesday that they will launch a 12-week pilot project in collaboration with commercial banks for a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York wrote that its New York Innovation Center (NYIC) “will participate in a proof-of-concept project to explore the feasibility of an interoperable network of central bank wholesale digital money and commercial bank digital money operating on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger.”
The project is designed to test “technical feasibility, legal viability, and business applicability of distributed ledger technology” on a regulated liability network (RLN).
“The NYIC looks forward to collaborating with members of the banking community to advance research on asset tokenization and the future of financial market infrastructures in the U.S. as money and banking evolve," said NYIC Director Per von Zelowitz.
The banking community members who will participate in the New York Fed’s CBDC pilot are Citi, HSBC, TD Bank, Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon, U.S. Bank, Mastercard, PNC Bank, and Truist, according to a joint announcement released Tuesday. The technology will be provided by SETL with Digital Asset, powered by Amazon Web Services, and global financial messaging service provider Swift will also participate to support interoperability across the international financial ecosystem.
The 12-week pilot will test an RLN design that operates exclusively in U.S. dollars where banks “issue simulated digital money or ‘tokens’ – representing the deposits of their own customers – and settle through simulated central bank reserves on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger.”
The project will also test the feasibility of a “programmable digital money design” that is “potentially extensible to other digital assets,” and it will test the compatibility of the RLN with existing laws and regulations. The pilot will also include “dialogue with the broader U.S. banking community, including community and regional banks.”
This pilot project follows Friday’s announcement of the launch of Phase II of Project Cedar, a New York Fed study exploring the technical framework for a “theoretical wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC), which tests the feasibility of cross-border settlements between international banks using different national currencies.
The New York Fed and participating banks will publicize the results as a “contribution to the literature on digital money” once the pilot project has concluded in mid-February.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York wrote that its New York Innovation Center (NYIC) “will participate in a proof-of-concept project to explore the feasibility of an interoperable network of central bank wholesale digital money and commercial bank digital money operating on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger.”
The project is designed to test “technical feasibility, legal viability, and business applicability of distributed ledger technology” on a regulated liability network (RLN).
“The NYIC looks forward to collaborating with members of the banking community to advance research on asset tokenization and the future of financial market infrastructures in the U.S. as money and banking evolve," said NYIC Director Per von Zelowitz.
The banking community members who will participate in the New York Fed’s CBDC pilot are Citi, HSBC, TD Bank, Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon, U.S. Bank, Mastercard, PNC Bank, and Truist, according to a joint announcement released Tuesday. The technology will be provided by SETL with Digital Asset, powered by Amazon Web Services, and global financial messaging service provider Swift will also participate to support interoperability across the international financial ecosystem.
The 12-week pilot will test an RLN design that operates exclusively in U.S. dollars where banks “issue simulated digital money or ‘tokens’ – representing the deposits of their own customers – and settle through simulated central bank reserves on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger.”
The project will also test the feasibility of a “programmable digital money design” that is “potentially extensible to other digital assets,” and it will test the compatibility of the RLN with existing laws and regulations. The pilot will also include “dialogue with the broader U.S. banking community, including community and regional banks.”
This pilot project follows Friday’s announcement of the launch of Phase II of Project Cedar, a New York Fed study exploring the technical framework for a “theoretical wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC), which tests the feasibility of cross-border settlements between international banks using different national currencies.
The New York Fed and participating banks will publicize the results as a “contribution to the literature on digital money” once the pilot project has concluded in mid-February.
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