Vatican Newspaper Launches Women's Section

Jakarta Globe, May 31, 2012

An insert titled 'donne, chiesa, mondo' (women, church, world), is seen
 in a copy of the newspaper Osservatore Romano. For the first time in its
more than 100-year-old history, the Italian daily edition of Osservatore Romano
 starting from today will publish an insert intended for women in its issue
 published on the last Thursday of every month. (Reuters Photo/Osservatore
Romano)

Related articles

• Pope Benedict XVI Begins Easter Mass Celebration
• Hundreds of Afghan Women Jailed for ‘Moral Crimes’: HRW
• Women Fight for Right to Compete
• US Sees Vatican as Potential Money Laundering Hub
• Vatican Prosecutor Warns on Asia Child Abuse Problem

Vatican City. The Vatican's official newspaper is for the first time in its more than 150-year history printing a special supplement for women, the publication said Wednesday.

The four-page color supplement, which will appear in Italian every last Thursday of the month in the L'Osservatore Romano, aims to promote better understanding of the "under-appreciated treasure" of women in the Church, the paper's director Giovanni Maria Vian told reporters.

The supplement was thought up by historian Lucetta Scaraffia, who is an editorial writer on the paper, and another woman, Giulia Galeotti.

Pope Benedict XVI supports the project, Vian said, recalling the pontiff's 2009 statement that the "Church and society in general urgently need" female input.

"This supplement provides information on the female condition, without ignoring hot topics like procreation, access to culture and women's rights," Scaraffia said.

The Church counts among its members 740,000 nuns and 460,000 monks and priests.

L'Osservatore Romano was founded in 1861. It is a daily newspaper.

AFP

Related Articles:

US nuns reject Vatican criticism and reform efforts

The Catholic Church's inquisition of American nuns

Calls for reform renewed at German Catholic convention

US Girl Scouts under scrutiny from Catholic bishops

Catholic nuns group "stunned" by Vatican slap

Pope Benedict XVI rebukes Austrian dissident priests

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to built Africa to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.)

Allergy no more: Finnish scientists discover magic vaccine

RT.com, 30 May, 2012

Allergy no more: Finnish scientists discover magic vaccine

A group of scientists from Finland claims to be close to a vaccine which can prevent any kind of allergy, and change the lives of millions all over the world.

Professor Juhu Rouvinen and his colleagues from the University of Eastern Finland say they discovered immunoglobulin binding structures in allergens, which means the affliction can be prevented.

This is a new way to treat allergies. Most of the modern allergy treatments work by suppressing symptoms caused by the emission of histamine. The symptoms include hay fever, watery eyes, scratchy throat, runny nose etc.

“We believe that curing allergies is about changing or modifying the genetic structure of the allergen molecules inside of your body, so we want to eliminate the cause of the allergy, instead of removing symptoms,” Professor Rouvinen told Forbes magazine.

After allergens are modified in the patient`s body, he will hypothetically develop a natural immunity against each type of allergy they have been vaccinated for.

The team will create a new bio-tech company to conduct further research and experiments saying they hope to put the vaccine on the market within five to seven years.

Different types of allergies affect millions all over the world, 65 million in the US alone leading some to dub it the disease of the 21st century.

Related Articles:

Finnish Scientists Discover Vaccine To Eliminate Allergies

"The Recalibration of 'Shoulds' " – Jan 26, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion/Worship, Lightworkers, Food, Health, Prescription Drugs, Homeopathy, Innate (Body intelligence), New Age movement, Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text version)

German president asks Israel for 'sign' on settlement policy

Deutsche Welle, 30 May 2012

Talks due to last one hour extended into two when German President Joachim Gauck met with Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Most of their time was spent on Israel's settlement policy in the West Bank.

Gauck used the meeting with Netanyahu to express his unease with Israel's controversial settlement policy.

"Germany and Europe would be thankful for any sign on the settlement policy," Gauck said, according to a spokesman.

"Who benefits from this policy?" he asked Netanyahu, pointing out that it made a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible.

Gauck said he sees the issue as a key to rejuvenating the Middle East peace process. But Israeli's premier rejected that notion. He said the conflict could only be resolved through recognition of Israel.

'At Israel's side'

Gauck was careful to stress the importance of Germany's relationship with Israel, saying that criticism did not endanger the friendship but was merely part of an honest discussion, his spokesman said. "Germany stands in solidarity at Israel's side," Gauck said.

Gauck's foreign trips are watched carefully in Berlin, where policymakers view him as being unpredictable. The president will have piqued their interest by avoiding calling Israel's existence Germany's "reason of state" as Chancellor Angela Merkel had done in a 2008 address to the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

Netanyahu refused to extend a moratorium on the building of new settlements in the West Bank in 2010, and their erection by Jewish settlers has gathered pace since then.

ncy/rc (AFP, dpa)

Related Articles:

German president urges Israeli-Palestinian talks

German president visits West Bank

Israel returns bodies of Palestinian militants

IMF chief Christine Lagarde pays NO TAX on her £300,000 salary (despite attacking Greece for dodging payment)

Daily Mail, 29 May 2012

• Questioned about Greek crisis head of IMF said country can help itself collectively 'by paying all their tax'
• Suggests that IMF's money would be better spent on African children than on people in Athens
• Lagarde takes home £298,675-a-year untaxed
• Receives further tax-free allowance package of £52,000

  

Laughing all the way to the bank:
 IMF managing director Christine Lagarde
 criticised beleagured Greeks for not
 paying taxes, while she earns a tax-free
salary herself

The head of the International Monetary Fund who controversially proposed that struggling Greeks should pay taxes contributes nothing herself to the public purse.

Christine Lagarde openly criticised citizens of the ailing EU country in an interview last week, but it has now emerged that the former French lawyer takes home every penny of her own £298,675 a year salary.

In addition the IMF managing director also receives a tax-free allowance package of £52,000 a year.

Ms Lagarde told the Guardian that she believes children in Niger with little schooling deserve the fund's money more than people in Athens.

She continued: 'Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time.

'All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax.'

She added: 'I think they should also help themselves collectively. By all paying their tax.'

Lagarde also criticised Greek citizens 'who are trying to escape tax,' and said the country needs to club together to make more of an effort to solve its economic problems.

Her comments came as the IMF increases the pressure on the Eurozone nation and makes it clear it will not be softening the terms of the nation's austerity package that is deeply unpopular with the country's electorate.

More...

• The Greeksshould not expect sympathy, says IMF boss Christine Lagarde who is 'moreworried' about schooling in Africa
• The truthis unpalatable, but Christine Lagarde is right to tell Greeks to pay theirtaxes

The former French finance minister took over from disgraced countryman Dominique Strauss-Kahn in June last year with strong support including the British, U.S., Chinese and German governments and is now a year into her five-year term.

At the time the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy described her appointment as 'a victory for France.'

Others were less impressed however, with Oxfam labeling the decision 'farcical' because of what it judged to be a lack of transparency in the appointment process.

Imposing: The headquarters of the IMF in Washington is where representatives
 of 184 countries aim to work together to foster global monetary cooperation
and secure financial stability

Mr Strauss-Kahn had been forced to step down under a media storm after he was charged with sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid - the charges were later dropped.

Lagarde, 56, who began her career at Chicago-based law firm Baker & McKenzie, earns more than US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron who both pay taxes.

Mr Obama earns around £255,000 a year while Mr Cameron receives a salary of £142,000 for running the country.

Lagarde's salary could also go up in a few weeks as her contract entitles her to a pay rise on July 1 every year.

Lagarde does not pay tax in line with other international organisations such as the United Nations where workers are entitled to a similar tax break.

It comes under article 34 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations which declares that diplomatic agents are 'exempt from all dues and taxes, personal or real, national, regional or municipal.'

Contributors: Christine Lagarde earns more than both Barack Obama, left,
and David Cameron, right

Annual pay for UN workers start at between £29,000 to £51,000 with senior salaries range between £61,000 and £80,000 although this figure varies depending on where an employee is based.

A UN worker based in Geneva could expect to see their base salary increased by 106 per cent while even in Juba, the relatively poor capital of South Sudan, a UN worker could anticipate a 53.2 per cent top up of their salary.

Additional perks include rent subsidies and travel expenses, as well as subsidised medical insurance.

Frustration at the luxury, tax-free lifestyles of international public service workers is not a new issue, the argument dates back to the moment the IMF was created at the Bretton Woods economic conference in 1944.

British representatives felt salaries put forward by U.S. delegates were huge, but they were overruled.

The counter argument suggested by those who work for the organisation is that the whopping salaries are required to attract the best people from the well paid private sector.

However, studies have found that in fact most senior employees are already working in government positions.

Related Article:

Christine Lagarde, scourge of tax evaders, pays no tax

Lazio captain arrested in football match-fixing scandal

Deutsche Welle, 28 May 2012

Italian police have arrested Lazio captain Stefano Mauri in connection with a football betting scandal. Several homes have been searched, including that of national defender Domenico Criscito.

The captain of Rome-based soccer club Lazio, Stefano Mauri, was among the 19 people arrested by Italian police on Monday. Around 30 homes were also searched in connection with the Calcioscommesse match-fixing scandal that broke a year ago. The search included players, coaches and administrators from the top league, Serie A, to Serie B and the lower Lega Pro division.

Italy defender Domenico Criscito, who has been named in the preliminary squad for the European Championships, has also had his home at the national team's Euro 2012 training camp near Florence searched. Criscito, who plays for Russian champions Zenit St Petersburg, has been formally notified that he is under investigation.

Criscito is in Italy's preliminary
EURO 2012 squad

This comes just hours before Italy coach Cesare Prandelli is scheduled to announce his final EURO 2012 squad later on Monday.

Police also notified Antonio Conte, manager of freshly crowned Serie A champions, Juventus Turin, that he is being investigated.

Several other players have already been banned, including Italy midfielder Cristiano Doni, who will not be able to play for three-and-a-half years.

The former Atalanta captain and Italy midfielder was banned in August for his part in the scandal involving Serie B matches last season.

Atalanta, who were promoted from Serie B, had six points deducted in the top flight this season as a result of the scandal.

ng/tj (Reuters, dpa, AFP)

Related Articles:

Top war crimes lawyer joins Fifa in ethics and corruption drive

How Italy has reacted to the latest match-fixing arrests

Mass opposition rally in Tbilisi, Georgia

BBC News, 27 May 2012

Related Stories 

• Billionaire tycoon shakes up Georgia politics
• Saakashvili foe loses citizenship
• Georgians vow to continue protest

The protest was one of the largest
in the capital in recent years

Tens of thousands have thronged the streets of the Georgian capital to attend a political rally organised by a Georgian billionaire and opposition leader.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, one of the country's richest men, is campaigning ahead of October's parliamentary poll.

The protest is the largest anti-government demonstration in years.

Prime Minister Mikhail Saakashvili's second and last presidential term ends in January 2013.

Although his future plans are unclear, he has not excluded becoming prime minister.

Mr Ivanishvili made his entry into politics last October, announcing that he was forming a political party with the aim of winning the parliamentary vote and assuming the post of prime minister.

He has used his wealth to unite the opposition and fund his election campaign. 

Mr Ivanishvili is a billionaire-turned
politician

Addressing the crowd he said: "The parliamentary elections slated for autumn pose the question 'to be or not to be?' to our country.

"We will win, no doubt, although just wishing is not enough for a victory."

Mr Ivanishvili's supporters accuse President Saakashvili of authoritarianism and say he is not doing enough to tackle poverty and unemployment.

However, many Georgian voters are suspicious of Mr Ivanishvili, who earned his wealth in Russia during the 1990s.

The BBC's Damien McGuinness, in Tiblisi, says the demonstration is being seen as a test of the opposition's public support.

The turn-out - which the opposition claim was as high as 300,000 people - suggests that Mr Saakashvili's ruling party may have more of a fight on its hands than originally expected, our correspondent says.

A year ago, four people were killed after police clashed with violent protesters during another opposition rally.

Before Mr Saakashvili came to office after the Rose Revolution of 2003, Georgia was almost a failed state, with high rates of criminality.

There are fears, our correspondent explains, that a change of leadership would take the country back to that time.

Related Article:

Tens of thousands in Georgia's biggest rally in three years

Vatican shuffle cloaked in controversy

Deutsche Welle, 26 May 2012

There could be a number of explanations for why Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was asked to step down as head of the Vatican bank. The Holy See, however, has remained tight-lipped about the reasons.

The Instituto per le Opere di Religione (English: The Institute for Works of Religion), odd though it may seem, is a bank hiding behind that name. It is the financial arm of the Vatican, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church. The history of its predecessor institution dates back to the 19th century, and the bank took on its present form and name in 1942.

Recent decades have seen repeated rumors of the bank being caught up in dirty dealings, and a new low point has come with the resignation of its head, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi.

Despite repeated disciplinary measures, Tedeschi (ironically, the name means 'the German') "has not completed certain tasks of eminent importance," the Vatican said but did not provide further details. 

Gotti Tedeschi was asked to
step down by the bank's board

Now, speculation is running high about what the real grounds for his dismissal could be. Some Italian media sources suspect a connection to classified documents leaked to the media by the Pope's butler, which include details on Vatican finances. Earlier investigations into Tedeschi's potential violation of anti-money laundering standards could also have played a role, although those investigations were later halted.

Among the world's "least transparent"

"It's a very peculiar bank. A bank that manages billions, including real estate," said Wolfgang Gehrke, a banking expert and head of the Bavarian Finance Center, in an interview with DW.

"It's a bank that is active in financial markets on the Vatican's behalf and that has set itself apart as one of the least transparent banks in the world. So, of course, when someone is being so untransparent, he also has to cope with every possible kind of rumor," Gehrke added.

Italian investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi has also looked into the Vatican bank's financial dealings. His book on the subject argues that the bank has been involved in exercising undue political influence, in money laundering and even murders and mafia affairs. Nuzzi's research suggests that ex-prime minister Giulio Andreotti, who is alleged to have had mafia ties, also had a secret account at the Vatican's bank - with transactions totalling more than 60 million euros ($75 million). 

Giulio Andreotti may have had
a secret Vatican bank account

Cleaning up too thoroughly?

"Out of esteem for the Pope," Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who has thus far enjoyed a reputation as a competent and morally upright banker, has said he will not respond to rebukes by the Vatican's board of directors.

"It's better that I remain silent, otherwise I would say ugly things," he told the Italian news agency Ansa. Having previously worked for Spain's Santander Bank, Tedeschi was named head of the Vatican's bank in 2009 to help straighten out the institution's affairs. It can also be speculated as to whether he did a bit too much cleaning up and became an uncomfortable, or even dangerous presence along the way.

"The financial machinations of the Vatican that I discuss in my book took place before the current Pope's term. However, there is a similarity between all representatives of the Catholic Church, which Pope Benedict XVI also shares: A mantle of silence is spread over everything. And along with it can come blackmail, corruption and money laundering," said author Nuzzi two years ago to the Hilpoltsteiner German daily.

But the Vatican's current head has taken steps in the direction of reform, says bank expert Gehrke.

"The Pope has made sure that the bank is ready - which used not to be the case - to subject itself to European standards on transparency. But that seems not to be working out entirely. None of us knows exactly how things take place in this bank and whether money laundering did in fact take place there," Gehrke explained. 

The Vatican's bank is housed
within this building

Among the few with insight into those questions are the bank's board of directors as well as the now expelled Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. Gehkre notes that the board contains Curia members, "who absolutely have experience in capital markets."

"Vatileaks" suspect arrested

A suspect has been taken into custody following revelations made in documents leaked to the media. Internet portal ilfoglio.it and news agency Ansa report that one of the Pope's butlers, who has worked at the Vatican since 2006, made the classified information available. The investigation is being led by the Vatican's Gendarmerie police force.

It is safe to assume that the Vatican will do all it can to prevent further internal documents from getting into the media's hands - as they did when Renato Dardozzi (1922-2003), one of Pope John Paul II's closest colleagues, led the inheritors of his estate to publish information he had collected regarding the Vatican's financial affairs. In turn, the information Dardozzi gathered formed the basis for Gianluigi's book on the Vatican and its financial dealings.

Author: Tobias Oelmaier / gsw

Editor: Gregg Benzow

Related Articles:

Vatican leaks: Pope denounces "gratuitous" coverage

Conspiracy theories cloud 'Vatileaks' scandal

Corruption scandal shakes Vatican as internal letters leaked

(SaLuSa channelled by Mike Quinsey, March 16, 2012)

“…. Each project is underway and that will result in a sudden wealth of information reaching you. Events are such that the facts can no longer be kept hidden, and with that there will be an explosion of people coming forward to tell what they know. It may take longer where the Vatican is concerned, as it is akin to a secret society that has kept its dark secrets hidden well away. However, nothing will remain concealed for too long, as you are entitled to know the truth and the extent to which you have been deceived….”  

Christ Consciousness Is The Energy of The New World – Mar 7, 2012  (Kryon channelled by David Brown)

Dutch-born Nazi war crimes convict dies in Germany

Associated Press, by Geir Moulson, May 26, 2012

BERLIN (AP) -- Klaas Carel Faber, a Dutch native who fled to Germany after being convicted in the Netherlands of Nazi war crimes and subsequently lived in freedom despite several attempts to try or extradite him, has died. He was 90.

Klaas-Carel Faber

Faber's wife, Jacoba, told the Dutch news site de Nieuwe Pers that he died in a hospital on Thursday. A hospital official in Ingolstadt, the Bavarian city where the Fabers lived, confirmed that Saturday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with policy.

Faber - whom the Simon Wiesenthal Center last year placed at No. 3 on its list of most-wanted Nazi criminals - was convicted in 1947 of involvement in 22 murders and for aiding the Netherlands' Nazi occupiers during World War II. He was handed a death sentence that was later commuted to life in prison, according to Dutch prosecutors.

But in 1952, he escaped and fled to Germany, where he lived in freedom.

Faber was saved by his German citizenship when German authorities rejected a request from the Netherlands last year for his extradition on a European arrest warrant. In January, Ingolstadt prosecutor Helmut Walter said he had filed a motion to have Faber serve his sentence in a German prison.

Walter said a state court in Ingolstadt wouldn't need to reconsider any of the Dutch case but decide whether, as a result of the European arrest warrant being rejected, the sentence against him could be enforced in Germany.

Prosecutors could not be reached for comment on Saturday, the start of a three-day weekend in Germany.

Faber was born in the Netherlands on Jan. 20, 1922.

Dutch prosecutors have said he was convicted for killings at three different Dutch locations in 1944-1945, including six at the Westerbork transit camp, where thousands of Dutch Jews, including Anne Frank, were held before being sent to labor camps or death camps in eastern Europe.

According to the Wiesenthal Center, Faber volunteered for Hitler's SS, a paramilitary organization loyal to Nazi ideology, after Germany overran the Netherlands during World War II.

He also served with the Sicherheitsdienst, the Nazi internal intelligence agency, and an SS unit code-named Silbertanne, or Silver Fir, which consisted of 15 men, most of them Dutch, who were mustered to exact reprisals for attacks by the Dutch resistance on collaborators, according to the Wiesenthal Center.

Dutch authorities first requested his extradition in 1954, but Faber had been able to get German citizenship because of his service to Germany during the war, so the request was rejected because West Germany refused to extradite its own citizens.

In 1957 a Duesseldorf court rejected attempts to bring him to trial in Germany, saying there was not enough evidence against him.

After a Dutch request to have him jailed in Germany in 2004 failed, Munich prosecutors in 2006 received new evidence from the Netherlands and looked into reopening the files. But prosecutors found that the former SS man may have been guilty not of murder but only of manslaughter - and the statute of limitations for that crime had expired.

In 2010, the Netherlands again asked for his extradition, using a new European arrest warrant. It was again rejected, because his consent was still needed to extradite him as a German citizen.

 Klaas Carel Faber (NOS screenshot)

Related Articles:

90-year-old Dutch-born Nazi dies in Ingolstadt

Dutch war criminal dies in freedom

Netherlands calls for arrest of Nazi Klaas-Carel Faber

Germany not to extradite Dutch former SS man


German doctors apologize for Nazi-era crimes

Lloyds bank's Jessica Harper charged with £2.5m fraud

Former head of fraud at part-nationalised bank is accused of submitting false invoices

guardian.co.uk, Josephine Moulds, Friday 25 May 2012

Lloyds Banking Group's headquarters in London. Photograph: Dominic
Lipinski/PA Archive/Press Association Ima

A former head of fraud at Lloyds Banking Group has herself been charged with a £2.5m fraud, causing blushes at the part-nationalised bank.

Jessica Harper, 50, is accused of submitting false invoices to the tune of £2.46m when working as head of fraud and security for digital banking. It is thought her work involved managing supplies and that the invoices did not relate to personal expenses.

The fraud is alleged to have started in September 2008, shortly before Lloyds had to be bailed out by the taxpayer. The UK government owns 41% of Lloyds after funnelling £20bn of rescue funds into the bank during the financial crisis.

Harper, who lives in Croydon, south London, will appear before Westminster magistrates court next Thursday, charged with one count of fraud by abuse of position.

Andrew Penhale, deputy dead of the CPS central fraud group, said: "The charge relates to an allegation that between 1 September 2008 and 21 December 2011 Jessica Harper dishonestly and with the intention of making a gain for herself abused her position as an employee of Lloyds Banking Group, in which she was expected to safeguard the financial interests of Lloyds Banking Group, by submitting false invoices to claim payments totalling £2,463,750.88, to which she was not entitled."

He said the CPS had decided there was "a realistic prospect of conviction and a prosecution is in the public interest".

Lloyds said: "As the court process is ongoing it would be inappropriate for us to comment."

German doctors apologize for Nazi-era crimes

The Jakarta Post, Associated Press, Berlin, Germany, Fri, 05/25/2012

Germany's medical association has adopted a declaration apologizing for sadistic experiments and other actions of doctors under the Nazis.

In the statement adopted earlier this week in Nuremberg, the association said many doctors under the Nazis were "guilty, contrary to their mission to heal, of scores of human rights violations and we ask the forgiveness of their victims, living and deceased, and of their descendants."

In addition to performing pseudo-scientific experiments on concentration camp inmates, German doctors also were key to the Nazi's program of forced sterilization or euthanasia of the mentally ill or others deemed "unworthy of life."

The medical association says "these crimes were not the actions of individual doctors but involved leading members of the medical community" and should be taken as a warning for the future.

Gibraltarian and Spanish police clash over fishing row

BBC News, 25 May 2012

Related Stories 

• Spanish fishing row off Gibraltar
• Gibraltar profile
• Spain's Queen cancels Jubilee visit Watch

The UK has counted Gibraltar
as a colony since 1713

Gibraltarian police have confronted Spanish officers escorting Spanish fishing boats in the waters near Gibraltar for the second night running.

Gibraltar's government has said fishing with large nets in the area is illegal because of an environmental law.

But Spain claims sovereignty over the UK colony and its foreign ministry has said it supports the right of Spanish boats to fish in its waters.

The Spanish and UK foreign secretaries are due to meet in London on Tuesday.

Spain's foreign ministry has said the fishing dispute will not affect its relations with Britain, which has counted Gibraltar as a colony since 1713.

'Defending rights'

On Thursday, media reported that several Royal Gibraltar Police boats had surrounded three Spanish fishing vessels after they cast their nets near Gibraltar harbour the night before.

Gibraltarian news agency GBC News said several Spanish Guardia Civil boats appeared to be defending the fishermen, but were told to leave by the Gibraltarian police.

The Spanish boats reportedly left the area later after a Royal Navy vessel arrived and told them again to depart.

GBC news quoted Gibraltar's chief minister, Fabian Picardo, as condemning what were "obviously carefully premeditated challenges to our indisputable sovereignty, jurisdiction and control of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters and our airspace".

A UK Foreign Office statement confirmed that Britain's minister for Europe, David Lidington, had met with Mr Picardo to discuss various issues, including the fishing dispute and recent incidents in British Gibraltar Territorial Waters.

It said Mr Lidington had reiterated that the UK would "never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their wishes".

But Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz told reporters Madrid would continue to dispatch police boats to protect Spanish fishermen in the area to defend "the fishing rights of our fishermen".

The Catholic Church's inquisition of American nuns

Though castigated by their own Church authorities, US nuns are far more in tune with the actual views of American Catholics

guardian.co.uk, Victoria Bekiempis, Thursday 24 May 2012

Bishops have opposed healthcare legislation, while nuns are supporting it.
Photograph: Getty/Reuters/Kacper Pempel

So, did you hear the one about the American nuns?

No, this isn't the beginning of a joke. In April, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the Catholic Church's current iteration of the Inquisition, if you will – issued an assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,which represents 80% of the US's 57,000 nuns.

Some key context here: the conference was formed 56 years ago at the behest of the Holy See, to provide "a unified voice" for US nuns who helped the poor, nursed the sick, taught students, worked as missionaries, and fought violence. (Another important bit of background: the congregation is the same arm of the church that bullied Lavinia Byrne, feminist theologian and former British nun, for arguing in favor of female ordination in a 1993 book.)

The conference, according to the Vatican, was spending too much time doing good – and not enough time enforcing church teaching (against abortion, homosexuality etc). So, the nuns actually got in trouble for being, well, nuns. So troubled was the church by this and the women's alleged "radical feminism" that the assessment demanded the appointment of an archbishop delegate to make them behave.

Nope, no joke.

At first, many members of the conference reacted with silent shock. They didn't speak out against the Church because of their vows of obedience. Many have since shot back, however, calling the charges wrongful criticism – and a distraction from the Church's failure to address adequately child molestation charges against clergy.

The Vatican might have gotten one thing right about these women: compared to the rest of the Pope Benedict XVI's ultra-conservative administration, they are radical feminists. But the Church has also gotten something terribly wrong: US Catholicism desperately needs "radical" feminist nuns – and should embrace, not criticize them – if it's going to remain relevant to American society.

A 2008 Pew forum on religion and public life study determined that nearly a third of Americans were brought up Catholic, but that "less than one in four remained so" – meaning the faith had shed "the greatest" proportion of US-born believers. Perhaps even more startling:

• "Roughly 10% of American adults, or 22.5 million, are former Catholics. That would qualify lapsed Catholics as the second-largest single US denomination, behind Catholics, at 54.8 million, and just ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention's 15.1 million members."

In addition, a study conducted by the center for applied research in the apostolate at Georgetown University indicates that "42.7 million Catholics, or two-thirds of US Catholics, are not going to mass." Only some 33% attend regularly. Another approximately 33% attend occasionally, and the rest never go, Catholic advocacy groups report. And the only reason the percentage of Catholics in the US population still hovers around 25%, Pew notes, is because of a steady stream of Latino immigrants.

The denomination's leaders worry so extensively about the hemorrhaging of parishioners that a group called Catholics Come Home launched a $3.5m ad blitz last December, according to the Denver Post, and had sponsored similar marketing campaigns in the past. The non-profit hoped that the 400-plus planned ads, with an estimated audience of 250 million viewers, would boost these sluggish numbers. If you look at lapsed Catholics' reasons for leaving the church, it doesn't seem like a lack of televised adverts quite tops their list.

Researchers at Villanova University's center for the study of church management recently reached out to several hundred lapsed Catholics in the diocese of Trenton, New Jersey. They wanted to figure out why they stopped frequenting mass. They were specifically asked "what issues they would raise if they could speak to the bishop for five minutes," according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

Their complaints included haughty clergy, "conservative haranguing", excessive focus on homosexuality and birth control, as well as negative attitudes toward female ordination. They also "didn't like the church's handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal and were upset that divorced and remarried Catholics are unwelcome at mass."

A key point is that some 66% of respondents "were female, and the median age was 53". This demographic detail has troubled Church leaders, who recognize that it is this group that has in the past tended to indoctrinate younger generations – their children and grandchildren – into the church. Anyone else see what's going on here?

The Catholic Church is shedding US members. Those who have left they church say they don't like the Church's conservative approach toward birth control, homosexuality, and female ordination. The Church has decided not to reconsider these policies – a move that could help maintain membership. Instead, the Holy See has decided to attack the one prominent and popular group among the clergy because they back the modern ideas demanded by believers.

Thus, rather than defending the faith, the Vatican's strategy works only to hasten the extinction of the very institution it's seeking to preserve.

Related Articles:

Nuns: Vatican reprimand causing pain in church

Protesters back U.S. nuns in standoff with Vatican

Catholic nuns group "stunned" by Vatican slap

Calls for reform renewed at German Catholic convention

Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland discuss Church's future

Pope Benedict XVI rebukes Austrian dissident priests

Church subsidy reform signals Polish revolution

Catholic Monti moves to end Italy Church tax breaks

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to built Africa to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - New !

"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator, Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience?

(SaLuSa channelled by Mike Quinsey, March 16, 2012)

“…. Each project is underway and that will result in a sudden wealth of information reaching you. Events are such that the facts can no longer be kept hidden, and with that there will be an explosion of people coming forward to tell what they know. It may take longer where the Vatican is concerned, as it is akin to a secret society that has kept its dark secrets hidden well away. However, nothing will remain concealed for too long, as you are entitled to know the truth and the extent to which you have been deceived….”  

Christ Consciousness Is The Energy of The New World – Mar 7, 2012  (Kryon channelled by David Brown)