Sleepy French hamlet seen at threat from Apocalypse sects
(Pic de Bugarach, 14 November 2007/Thierry Strub)
The tiny southern French hamlet of Bugarach has drawn scrutiny from a government sect watchdog over droves of visitors who believe it is the only place in the world that will survive a 2012 Apocalypse. A report by the watchdog, Miviludes, published Wednesday said the picturesque village near Carcassonne should be monitored in the run-up to December 21, 2012, when many believe the world will end according to an ancient Mayan prophecy.
Miviludes was set up in 2002 to track the activity of sects, after a law passed the previous year made it an offence to abuse vulnerable people using heavy pressure techniques, meaning sects can be outlawed if there is evidence of fraud or abuse.
Surrounded in legend for centuries, Bugarach and its rocky outcrop, the Pic de Bugarach, have attracted an influx of New Age visitors in recent months, pushing up property prices but also raising the threat of financial scams and psychological manipulation, Miviludes said in its report. “I think we need to be careful. We shouldn’t get paranoid, but when you see what happened at Waco in the United States, we know this kind of thinking can influence vulnerable people,” Miviludes president Georges Fenech told Reuters.
Waco, Texas, made headlines in 1993 when federal agents raided the headquarters of the Branch Davidian movement, led by David Koresh, leading to a 50-day siege. The building was burned down when agents eventually tried to force their way in, leaving some 80 people dead.
Bugarach, with a population of just 200, has long been considered magical, partly due to what locals claim is an “upside-down mountain” where the top layers of rock are older than the lower ones. The Internet is awash with myths about the place — that the mountain is surrounded by a magnetic force, that it is the site of a concealed alien base, or even that it contains an underground access to another world. And now many have seized on it as the ultimate refuge with Doomsday rapidly approaching.
Read the full story by Vicky Buffery here. For the full report in French, click here.
German abuse victims humiliated by compensation sums
German victims of abuse in foster homes say the 120 million euros proposed as compensation was “humiliatingly” small compared with damages awarded in other countries, and vowed to fight for more. After a two-year inquiry, a government-appointed panel on Monday recommended 120 million euros be set aside for an estimated 30,000 victims expected to file abuse claims.
“It’s a poor start to the compensation process and another humiliation of victims,” the VEH victims’ group leader Monika Tschapek-Güntner said. “Roughly 30,000 victims are expected to apply for damages which will leave individuals between 2,000 and 4,000 euros.”
Tschapek-Güntner said that a deal struck between abuse victims and the Catholic Church in Ireland resulted in payments averaging 76,000 euros per victim. Irish compensation claims are expected to top 1 billion euros.
Between 1949 and 1975 up to 800,000 children and youths lived in foster care in West Germany where claimants have alleged rampant physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Roughly two-thirds of those in foster care lived in church-run homes. Both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches in Germany applauded the panel’s recommendations.
Read the full story by Eric Kelsey here. A PDF of the full report is here in German.
According to even conservative estipulations we have produced a GDP for Germany of billions of Euros. With our small bodies and to the cost of our own health, wellbeing, education and own prosperity, as the vast majority of us never was allowed to go to good schools and accordingly could not study or even learn a remunerative profession.
And today that we are old, ill, worn out they want to fob us off with that ludicrously low sum of 120 millions of Euros. This means if really only 30,000 of the estimated 500,000 to 800,000 survivors would apply to the funds for some sort of compensation, each one would receive only 4,000 Euros! Not having been considered yet the pension top-up fund nor the rental allowances for victims that otherwise would have to live in a home for the old!
4,000 Euros for years of physical, psychological and sexual abuse, for slave labor, forced religion, for incarceration, lack of education and the total absence of love and joy in our young lives? For shattered lives and broken bones, for torn flesh and utmost humiliation, for nights standing in unheated hallways or even outside in the snow? For decades of haunting fear and terrible dreams, for the impossibility of lasting partnerships and the frustrations of sexual relationships?
NO! We can and will not accept this new humiliation!
We do not ask reparation for the damages we have suffered bause we know: No one can return our youth, nothing will bring back our sexual, physical and psychological integrety! But we do expect a sum that will relieve the bitterness and hardness some! Germany as one of the richest countries on Earth does owe us at least as much!
The now negotiated sum at best is a spoof of us, the survivors. And it is a shame and a scandal for Germany!
A German Survivor of church education
Inquiry cites almost 2,000 Dutch Catholic sex abuse reports
Almost 2,000 people have declared themselves this year victims of sexual and physical abuse while they were minors in the care of the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands, an independent commission said on Thursday.
The investigation into abuses dating back to 1945 shows that the Netherlands ranks second worst behind Ireland for known cases in scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in Europe and the United States. The church-appointed commission’s findings were requested by the Dutch bishops’ conference after cases surfaced involving paedophile priests in the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Germany and other countries.
“I am very respectful of the people who came forward because declaring yourself a victim is a big step,” said Wim Deetman, a Protestant former education minister and former mayor of The Hague who heads the commission, of the 1,975 reported cases.
Asked whether the report could lead to pressure for a shake-up in the church hierarchy, Deetman said: “It is too soon to say that. We will see that at the end of next year after discussions with a lot of people. But the bishops conference has asked us to look at managerial responsibilities.”
Deetman said the Church had waited too long to come up with a professional approach to complaints about abuse and urged it to set up an effective system of financial compensation for the victims, a special organisation to assist them and Church disciplinary action if needed.
Read the full story here and a factbox on sex abuse cases shaking the Catholic Church in Europe this year.
The full report (in Dutch) is in PDF here.
Muslim religious demands on French state schools rising: report
The sometimes difficult integration of Muslims is climbing the ladder of public concerns in Europe. It’s been hotly debated in Germany and figured in recent elections in the Netherlands and Austria. Now, a French government body called the High Council for Integration (HCI) has drawn up a critical report about the problems faced by — and posed by — school pupils with immigrant backgrounds. It’s not only about Muslim pupils, but they are mentioned so frequently that it’s clear who’s mostly involved here.
Among its findings, the report says Muslim pupils and parents in France are increasingly making religious demands on the state school system and that teachers should rebuff these demands by explaining the country’s principle of laïcité, the official separation of church and state. Among the problems it listed were pupils who upset classes by objecting to courses about the Holocaust, the Crusades or evolution, who demand halal meals and generally “reject French culture and its values.”
For more of its findings, read our news report on the study here.
“It is becoming difficult for teachers to resist religious pressures,” said the report, posted in draft form (here in French) on the website of the newspaper Journal du Dimanche (JDD), which published an article in its paper edition entitled “School threatened by communalism.” “We should now reaffirm secularism and train teachers how to deal with specific problems linked to the respect for this principle,” it said. The final report will be presented to the government next month.
France has been here before. There was a long and lively debate about religion in schools before the parliament banned Muslim headscarves and other religious garb in state schools in 2004. There were two large official reports — the so-called Stasi report and a parliamentary report — on laïcité in the schools that focused on an increase in religious demands in state schools.
There was also a critical book called “Les territoires perdus de la République” (The lost territories of the Republic) about rising anti-Semitism among Muslim pupils. After that, the issue was eclipsed by debates about full face veils and halal meat.
This study comes during the six-month period between France’s ban on full face veils and the imposition of that ban after a planned campaign to inform veiled women what awaits them once the prohibition is in full force. Patrick Gaubert, president of the HCI, told the JDD that his group would also soon put out “an assessment of our integration policy that will show our relative failure in this domain.”
Low support for radicalism among European Muslims — Pew report
Support for radical Islamist groups is low among European Muslims and some leading groups with overseas roots are now cooperating with local governments and encouraging Muslims to vote, according to a new report.
European groups linked to wider Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami now focus more on conditions for Muslims in Europe than their original ideologies from Egypt and Pakistan, according to the report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The report also cited tensions between “jihadists” and peaceful Islamists in Europe, saying some groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood were working with police to counter militants.
“By most accounts, support for radical extremist groups is relatively low among Muslims in Europe,” it said. “Nevertheless, such groups have been central to the public discussion of Islam in Europe, especially in recent years.”
The report said supporters of European groups with links to foreign Islamist movements often showed little interest in their founding ideologies, which critics say are radical and anti-Western. Although some groups promoted militant views, others dealt only with religious issues or education, making it difficult to generalise about Muslim organisations in Western Europe.
Read the full story here. For the text of the report “Muslim Networks and Movements in Western Europe”, click here.
This is assuming that the violent jihadis and the peaceful Islamists have different aims. Why carry out a destructive Islamic attack ~ when you can simply influence politicians to make laws Shari’a compliant. Both groups envision an end to western freedom and rights and the establishment of a world wide Islamic state.
Child abuse was widespread in Belgian Catholic Church – Church report
Child sexual abuse was widespread in the Belgian Catholic Church and drove at least 13 victims to suicide, according to a report published on Friday. “Almost every institution, every school, particularly boarding schools, at one time harboured abuse,” Peter Adriaenssens, the head of a Church commission monitoring complaints, told a news conference.
More than half of its 200-page report, based on cases recorded up till then, consists of excerpts of testimony from victims. The 475 cases it recorded included victims as young as two. Two-thirds were male and boys aged about 12 were particularly vulnerable. In most cases, abuse tailed off when victims reached 15 or 16.
Adriaenssens said: “With these testimonies, it was not about superficial handling. It was about oral and anal abuse, forced and mutual masturbation. In other words, it was about people who had experienced serious acts.”
He said the commission found no evidence that the Church had systematically sought to cover up abuse, although it had found instances when nothing was done. The peak of abuse appeared to have been in the 1960s, the report concluded, with a sharp drop in the 1980s.
The full Flemish-language report and other material from the commission are posted here. The commission is still working on a French translation that should appear on this website. For a long report in French, see Belgian television RTBF.
On Thursday, a Belgian court ruled that police raids conducted as part of a judicial inquiry into allegations of child abuse by Belgian priests were illegal, throwing the full investigation into doubt.
Stock markets in Muslim countries usually rally during Ramadan-study
Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar marked with fasting and prayer, is also an uplifting time for stock markets in predominantly Muslim countries, according to a study by the University of New Hampshire.
Stock markets in Oman, Turkey, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia generated average returns of 38 percent during the month of Ramadan over the years 1989 through 2007, according to the report, compared with their average 4.3 percent returns the rest of the year.
Observance of Ramadan this year is expected to start on or about Aug. 11 and finish on or about Sept. 10.
“The implication of our find for investors is obvious,” Ahmad Etebari, a University of New Hampshire professor of finance who was lead researcher on the study. “Investors seeking fast profits in the Muslim world should try to profit from the fast.”
German Jesuit report shows years of sexual abuse cover-up
A Jesuit investigation has cited 205 allegations of sexual abuse against priests at its schools in Germany, revealing decades of systematic abuse and attempts of a cover-up by the prestigious Roman Catholic order. The new allegations threaten to further undermine the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, already accused of hushing up hundreds of sexual and physical abuse allegations in Church-run schools that have come to light recently.
“In the name of the order, I acknowledge with shame and guilt our failure,” Father Stefan Dartmann, Germany’s leading Jesuit official, said in a statement. “I ask for forgiveness.” The report also cited a further 50 allegations of abuse relating to other, mostly Catholic institutions.
The allegations by predominantly male victims in the Jesuit investigation focus on 12 priests, six of whom are now deceased, from several schools and youth facilities in Germany. Solitary victims cited a further 32 church figures.
Though allegations of abuse in Jesuit schools surfaced in January, Dartmann admitted that Father Klaus Mertes, director of the Canisius Kolleg high school in Berlin, informed him about the problem in 2006.
Not only do Jesuits abuse small children, a Jesuit abused another Jesuit. California Jesuit Charles Connor abused Jesuit James Chevedden while Chevedden was recovering from an operation. Connor and a band of other Jesuits cost the Jesuit Order $7 million to settle an unrelated sex abuse case regarding disabled men. Connor’s friend, Jesuit Jerold Lindner with $2 million in sex abuse settlements on his record, was the last Jesuit to see Chevedden alive. Thomas Smolich was the Jesuit California Provincial at the time of Chevedden’s death.
Senegal’s Koranic “scholars” face beatings: report
Barefoot children in tattered clothes scramble through the dusty, trash-strewn streets of Dakar, tapping on car windows and shadowing market-goers in the hopes of a few coins or a cup of rice.
The sight of young people begging is not uncommon in a country struggling with deep-rooted poverty, but in the West African state of Senegal there is a twist.
These children are students in the nation’s traditional Koranic school system being forced by teachers to panhandle on pain of severe beatings, according to an investigation by global advocacy group Human Rights Watch released on Thursday.
“There are at least 50,000 children just in urban residential daaras (Koranic schools) that are living in conditions akin to slavery,” said study author Matt Wells.
“We’re talking about quite a serious problem here in Senegal and the numbers are increasing every day,” he said of the “talibe”, or scholars.
The findings are troublesome in a mainly Muslim nation of 12 million where Koranic schools have existed for centuries, placing Senegal on a list of countries with severe forced child begging such as Pakistan, India, and Albania
Child abuse crisis to spark Irish Catholic Church shake-up
Pope Benedict has expressed “outrage, betrayal and shame” at the sexual abuse of children by priests in Ireland, which Church leaders said would lead to a shake-up of the Irish Roman Catholic Church. Church sources expected some bishops to resign in the wake of a government report that said Church leaders in overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland had covered up widespread abuse of children by priests for 30 years.
“I think that we are looking at a very significant reorganization of the Church in Ireland,” Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said after he and other Irish Church leaders held an emergency meeting with the Pope on Friday.
The Vatican said the pope would write to the Irish people about the crisis and a plan for action — the first time a pope will devote a document solely to the clergy’s abuse of children. A number of bishops who worked in Dublin during the period covered by the report are likely to offer to resign, Church sources said.
On his blog Sacri Palazzi, the well-informed Vatican watcher Andrea Tornielli wrote: “Some Irish bishops will probably resign in the next few weeks (minimum 4, maximum 10).”
“Hopelessly inadequate” is what Cardinal Sean Brady, admitted when asked about the Churches response to allegations of Priests involvement in child abuse. At Least someone is telling the truth! I mean just so I am clear on what the rules are, is the standard that when someone commits a heinous act and others in positions of authority cover it up, all they have to do is say, “oops, sorry,” when they are caught. Because you know if that is the new rule, then we can start closing down all the prisons and jails because I’m sure all the criminals caught from now on will be happy to simply say they are “just so sorry from the bottoms of their hearts”. Seriously though most Priests are there for the people and hate these criminals…this was actually interesting though…
http://ketiva.com/Religion/catholic_chur ch_asks_for_forgiveness_regarding_child_ abuse_scandal.html
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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