Former Pope Benedict named in report over Church's handling of child sex abuse in Germany

FORMER HEAD OF THE DOGS OF GOD;

THE INQUISITION

Agence France-Presse
January 20, 2022


Former pope Benedict critical of German Catholics - Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI arrives at the airport for his return flight to the Vatican. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI lashed out at Germany's Catholic Church in published comments on Monday, perhaps signalling a new fight between the church's conservative and liberal wings. - Sven Hoppe/dpa-Pool/dpa

A potentially explosive report into the handling of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church will on Thursday be published in Germany, with former pope Benedict XVI among those in the spotlight.

The report by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) will analyze how abuse cases were dealt with in the archdiocese of Munich and Freising between 1945 and 2019.

The Munich archdiocese, which commissioned the report, said it will examine "whether those responsible complied with legal requirements... and acted appropriately in dealing with suspected cases and possible perpetrators".

Ex-pope Benedict -- whose civilian name is Josef Ratzinger -- was the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

During this time, a now notorious pedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy.

Hullermann was reassigned to pastoral duties despite his history.

In 1986, by which time Ratzinger had been transferred to the Vatican, he was convicted of molesting more children and given a suspended prison sentence.

Even after the conviction, he continued to work with children for many years and his case is regarded as a pertinent example of the mishandling of abuse by the Church.

Benedict has denied knowing about the priest's history.

82-page statement

The ex-pope has provided an 82-page statement in response to questions from WSW, according to German media reports.

The pope emeritus "takes the fates of the abuse victims very much to heart" and is fully "in favor of the publication of the Munich report", his spokesman Georg Gaenswein told the Bild daily.

Benedict, 94, in 2013 became the first pope ever to step down from the role in 600 years and now lives a secluded life in a former convent inside the grounds of the Vatican.

The reformist Catholic group "Wir sind Kirche" (We are Church) called on the ex-pontiff to take responsibility for what happened while he was in charge of the Munich diocese.


"An admission by Ratzinger that through his actions or inactions, knowledge or ignorance, he was personally and professionally complicit in the suffering of many young people would be... an example for many other bishops and responsible persons," it said in a statement.

Germany's Catholic Church has been rocked by a string of reports in recent years that have exposed widespread abuse of children by clergymen.

A study commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference in 2018 concluded that 1,670 clergymen in the country had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014.

'Systemic failure'

However, the real number of victims is thought to be much higher.


Another report published last year exposed the scope of abuse committed by priests in Germany's top diocese of Cologne.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the current archbishop of Munich and Freising, last year offered Pope Francis his resignation over the church's "institutional and systemic failure" in its handling of child sex abuse scandals.

However, Pope Francis rejected his offer, urging the cardinal known for his reforms to stay and help shape change in the Catholic Church.

As archbishop in Munich since 2007, Marx could also find himself under scrutiny in the WSW report.

Friedrich Wetter, who held the role from 1982 to 2007, is also still alive.

The abuse scandal has thwarted the Catholic Church's efforts to spearhead broad reforms in Germany.

It counted 22.2 million members in 2020 and is still the largest religion in the country, but the number is 2.5 million fewer than in 2010 when the first major wave of pedophile abuse cases came to light.

Payouts for victims of abuse were increased in 2020 to up to 50,000 euros ($56,700), from around 5,000 euros previously, but campaigners say the sum is still inadequate.

Ahead of the publication of the Munich report, the Eckiger Tisch victims' group called for "compensation instead of hollow words".

"Far too many children and young people have fallen victim" to a system "shaped by abuse of power, intransparency and despotism", said Matthias Katsch, a spokesman for the group.

(AFP)

Polish researchers invent anti-smog sound cannon
Agence France-Presse
January 20, 2022

The experimental sound "cannon", which Polish researchers say can blast toxic particles hundreds of meters into the sky BARTOSZ SIEDLIK AFP

In a battle against Poland's constant smog, scientists are testing out a new "cannon" that uses sound waves to push toxic particles higher into the atmosphere to allow residents to breathe.

Installed on top of a metal container, the experimental device consists of a large upside-down cone that makes a loud sound every six seconds.

The aim is to chase the smog from Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, which like many Polish towns and cities faces the problem every winter when residents fire up highly polluting heating systems.

When the sun goes down, a heavy smog descends on the town as chimneys belch out thick smoke.

Poland is one of the most polluted countries in Europe, breaching EU norms by hundreds of percentage points at the worst times of year.

By creating sound waves, researchers say that the "cannon" helps reduce the concentration of harmful PM2.5 and PM10 particles in the town's air.

"We are using a vertical shockwave that is created by the combustion of acetylene and air," said Dominik Grybos from the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow, one of the inventors.

"The wave projects the polluted air higher," he told AFP.

The toxic particles are sent up several hundred meters (yards) higher, making them harmless for residents.

"We have found that if we use the cannon for between half an hour and an hour, the pollution is reduced by 15-30 percent within a perimeter of two-three kilometers (1.2-1.9 miles) from the cannon," Grybos said, adding that the effects last for "between one and three hours".

Researchers are trying to work out the required frequency of the blasts, as well as the duration and the time needed for the entire procedure.

The price is estimated at 1,000-1,500 zloty ($250-$375) for one hour of use.

Grybos said he hopes the invention could find a commercial use, particularly in Poland.

Residents of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska are broadly in favor of the idea despite the sound.

"The smog is very heavy here. We can't air our flats because it stinks so much. So, if it can help, let them do the tests," said Jolanta Walkowicz, a 43-year-old accountant.

"We can barely hear the sound -- it's like fireworks going off," she added.

© 2022 AFP

Monster iceberg released 'billions of tonnes' of fresh water into ocean
Agence France-Presse
January 20, 2022

The A-68 iceberg was one of the largest ever observed HO NASA/AFP/File

A giant iceberg that detached from Antarctica in 2017 released the equivalent of 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools of fresh water as it melted, according to research published Thursday, raising questions over the impact on the marine ecosystem.

The monstrous iceberg was twice the size of Luxembourg when it separated from the Larsen ice shelf, which has warmed faster than any other part of Earth's southernmost continent.

At 5,719 square kilometres (2,200 square miles) it was the biggest iceberg on Earth when it formed and the sixth-largest on record, according to the British Antarctic Survey.

For two years, the trillion-tonne giant known as A-68, drifted close to home in the cold waters of the Weddell Sea before traveling northwards and menacing the British island of South Georgia, some 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from its starting point.

The iceberg, by then known as A-68a after a piece snapped off, came dangerously close to the island in late 2020, raising fears that it would become stuck on the seabed, block ocean currents and obstruct the passage of thousands of penguins and seals.

But the new study found that while it did briefly graze the seabed, the iceberg melted quickly once in the warmer region around South Georgia and had already lost a significant amount of its bulk by the time it reached shallower waters.

Researchers who tracked its journey via satellites calculated that from late 2020 until it melted away in 2021, A-68 released an estimated total of 152 billion tonnes of nutrient-rich fresh water into the sea.

That is equivalent to 20 times the water in Scotland's Loch Ness, or 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, said the BAS in a press release, adding it was "a disturbance that could have a profound impact on the island's marine habitat".

"This is a huge amount of melt water," said Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, a researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM), who led the research published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment.

"The next thing we want to learn is whether it had a positive or negative impact on the ecosystem" around South Georgia, she said.

© 2022 AFP

THOSE 'OTHER' AMERICANS

'Craven' Mitch McConnell condemned for 'shockingly racist' remarks about Black voters
Travis Gettys
January 20, 2022

McConnell

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was widely criticized for suggesting Black Americans were not fully American.

The Kentucky Republican spoke to reporters Wednesday after two Democratic senators refused to go along with a plan to change Senate rule to overcome a GOP filibuster of voting rights legislation, and he was asked what he would say to voters of color who are concerned about their access to the polls before November's midterm elections.

"Well, the concern is misplaced," McConnell said. "Because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans."

McConnell's remarks were quickly condemned online.

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00:1801:38

DEFINITION OF A FIFTH COLUMN

GOP Texas governor candidate: It would be 'cancel culture' to fire campaign staffer with white nationalist ties

Brad Reed
January 19, 2022


Don Huffines, a Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate who is running a primary challenge against incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, is refusing to fire a campaign staffer who has in the past been allied with avowed white nationalists.

As Huffington Post reports, Huffines is standing by right-wing activist Jake Lloyd Colglazier, who was once a featured speaker at an America First conference organized by Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, and who once claimed that the white "race is dying."

In an interview with Huffington Post, Huffines said that he wouldn't give in to "cancel culture" by firing Colglazier.

“He has done fieldwork for my campaign," the Texas Republican explained. "I have 12 field offices across Texas and over 70 people on payroll with my campaign. If I were to go through the social media history of any young Texan I would find something I disagree with. My campaign will not participate in cancel culture.”

As Huffington Post explains, however, Colglizier's ties to white nationalists go beyond a few problematic tweets.

In a January 2020 livestream, for example, he explicitly said his goal was to infiltrate the Republican Party to make it more friendly toward white nationalist views.

“We need to get into positions of authority, or within close proximity of positions of authority,” he said. “We need to get into positions of institutional power so that we can enact policies that can prevent or stymie demographic change, so that we can continue to gain institutional power, so that we can restore historical America.”

Fifth column

A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to organised actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force.

• 
  Wikipedia

WATCH: Former Trump advisor struggles to explain why his 'free speech' platform booted a white nationalist

Bob Brigham
January 20, 2022

Screengrab.

Longtime Donald Trump advisor Jason Miller is struggling to explain why his new social media platform, Gettr, banned prominent white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes.

Gettr bills itself as a "brand new social media platform founded on the principles of free speech, independent thought and rejecting political censorship and 'cancel culture.'"

But Fuentes, who was subpoenaed by the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, was banned.

“What is the point of a free-speech alternative to Twitter...that doesn’t even honor free speech?” Fuentes asked.

Podcaster Tim Pool this week asked Miller about how his company is enforcing its free speech standards.

"Bro, I don't think you've got an argument here, man," Pool said.

"It sounds like complete bullsh*t," he explained. "So it's really difficult for me to like, to understand exactly what he did wrong. The issue for me is that when I asked you, you don't seem to know either."

No more yurts. Orcas Islanders want affordable places year-round


CREDIT: COURTESY OF OPAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST »

JAN 19, 2022 

BY
Brandi Fullwood
Libby Denkmann

If you can find a place to live and work on Orcas Island you’re set. But workers and business owners don't want more yurts, cabins, and tents. They want creative solutions for after the big tourism season.

The idyllic horseshoe-shaped island boasts beautiful skylines, lush forests, pristine lakes, and short distances to the beach.

“It’s a different way of life compared to much of the mainland,” says Amy Nesler, a Communications and Stewardship Manager for San Juan Islands Visitor Bureau.

For residents and workers, it’s not enough to be beautiful. Affordability is a key concern year-round and seasonally.

“There's been a lot of economic stress because tourism is one of our biggest industries,” says Nesler. She says Covid 19 is not the sole reason behind challenges, “some of it is just normal flux of trying to run a business on an island.”

Residents point to short-term rental sites like Airbnb and VRBO as a popular scapegoat. But, resident Gillian Smith, writes in an email that it's hard for the community to reach a consensus on whether short-term rentals actually pose a risk.

“Locals hoping to make money from the short-term rental industry don't want to lose the ability to profit off of their properties,” Smith she says, “ many have pinned their hopes, plans for the future, retirements on being able to do so.”

Smith says regardless of the arguments, new solutions are needed.

Amy Nesler agrees, “we don’t necessarily have the zoning areas to create a new neighborhood” she says. Nesler offers that the Island should seek out creative solutions, “maybe we need to build some tiny homes instead of condos.”

Seasonal workers, employers, and fellow islanders are navigating the landscape trying to find places to live, sometimes giving up comfort.

Temporary housing solutions are a dime a dozen. Yurts, tents, trailers, and cabins are a norm for many employees seeking temporary employment in the summer. And, if you move jobs, you likely move housing as well.


“You might find people who have been living on Orcas who have never had an Orcas address,” says Jammal Williams. He says life on the Islands revolves around a scarcity of housing

.

CREDIT: COURTESY OF JAMMAL WILLIAMS

Williams worked on Orcas Island in the winter of 2018 and 2019. At that time he lived in employee housing. He found work as a cook, housekeeper, and casual fine dining server.

In the summer of 2021, he tried to move back to the San Juan Islands. He planned to move to Friday Harbor. He found three jobs but had no luck with housing.

“My credit score wasn’t high enough and the landlord wasn’t comfortable renting to me,” he says.


He is currently based in Houston, Texas taking care of family.

Employee housing meets the needs of many workers. For businesses that can afford it, it’s a tangible solution.

Jocelyn Cecil, the co-owner and manager of Hogstone Wood Oven in Eastsound on Orcas Island, says her business is taking on the challenge.

CREDIT: KUOW/BRANDI FULLWOOD


For the upcoming season, Hogstone aims to rent and subsidize condos to their employees.


“If we don’t take a small hit” she says “we may not be able to have anyone work for us.”

Hogstone Wood Oven is temporarily closed until spring due to renovations.

CREDIT: COURTESY OF JOCELYN CECIL

Currently the restaurant employs two people–Jocelyn Cecil and Jay Blackinton. Ideally, their restaurant would have fifteen workers. However, Cecil says it's been harder to find people to work who can also find housing.

Potential employees have offered to live outside in tents.

“It’s very admirable,” Cecil says, but working long hours in a restaurant and going home to sleep outside or in tents is not what they want for employees. “It’s hard on your body, it’s hard on your brain,” she says.

Hogstone employees have had to live in substandard housing in the past.

“We’re looking forward to the 2022 season being a touch more normal.”

Lisa Byers the Executive Director of OPAL Community Land Trust says it is not ideal to link work and housing. “If you leave your employer you lose your housing” Byers says.

OPAL Community Land Trust is a non-profit organization in Eastsound, on Orcas Island. They provide and create permanently affordable housing options.

Byers has worked with OPAL for twenty six years. She says the organization is working to meet rental needs now more than ever. But that need is overwhelming.

“The local housing market doesn’t work for wage earning people,” Byers says.

San Juan County has the second lowest wages in the state.

“It is a wonderful place,” she says, “but it's got some hidden dark sides.”

Orcas Island

Orcas Island is the largest of the San Juan Islands of the Pacific Northwest, which are in the northwestern corner of San Juan County, Washington.

NO SHAME

More Republicans Take Credit For Infrastructure Funding They Voted Against

Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson touted "game-changing" funding aiming to modernize locks and dams on the Mississippi River — even though she voted against it.

By Igor Bobic
01/19/2022 


With money starting to flow in for new projects around the country thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law Congress approved last year, more Republicans are attempting to take credit despite the fact that they opposed the legislation.

In a press release issued by her office on Wednesday, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) touted “game-changing” funding of $829 million announced by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that is aimed toward modernizing locks and dams on the Mississippi River, which borders her Eastern Iowa district.

“Over 60 percent of our nation’s grain exports travel through this lock and dam system, and it is a massive economic engine for the entire state,” Hinson, a freshman member of Congress, said in a joint statement along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the area who voted for the bill.

“That’s why I helped lead a bipartisan group of my colleagues in urging the Administration to prioritize funding for these essential upgrades. I’ll always fight to ensure Iowans’ taxpayer dollars are reinvested at home in Iowa,” she added.

But back in November, before the $1.2 trillion measure passed into law, Hinson called the bill “a raw deal for Iowans” and “spending at its worst.” She also objected to the fact that the bill had been linked with the passage of the Build Back Better Act, the Democratic social spending and climate legislation that has now stalled in the Senate.

“Congresswoman Hinson opposed the infrastructure package because it was tied to trillions of other spending in the House,” Sophie Seid, a spokeswoman for the congresswoman, said in a statement to HuffPost. “Since the bill was signed into law, this money was going to be spent regardless. If there’s federal money on the table she is, of course, going to do everything she can to make sure it is reinvested in Iowa.”

Only 13 House Republicans voted for the bill, which includes funding for roads, bridges, highways, railways and ports.

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), two lawmakers who did vote to pass the bipartisan infrastructure law, joined Hinson in Wednesday’s press release touting the Army Corps of Engineers funding.

“When I voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, I was voting for exactly this type of federal support for critical infrastructure that Iowans depend on,” Grassley, the senior Iowa Republican, said in a statement.

Another Republican, Rep. Kay Granger (Texas), similarly hailed over $400 million announced by the Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday that will go toward flood control efforts in Fort Worth ― funding that wouldn’t be possible without the bipartisan infrastructure law she voted against.