Pará & Papa

Up, Down.

Who can resist a story about sexual slavery? Touches all the limbic centres eh? Or maybe that should be limbic fissures?

So on one day we have the Pope and a Brasilian Bishop on more-or-less the same wavelength. The same, but different eh? The Pope wrings his hands like a true k-k-k-Canadian, and the brasilian calls the cops - nobody comes but hey!

You would have to know me well to understand how hilarious I find the concept of an AntiChrist ... but lately I have been reading Ivan Illich (the nutbar) and I am less skeptical than I was.

A-and a bit later on, I dream of Paul's "in a twinkling" (1 Corinthians 15:52), and Hopkins' "ahhh bright wings," (among other things).

The OED entry for 'limbic' is sorta neat (replete with associations that is): ‘term applied by Broca to the gyrus fornicatus and its prolongation, constituting the anterior part of the uncinate gyrus, because they are marked off in nearly all mammals from the surrounding convolutions’ - are these guys quoting Allen Ginzberg?

Also, it is (of course): ‘a mechanism for emotion.’

Source / Fonte: Amigos da Terra - Amazônia Brasileira & Grupo Estado.

Bispo do PA diz que crianças se prostituem por comida Carlos Mendes, 15/04/2008		The Bishop of Pará says that children are prostituting themselves for food
O bispo do Marajó, d. José Luís Azcona Hermoso, denunciou hoje em Belém que crianças entre 12 e 14 anos estão se prostituindo em troca de comida em municípios como Breves, Portel e Melgaço, no norte do Pará. "Levadas em muitos casos para a prostituição pelos próprios pais, elas abordam passageiros que transitam de barco pela região e oferecem o corpo em troca de dois quilos de carne e cinco latas de óleo de cozinha para matar a fome da família", afirma o religioso. Ele acusa o Executivo e o Judiciário paraense de "total omissão".		The Bishop of Marajó, Dom José Luís Azcona Hermoso, today denounced in Belém that children between 12 and 14 years old are prostituting themselves in exchange for food in municipalities such as Breves, Portel and Melgaço in the north part of Pará. "Led to prostitution in many cases by their own parents, they approach passengers travelling by boat in the region and offer their body in exchange for two kilos of meat and five tins of cooking oil to end the hunger of the family," claimed the brother. He accuses the Judicial Executive of Pará of "complete blindness."
Segundo Azcona, a exploração sexual de crianças e mulheres no Marajó é "escancarada", embora ele próprio tenha feito denúncias em 2006 que provocaram a visita de representantes da Comissão de Direitos Humanos da Câmara dos Deputados à cidade de Portel para apurar casos como o estupro de menores envolvendo os vereadores Roberto Alan de Souza Costa, o Bob Terra, e Adson de Azevedo Mesquita. Costa é filho do vice-prefeito de Portel, Ademar Terra.		According to Azcona, the sexual exploitation of children and women in Marajó is "wide open," even though he himself made denunciations in 2006 which led to a visit by the Human Rights Commission of the Assembly of Deputies to the city of Portel to verify cases of rape of minors involving the municipal Councilmen Roberto Alan de Souza Costa, Bob Terra, and Adson de Azevedo Mesquita. Costa is the son of the Vice-Mayor of Portel, Ademar Terra.
As Polícias Civil e Federal, além do Ministério Público (MP), critica o bispo, não demonstram nenhum interesse em investigar a exploração sexual de crianças e adolescentes para punir os responsáveis ou combater o tráfico humano de mulheres do Marajó para a Guiana Francesa e a Europa. "A impunidade dos criminosos é completa no Estado", afirma.		Federal and Civil Police, as well as the Public Ministry, who criticized the Bishop, show no interest in investigating the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in order to punish those responsible, nor do they combat the trafficing of the women of Marajó to French Guiana and Europe. "The impunity of criminals is complete in this state," he affirmed.
Ele citou o caso recente de denúncia feita pela imprensa de 178 mulheres levadas como escravas sexuais do Brasil para vários países. Desse total, 52 mulheres eram da cidade de Breves. Houve prisões de alguns traficantes. Seis advogados se apresentaram imediatamente para defendê-los e conseguiram livrá-los da cadeia. Está aí a prova, segundo o bispo, de que o poder econômico é um "grande aliado" do tráfico humano. Nenhuma das instituições citadas pelo bispo em suas denúncias quis comentar as acusações.		He cited the recent case of accusations made by the press of 178 women taken as sexual slaves from Brasil to many other countries. Of these, 52 women were from the city of Breves. Several trafficers were arrested. Six lawyers immediately represented them and succeeded in having them freed. That is the proof, according to the Bishop, that economic power is a "great ally" of human trafficking. None of the institutions cited by the Bishop in his denunciations wanted to comment.

Pope 'deeply ashamed' of church sex scandal, Michael Valpy, April 16, 2008.

Vowing to work to keep pedophiles out of the clergy, Benedict breaks with his predecessor and strongly condemns priestly child abuse.

Pope Benedict XVI deftly confronted the U.S. Roman Catholic sex scandal and its 5,000 victims before his plane arrived in the United States yesterday, using words more powerful than any his predecessor ever uttered to condemn priestly child abuse.

In a transatlantic meeting with reporters aboard his chartered Alitalia aircraft, the Pope described his personal difficulty in understanding how clergy could have so betrayed their callings, and he declared it far better for his priest-short church to live with empty pulpits than to again risk letting sexual abusers into its seminaries.

"It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen," he said in English, in response to a written question submitted to him in advance of his meeting with journalists.

"We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future."

U.S. President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, went to Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington to greet the Pope yesterday afternoon, the first time the U.S. President had gone to an airport to meet a visiting head of state. The Pope is the secular leader of the Vatican City State.

The United States, one of the world's most populous Catholic countries, is in the midst of a presidential election campaign and both the Republican and Democratic parties and their presidential contenders have been assiduously courting the Catholic vote.

Benedict's six-day visit to the United States includes an official welcome today, his 81st birthday, at the White House, a mass celebrated at Washington Nationals baseball stadium tomorrow, an address to the United Nations in New York on Friday and a visit to Sept. 11, 2001's ground zero on Sunday, followed by a mass at Yankee Stadium.

He will also meet with Catholic educators in Washington to present his views of what Catholic schools and universities should offer their students and preside over an ecumenical assembly with other religious leaders.

Michael Higgins, president of St. Thomas University in Fredericton and one of the world's foremost authorities on the contemporary Catholic Church, said the Pope's politically astute, forthright statement on his aircraft underscored how differently Benedict and his predecessor John Paul II viewed sex scandal and the priesthood in general.

"Benedict has a less romanticized, more grounded view of the priesthood than John Paul," Dr. Higgins said. "And I don't think John Paul ever grasped the enormity of what took place in the American church. Benedict is much more pragmatic."

He suggested that the Pope's statement, instantly transmitted to U.S. radio and television stations, likely had lanced criticism against him for not including Boston, the epicentre of the sex scandal, on his itinerary, an omission that Dr. Higgins suggested was outside the Pope's control.

Boston's once-powerful archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, was forced from office in 2002 because of his protection of abusive priests but later appointed by John Paul II to several authoritative church positions in Rome, an act that still rankles many U.S. Catholics.

Dr. Higgins drew a further comparison of the two popes in their handling of Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ and its 70,000-member companion lay organization, Regnum Christi.

Despite sexual abuse allegations against Father Maciel dating back three decades, he remained a close friend of John Paul II. However, in 2006, a year after Benedict XVI was elected to the papacy, Father Maciel was barred from performing priestly duties in public. He died three months ago.

Dr. Higgins said the Pope's statement would send a message to seminary rectors in North America not to loosen admission standards even though some have been privately complaining about the quality of candidates applying for entry.

Abuse in the church

Sex abuse scandals in the United States have hung over the Roman Catholic church for nearly a decade.

1984 Abuse scandals in Louisiana begin to attract attention of leading freelance journalist Jason Berry. His 1992 book Lead Us Not into Temptation contends 400 priests and brothers were involved in abuses during the previous eight years in North America.

January, 2002 The Boston Globe reports that 130 people were abused by former priest John Geoghan during three decades where he was reassigned rather than removed from contact with young boys.

December, 2002 Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, the most senior Roman Catholic official in the United States, resigns over his handling of clergy sexual abuse.

June, 2002 The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops directs each diocese to promptly investigate all allegations of sexual abuse.

September, 2003 The Boston Archdiocese agrees to pay up to $85-million to settle lawsuits filed by hundreds of people who say they were sexually abused by clergy.

February, 2004 The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops releases a report on alleged sexual abuse of children by priests in the United States over 52 years beginning in 1950. It finds that 10,667 people accused priests of child sexual abuse from 1950 through 2002, and more than 17 per cent of accusers had siblings who were also allegedly abused.

February, 2006 Roman Catholic diocese of Covington, which covers a large area of Kentucky, settles abuse claims for $85-million.

July, 2007 The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles agrees to pay $660-million to 500 victims of sexual abuse dating as far back as the 1940s in the largest compensation deal of its kind.

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