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Topic: Pope Francis the 1st (Read 45795 times)
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Re: Pope Francis the 1st
Reply #240 on:
Jun 02, 2014, 06:16 AM »
Pope said to be furious over luxury retirement flat of top Vatican official
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone claims pontiff's support after criticism over huge penthouse – but Francis's spokesman stays silent
John Hooper in Rome
theguardian.com, Sunday 1 June 2014 18.37 BST
It sits atop the roof of an old palazzo in the centre of Rome, surrounded by a broad terrace that affords breathtaking views across the Eternal City to the mountains beyond.
The penthouse apartment at the centre of Paolo Sorrentino's Oscar-winning movie La Grande Bellezza? Or perhaps the chosen retreat of a Forbes-list billionaire?
No. The flat in question is being created in the Vatican for the man who until recently was its most senior official.
While Pope Francis has been exhorting his clergy almost weekly to live lives as simple and frugal as his own, work has been going ahead on a luxurious retirement home for Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone , who stepped down as the Vatican's secretary of state last October.
Reports of an extensive renovation project began to circulate in April. But it was not until last week that an Italian gossip magazine, Chi, published the first photograph of the work being carried out on top of the Palazzo San Carlo, just inside the walls of the city state.
In a message to the newsletters of his former dioceses, Bertone acknowledged that his intended new residence was spacious. But he said that a previous estimate of 700 sq metres (7,500 sq ft) was double the true figure.
The 79-year-old prelate wrote that it was normal for flats in the Vatican's old buildings to be large.
He added that the one on the roof of the Palazzo San Carlo "duly converted (at my own expense) was made available for my temporary use and, after me, someone else will use it".
Even at 350 sq metres, however, the cardinal's new residence would be five times bigger than that of the pope, who lives in a one-bedroomed suite in the nearby Casa Santa Marta. Bertone's successor as secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, has similarly modest accommodation in the same building, which serves as a hotel for visitors to the Vatican.
Until the arrival of Pope Francis, it was normal for the Catholic church's most senior officials to retire to extensive and well-appointed lodgings. But, according to several Italian media accounts, the new pontiff was furious when he discovered the purpose of the work being carried out just a few yards from his own simple quarters.
The daily La Repubblica linked his reaction to a sermon he gave shortly before Easter in which he inveighed against "unctuous, sumptuous, presumptuous" clerics who ought instead to be spurning purely human and material pleasures. Bertone wrote that – on the contrary – he had received an "affectionate telephone call" from the pope just two days after the publication of the first report and that Francis had expressed "his solidarity and disappointment at the attacks directed at me over the apartment".
Asked to comment on the affair, the pope's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said: "I have nothing to say."
Work being carried out on the building has involved putting scaffolding up four storeys and around the entire penthouse complex.
La Repubblica said the refurbishment involved merging two existing flats: one of between 300 and 400 sq metres previously assigned to the head of the Vatican gendarmerie, and another of around 200 sq metres belonging to a deceased prelate.
In addition, the cardinal would have the use of a terrace area covering a further 100 sq metres.
La Repubblica said that Bertone would share the apartment with three nuns who would take care of the domestic work.
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Re: Pope Francis the 1st
Reply #241 on:
Jun 07, 2014, 06:30 AM »
Politics Left behind as Mideast Rivals Head to Vatican
by Naharnet Newsdesk
07 June 2014, 13:16
Israel's government is boycotting its Palestinian counterpart with relations to a new low, and when their two presidents join Pope Francis in a Vatican prayer for peace on Sunday politics are likely to be absent.
Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmud Abbas have been acquaintances for years and held peace talks together, and have their separate reasons for honoring the pope's desire to keep the weekend event as free of controversy as possible.
"This prayer meeting will not be for mediation or to find solutions. We are just meeting up to pray. Then everyone goes home," Francis said after issuing the invitations during a pilgrimage to the Middle East last month.
Under Israel's political system, Peres's role as president is largely ceremonial. Real power lies with the much more hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu did allow Peres to open a secret back channel of peace negotiations with Abbas in 2011. The two men held four rounds of talks in which Peres has said they finalized a draft agreement that the rightwing premier then rejected.
A new, US-led, peace push launched last July collapsed amid acrimony earlier this year to the dismay of Peres, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his part in launching the process decades ago.
But all the president, now 90 and due to step down at the end of July, has been able to do is voice hope that talks may one day resume.
In the Vatican Gardens on Sunday, he, Abbas and Francis will "issue a joint call for peace to people across the world," his office said.
"President Peres will place particular emphasis on the importance of inter-religious dialogue," it added.
- 'Committed to pope's request' -
The Palestinians too are keen that the joint prayers go ahead, despite Netanyahu's decision to boycott a new unity government sworn in by Abbas on Monday with the support of Israel's Islamist foe Hamas.
"We are committed to the pope's request. Nothing new has happened that would change the commitment," said foreign minister Riyad al-Malki.
While some Palestinians expressed dissatisfaction that Francis did not explicitly condemn Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank during last month's pilgrimage, Abbas welcomed the pope's "historic" visit.
And a silent prayer that Francis held at Israel's West Bank separation barrier in Bethlehem was widely seen as a publicity coup for the Palestinians.
"The pope saw the occupation with his eyes, he saw the wall in Palestine," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told Agence France Presse.
That perception was shared in Israel to the anger of the nationalist right.
Jerusalem Post commentator Caroline Glick wrote of an "unfriendly" visit and accused Francis of "leading the Catholic Church in a distressingly anti-Jewish direction."
"Alas, the Golden Age of Catholic-Jewish relations seems to have come to an end during Francis's visit to the Promised Land", she wrote.
Peres has been at pains to assuage Jewish religious sensibilities about the joint prayers he will hold at the Vatican.
"The event will take place in a location in the garden without religious symbols and which is not a place of prayer to ensure that it would be in accordance with Jewish tradition," his office said.
Ahead of the visit, Peres spoke with Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who blessed him for his work towards peace and wished him luck, it added.
Prayer Meeting Shows Pope's Larger Vision
By JIM YARDLEY
VATICAN CITY — From the earliest days of his papacy, when he walked slowly into a grand reception hall in the Apostolic Palace for his first meeting with a curious diplomatic corps, Pope Francis has promoted a fairly conventional foreign policy agenda: fight poverty, pursue peace, bridge ecumenical or interreligious divisions and protect the environment.
What has been unconventional is how Francis has elevated that agenda through adroitly timed gestures and initiatives — none more unexpected than the prayer summit meeting that he is holding on Sunday with the presidents of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He has placed himself in perhaps the world's most complex diplomatic dispute — at a moment when American-led negotiations have collapsed — by arguing that dialogue and prayer can help.
If few analysts expect any major breakthroughs, Francis's summit meeting shows how he is trying to pursue his goals by positioning the Vatican as an independent, global diplomatic player. Analysts also note that Francis's status as the first Latin American pope has given him credibility in the non-Western world and is helping the Vatican have influence on a broader array of issues and disputes.
"He is planning his own global role," said Alberto Melloni, a Vatican historian. "He is showing there is a space in international relations for a different diplomacy. That is the purpose of this diplomatic action — to show they are independent and reliable for the world."
Centuries ago, popes dominated global affairs, starting wars or ending them, exercising enormous influence in Europe and adjudicating between European powers as they expanded their colonial empires into Africa and the Americas. Papal influence was much more limited during the last century, with popes trying and failing to end both world wars. The most notable exception was Pope John Paul II, who is credited for his role in the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe.
When Francis became pope in March 2013, the historic nature of his papacy was framed largely in the context of the evolution of the Roman Catholic Church. Having an Argentine pope signaled that the Catholic center of gravity had shifted from Europe, where membership was stagnant, to Latin America and the global south, where it was expanding.
But Francis has since shown that his biography and popular personal style have also influenced how the Vatican engages on global political issues. He is hardly the first pope to speak out against poverty and inequality. Yet his work in the slums of Buenos Aires has lent him extra credibility, as has his status as a product of the developing world.
His first papal trip was to the Italian island of Lampedusa to draw attention to human trafficking and the global indifference to the thousands of refugees trying to reach Europe, with many dying in the Mediterranean. Global headlines also followed when he wrote a mildly scolding letter in January to the political and economic elites of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he decried global hunger as "intolerable."
Francis has spoken often about his concerns over the fate of Christians in the Middle East, and he has used this issue, as well as his broader nonviolence agenda, to insert the Vatican into diplomacy in the region. Last September, he staged a huge prayer vigil at St. Peter's Square as the United States and other Western powers were contemplating strikes against Syria.
The pope extended his invitation for Sunday's prayer meeting during a visit last month to Israel, Jordan and the West Bank — and apparently it surprised almost everyone, underscoring the unpredictability that sometimes informs his approach. One of the most resonant moments of his trip came when he made an unscheduled stop to pray beside a security barrier that Israel had erected in Jerusalem.
To some, it is surprising that a Latin American pontiff who has traveled relatively little outside his home region would so assertively involve himself in the Middle East. But others note that the Vatican has played an active role in Latin American politics for decades, including mediating a dispute in the late 1970s between Argentina and Chile over rights to the Beagle Channel.
"In Latin America, the idea of papal intervention is a natural thing to think about," said Philip Jenkins, a history professor with the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University.
Vatican officials have emphasized that the pope is not planning to try to mediate specific disputes between the two sides on Sunday. Delegations led by Presidents Shimon Peres of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority will join Francis on Sunday evening in the Vatican gardens for a program of Jewish, Muslim and Christian prayers, as well as music. "No one presumes that peace will break out Monday," the Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who is involved in planning for the prayer meeting and is the custodian of Catholic properties in the Holy Land, said at a news conference at the Vatican on Friday. "The intent is to recreate the desire, the possibility, the dream — to reopen a door that had been closed for some time."
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Last Edit: Jun 07, 2014, 06:37 AM by Rad
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Re: Pope Francis the 1st
Reply #242 on:
Jun 13, 2014, 06:48 AM »
Pope Admits Risk in Ditching 'Sardine-Can' Popemobile
by Naharnet Newsdesk
13 June 2014, 10:30
Pope Francis admitted in an interview Friday that he takes a risk when he ditches a "sardine can" popemobile to greet the people, but at his age he has little to lose.
The 77-year-old pontiff recalled that for his July 2013 visit to Brazil officials had prepared a glass-enclosed "popemobile" to shield him.
"But I cannot greet the people and tell them I love them inside a sardine can, even if it is glass," he said in an interview with the Barcelona-based Vanguardia newspaper.
"For me it is a wall," said the spiritual leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.
"It is true something could happen to me but let's be realistic, at my age I do not have much to lose," he told the paper's Vatican correspondent Henrique Cymerman.
"It is in God's hands."
Francis has preferred to use open-top cars in contrast to his predecessor Benedict XVI who rode in a bulletproof "popemobile" -- a novelty introduced after the attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981.
pope francis.jpg
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Re: Pope Francis the 1st
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Jun 14, 2014, 06:05 AM »
Pope declares war exists because economies 'sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money'
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
In interview, Pope says he's unconcerned about security because he doesn't have much to lose
Pope Francis in a newspaper interview said that the world's economy is fueled by war, as the world's biggest nations "sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money," to "obviously keep their balance sheets in the black." The pontiff was searing in his criticism about the callousness of world governments. He also livened the interview with a touch of wit. When asked if he had any security concerns, Pope Francis replied, "at my age I don't have much to lose."
In a recent interview, Pope Francis defended his predecessor Pope Pius, who some say did nothing to stop the Holocaust during World War II.
In a recent interview, Pope Francis defended his predecessor Pope Pius, who some say did nothing to stop the Holocaust during World War II.
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
Catholic Online (
6/13/2014 (18 hours ago)
Published in Living Faith
Keywords: Pope Francis, interview, war, economies, Pope Pius
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The interview was published this week in the Spanish-language daily newspaper La Vanguardia.
"We are in a world economic system that is not good," Pope Francis said. "A system that in order to survive must make war, as great empires have always done. But since you cannot have a Third World War, you have regional wars. And what does this mean? That arms are made and sold, and in this way the idolatrous economies, the great world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money, obviously keep their balance sheets in the black."
Pope Francis also reiterated one of his signature themes, that globalization's failings are not only material but cultural, since it "cancels differences." The pontiff called for an economic system that preserves each person's "particularity, richness, identity."
The Pope also addressed violence and killing done in the name of religion, citing the 17th-century Thirty Years' War.
Christianity, Judaism and Islam all "have our fundamentalist groups, small in relation to the rest", he said. "A fundamentalist group, even if it doesn't strike anyone, is violent. The mentality of fundamentalism is violence in the name of God."
The interview was conducted that day after Pope Francis presided over an "invocation for peace" at the Vatican with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Pope said that event took place in spite of skepticism from his own subordinates.
"It was not easy," the Pope said. "Here in the Vatican, 99 percent said it would not happen and afterward the one per cent grew."
The Pope also defended the record of his predecessor Pope Pius XII. He said that opening Vatican archives relating to the Holocaust "will shed much light" on that subject. Pope Pius, critics maintain did not say or do all he could to oppose the Nazi genocide.
"They have dumped everything on poor Pius XII. But you have to remember that once he was seen as the great defender of the Jews," he said. "I am not saying that Pius XII did not make mistakes - I myself make a lot - but you have to interpret his role in the context of the time. Was it better, for example, that he not speak in order to avoid the killing of more Jews, or that he speak?"
pope francis.jpg
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Re: Pope Francis the 1st
Reply #244 on:
Jun 16, 2014, 06:08 AM »
Pope Francis chooses Albania for his European visit
Vatican says pontiff wanted his first trip in Europe to be to a country with a past of persecution and continuing poverty
Reuters in Vatican City
theguardian.com, Sunday 15 June 2014 18.53 BST
Pope Francis has said his first trip to a European country will be to Albania in September to pay tribute to those who suffered under communism.
He will make a day trip to Tirana, the capital of one of Europe's poorest countries, on 21 September, he told pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square.
The Vatican spokesman said the pope wanted his first trip in Europe to be to a "country on the margins" with a past of social and religious persecution and continuing poverty.
Former dictator Enver Hoxha proclaimed Albania – for decades one of the world's most isolated countries – the world's first atheist state in 1967. Many mosques, churches and religious libraries were destroyed and imams and priests were arrested.
Francis said he wanted to make the trip to "encourage a country that has long suffered from the consequences of the ideologies of the past".
Communism collapsed in Albania in 1992 and the late pope John Paul II visited the following year.
Francis, elected in March 2013, has made two international trips, to Brazil and the Middle East. He is due to visit South Korea in August and Sri Lanka and the Philippines in January.
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Re: Pope Francis the 1st
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Jun 21, 2014, 06:54 AM »
No More Child Mafia Victims, Pope Says on Visit to Clan Heartland
by Naharnet Newsdesk
21 June 2014, 13:44
No more children must die at the hands of the mafia, pope Francis said Saturday, as he traveled to the hometown of a toddler murdered in a clan drug war.
"It must never again happen that a child suffers in this way," the pope said as he met relatives of "Coco" Campolongo, a three-year-old shot dead in January in the heartland of the 'Ndrangheta organised crime group in an apparent mob hit over money.
"I continuously pray for him. Do not despair," Francis told Coco's grandparents and uncle during a visit to the Castrovillari prison, where the toddler's father is serving time for drug-related crimes.
He asked them to pass the message on to Coco's mother, who was also in prison at the time of his murder and is now living under house arrest.
Under a blistering southern sun, he then addressed the 200 or so male and female inmates, many of whom are in jail for mafia-related crimes.
The discovery of Coco's body in a burnt-out Fiat Punto sent shockwaves through Italy, as did the murder just two months later of another three-year-old in the nearby Puglia region.
Francis stopped to speak with a group of disabled people in the large crowd of faithful who had come to meet him, before heading by helicopter to Coco's hometown of Cassano allo Jonio, nestled at the bottom of a steep mountain.
The 77-year-old was set to visit a hospice before lunching with poor and young people. He will wind up the day with a mass in the nearby town of Marina di Sibari.
The Argentine pope has denounced organised crime groups, warning mobsters to relinquish their "bloodstained money" which "cannot be taken to heaven".
The 'Ndrangheta plays a leading role in the global cocaine trade and its bastion, the Calabria region, is a major transit point for drug shipments from Latin America to the rest of Europe.
It has benefited in the past from historic ties to the Church, with dons claiming to be God-fearing Catholics and priests turning a blind eye to crimes.
But over the past 20 years numerous priests have taken part in the fight against the clans -- sometimes paying for their bravery with their lives.
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Re: Pope Francis the 1st
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Jun 22, 2014, 06:05 AM »
Pope Francis 'excommunicates' mafia
Pontiff issues strongest attack on organised crime by papacy in two decades and comforts father of boy killed in a mafia 'hit'
Reuters in Sibari, Italy
theguardian.com, Sunday 22 June 2014 12.12 BST
Pope Francis has issued the strongest attack on organised crime groups by a pontiff in two decades, accusing them of practising "the adoration of evil" and saying that mafiosi were excommunicated.
It was the first time a pope had used the word excommunication – a total cutoff from the church – in direct reference to members of organised crime.
"Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated," he said in impromptu comments at a mass before hundreds of thousands of people in one of Italy's most crime-infested areas.
To sustained applause he told the crowd: "This evil must be fought against, it must be pushed aside. We must say no to it." He branded the local crime group, the 'Ndrangheta, as an example of the "adoration of evil and contempt of the common good" and said the church would exert its full force in efforts to combat organised crime.
"Our children are asking for it, our young people are asking for it. They are in need of hope and faith can help respond to this need," he said.
Vatican spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini said the pope's stern words did not constitute a formal over-arching decree of canon (church) law regarding excommunication, which is a formal legal process.
Rather, he said it was more of a direct message to members of organised crime that they had effectively excommunicated themselves, reminding them that they could not participate in church sacraments or other activities because they had distanced themselves from God through their criminal actions.
Still, the use of the highly charged word by a pope was significant because many members of organised crime in Italy see themselves as part of a religious, cult-like group, take part in sacraments, go to church and in some cases have also found complicity by some churchmen in the south.
The pope, Benedettini said, was trying to "isolate mafiosi within their own communities", sending a message that they should not in any way be looked up to as "men of honour".
In 1993 Pope John Paul sternly warned members of Sicily's mafia that they would "one day face the justice of God". The mafia responded several months later with bomb attacks against several churches in Rome, including the Basilica of St John's, which is a church of the pontiff in his capacity as bishop of Rome.
Francis spoke in a homily at the end of day-long trip to the southern region of Calabria, home of the mafia-style 'Ndrangheta which investigators say has spread around the world.
The 'Ndrangheta has been much harder for investigators to combat than the Sicilian mafia because its structure is more lateral than hierarchical and its tightly-knit crime families are less flashy than the Sicilian mob and harder to penetrate.
A 2013 study by Demoskopia, an economic and social research institute, estimated the 'Ndrangheta's annual turnover at some €53bn (£42bn) in 30 countries, equivalent to about 3.5% of Italy's total official economic output.
Around half of its revenues came through drug trafficking, the study found.
Francis made the trip in part to pay tribute to Nicola "Coco" Campolongo, who was killed in the town along with his grandfather in an organised crime attack last January.
The charred body of the three-year-old boy, who had been entrusted to his grandfather Giuseppe Iannicelli after his parents were jailed on drugs charges, was found along with those of Iannicelli and a Moroccan woman in a burnt-out car in the town.
Francis, who last January strongly denounced the murder and asked the killers to repent, comforted the boy's father and other relatives during a meeting a Vatican spokesman described as highly emotional.
"Never again violence against children. May a child never again have to suffer like this. I pray for him continuously. Do not despair," the spokesman quoted the pope as saying.
The boy's parents and grandfather were part of a drugs trafficking clan of the 'Ndrangheta. Social workers have come under criticism for entrusting the boy to his maternal grandfather, a convicted drugs runner who was out on bail.
The bishop of the area the pope visited, Nunzio Galantino, is seen as one of the most progressive in Italy's poorer, underdeveloped south and has taken strong stands against organised crime.
But there have been instances of collusion of some priests in other areas of Calabria where the 'Ndrangheta is strongest, further south along the Italian peninsula near Reggio Calabria.
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Re: Pope Francis the 1st
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Jun 25, 2014, 05:49 AM »
Towards Healing did not have Vatican approval, child abuse inquiry told
Archbishop Philip Wilson tells how a powerful Vatican body nullified his ban on priest later defrocked by Pope Benedict
Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Wednesday 25 June 2014 07.59 BST
Towards Healing, the process the Australian Catholic church used to deal with allegations of child sexual abuse, did not have Vatican approval, a royal commission has heard.
Archbishop Philip Wilson told the commission on Wednesday how a formal decree he made when he was bishop of Wollongong to stop a priest about whom there had been complaints, was nullified by a powerful Vatican body.
The archbishop is in the box for the second day explaining how he dealt with John Nestor, a priest who was defrocked by Pope Benedict in 2008.
Complaints about Nestor dated back to 1991.
In 1996 he was found guilty of indecent assault of a teenage altar boy but was acquitted on appeal in 1997.
The archbishop said he used the Towards Healing protocol – the internal process set up by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference – to have Nestor assessed after he was acquitted.
He wanted Nestor to go to a clinic for further assessment. Nestor refused and on 22 January 1998 he told Nestor: "You are to cease functioning publicly as a priest in any place until I give you permission to do so."
He said that within the Vatican, the body known as the Congregation for the Clergy was the most powerful, and it was known for finding in favour of priests who challenged decisions by their bishops.
Nestor appealed against his decree and the CFC found that the bishop's decree did not meet the requirements of canon law, which would have required that Nestor go through a penal church process.
The bishop was told that Towards Healing "norms are in conflict with the code [canon] or disregard the canonical norms of procedure".
Wilson said: "I think that the resource [appeal] that was taken to the Congregation for the Clergy had an element in it where they regarded Towards Healing as being a non-operative procedure because it hadn't received authorisation of the Holy See".
Wilson said he always saw the Towards Healing process running in conjunction with church law – canon law – because he knew that Nestor would "contest everything".
He had checked with respected canon lawyers to ensure that what he was doing was correct.
He told the commission there was confusion in the church at the time about what laws applied and it was little known among bishops worldwide and in Australia that there had been reforms to canon law.
"There was a great confusion among the doctors, the teachers, about what were the proper procedures not only in these [child abuse] cases but in others."
The hearing is continuing.
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Jun 27, 2014, 09:24 AM »
Ex-Vatican Envoy to Dominican Republic Defrocked for Sex Abuse
by Naharnet Newsdesk
27 June 2014, 16:50
The Vatican's former ambassador to the Dominican Republic has been convicted of sex abuse by a church tribunal and has been defrocked in the first case of its kind, the Vatican said Friday.
Polish archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who was recalled to Rome last year amid claims that he sexually abused a number of children in the slums of Santo Domingo, was found guilty by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and can no longer perform priestly duties.
It is the first time that a Vatican ambassador has been defrocked for sexual abuse. Wesolowski has two months to appeal.
Once his canonical conviction is definitive he will have to face the Vatican City's criminal tribunal, which could sentence him to prison in what would be the first such trial for sex abuse within the tiny city state.
Wesolowski, 65, had been ambassador to the Dominican Republic since 2008, but was recalled by Pope Francis last August following accusations of sexually abusing minors.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the ex-cleric would be stripped of his freedom of movement.
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Re: Pope Francis the 1st
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Jun 30, 2014, 05:33 AM »
Pope Francis jokes 'woman was from a rib' as he avoids vow to reform church
Pope refuses to commit himself to raising status of women in Catholic church and makes 'joke' about female subservience
John Hooper in Rome
The Guardian, Sunday 29 June 2014 16.35 BST
In his first interview with a female journalist since his election to the spiritual leadership of the world's 1.2 billion baptised Catholics, Pope Francis dodged a string of questions about whether he intended raising the status of women in his church and made a joke about women being "taken from a rib".
The pope said women were "the most beautiful thing God has made". And he added: "Theology cannot be done without this feminine touch."
He agreed not enough was said about women and promised that steps were being taken to remedy the situation.
But when his interviewer, the Vatican correspondent of the Rome daily Il Messaggero, Franca Giansoldati, asked him whether he could detect an underlying misogyny in the Catholic church, Francis replied: "The fact is that woman was taken from a rib." Giansoldati wrote that he then laughed "heartily" before saying: "I'm joking. That was a joke."
The 77-year-old pontiff went on: "The issue of women needs to be gone into in more depth, otherwise you can't understand the church itself." But did he envisage, say, appointing a woman to head a Vatican department?
"Well," replied the pope cryptically. "Priests often end up under the sway of their housekeepers."
In a conversation that highlighted both his theologically conservative side and his economically radical one, Francis returned to his argument that people should have children rather than pets, even if the task was more demanding. "The emotional relationship with animals is easier, more programmable," he said. "An animal is not free whereas having a child is a complex matter."
Francis was also invited to respond to comments by the Economist's blogger on religion who said that, in another interview, he had taken "an ultra-radical line", following Lenin "in his diagnosis of capitalism and imperialism as the main reason why world war broke out a century ago." The pope replied: "All I will say is that the communists stole our colours. The flag of the poor is Christian. Poverty is at the centre of the gospels. The poor are at the centre of the gospels."
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Jul 03, 2014, 06:05 AM »
Vatican gives official backing to exorcists
Head of International Association of Exorcists says Vatican approval is cause for joy for those who suffer demons
Associated Press in Vatican City
The Guardian, Wednesday 2 July 2014 18.38 BST
Exorcists now have an extra weapon in their fight against evil – the official backing of the Catholic church. The Vatican has formally recognised the International Association of Exorcists, a group of 250 priests in 30 countries who liberate the faithful from demons.
The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reported this week that the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy had approved the organisation's statutes and recognised the group under canon law.
More than his predecessors, Pope Francis speaks frequently about the devil, and last year was seen placing his hands on the head of a man supposedly possessed by four demons in what exorcists said was a prayer of liberation from Satan.
The head of the association, the Rev Francesco Bamonte, said the Vatican approval was cause for joy. "Exorcism is a form of charity that benefits those who suffer," he told L'Osservatore.
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Jul 07, 2014, 07:55 AM »
Pope Tormented by Sex Abuse Suicides, Slams Complicity
by Naharnet Newsdesk
07 July 2014, 16:37
Pope Francis said the suicides of sex abuse victims weighed on his conscience on Monday, speaking of the "terrible darkness" inside the Church as he met with survivors and pledged to crack down on pedophilia.
At his long-awaited first meeting with victims, the pope reached out to the tens of thousands of people abused by priests globally, telling them he was sorry for the "grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you".
Three male and three female victims from Britain, Germany and Ireland slept in the pope's residence near Saint Peter's Basilica before breakfasting with him and spending half an hour each with him.
Francis said there was "no place in the Church's ministry for those who commit these abuses" adding: "I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not."
In a moving speech written in his native Spanish, the 77-year-old spoke of the "toxic effect" of the abuse scandal, which he admitted had ruined many lives.
"I look at you and... I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons," he said.
He said "these wounds are a source of deep and often unrelenting emotional and spiritual pain, and even despair", and that the psychological pain caused by abuse meant that some had to face "the terrible tragedy of the death of a loved one by suicide."
"The deaths of these so beloved children of God weigh upon the heart and my conscience and that of the whole Church," the 77-year-old said.
The victims, who had also dined in the Casa Santa Martha Vatican guesthouse where the pope lives on Sunday night, were not identified to the press.
The private meetings came amid criticism that Francis has been slow to deal with a scandal hugely damaging to the Catholic Church, and it was hoped they would "open a constructive path" towards "healing the wounds" of victims, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.
The first such meeting since Francis was elected in February last year, it had been hotly awaited by victim support groups who have criticized the Argentinian for not acting sooner on an issue which has scarred the Church's image for over a decade.
Though in May the pope had branded the sexual abuse of children by priests a crime comparable to a "satanic Mass" and promised "zero tolerance", survivors questioned why a pope famed for his compassion had not met with victims.
Last year Francis strengthened Vatican laws on child abuse, broadening the definition on crimes against minors to include pedophilia -- though the legislation only covers clergy and lay people who work in or for the Vatican, not the universal Catholic Church.
A historic first trial against a former ambassador to the Vatican is expected to take place after Polish archbishop Jozef Wesolowski -- former papal envoy to the Dominican Republic -- was convicted of sex abuse by a Church tribunal last month and defrocked.
At the end of last year he also set up an abuse commission to advise him on protocols -- which on Monday he called on for "support" in tackling the scandal.
In fierce language intended to hit clerical sinners hard, he said pedophile priests "profane the very image of God in whose likeness we were created."
The Church "asks the grace to weep before the execrable acts of abuse which have left lifelong scars," he said.
But the Vatican's continued insistence on keeping its inquiries into suspect priests secret has angered victims and campaigners.
In May, the U.N. Committee Against Torture said the Church had major failings in dealing with abuse cases, voicing concerns about a cover-up culture and calling for alleged pedophiles to be suspended immediately pending investigation.
Ahead of the meeting with victims, a former Mexican priest released an open letter to the pope written with several sex abuse victims, calling on Francis to "prohibit the transfer of pedophile priests" from one community to another.
Alberto Athie, who was forced by his bishop to step down for having defended victims abused by the late founder of the Legion of Christ Marcial Maciel, insisted the pontiff should "hand all sexual aggressors, as well as their protectors, over to the civil authorities."
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Jul 08, 2014, 06:25 AM »
Pope Francis lambasts Catholic bishops who helped cover up child abuse
Pontiff makes strongest condemnation yet of paedophile priests and senior clergy who obfuscated rather than punished
Lizzy Davies in Rome
The Guardian, Monday 7 July 2014 14.29 BST
Leaders of the Roman Catholic church who failed to "respond adequately" to reports of child sex abuse by paedophile priests caused "even greater suffering" to their victims and will in future be held accountable, Pope Francis has said, in a clear rebuke to bishops who helped cover up the scandal and shield abusers.
In his strongest condemnation yet of the way in which the church handled its abuse crisis, Francis asked victims for forgiveness not only on account of those who had perpetrated the abuse but also those senior figures whose "sins of omission" had exacerbated the problem.
"Before God and his people, I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness," he said. The sexual abuse of minors by priests and other men of the cloth required the church to "make reparation".
The pontiff was delivering the powerful homily at a morning mass in the Vatican before a group of six abuse victims, including two from the United Kingdom. Sixteen months into his papacy, it was his first such encounter.
"It is something more than despicable actions," Francis said of clerical sex abuse. "It is like a sacrilegious cult, because these boys and girls had been entrusted to the priestly charism in order to be brought to God. And those people sacrificed them to the idol of their own concupiscence."
He added: "There is no place in the Church's ministry for those who commit these abuses, and I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not."
It is not the first time that Francis has condemned abuse, but his words delivered at the Santa Martha guesthouse on Vatican grounds were particularly pointed towards those clerics who may have enabled the abuse to be "camouflaged with a complicity".
"I beg your forgiveness … for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves. This led to even greater suffering on the part of those who were abused and it endangered other minors who were at risk," said Francis, according to a translation made available by the Vatican.
All bishops, added the pope, must exercise "the utmost care" in order to protect minors. "And they will be held accountable," he warned.
Advocates of abuse victims have long complained that the church has yet to act to punish those bishops who contributed to cover-ups. And, reacting to the pope's words on Monday, the main US victims' group, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (Snap), did not appear to have been won over, arguing that words were no substitute for concrete policy changes. The church needed a leader who was not only kind but had "the toughness to fire complicit church officials, it said in a statement.
"The pope says the church should 'make reparations' to victims. That's secondary. Stopping abuse and protecting children comes first. And sadly, no child on earth is safer today because of this meeting."
Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, declined to identify the six adults who saw Francis for around 30 minutes each on Monday, saying only that two were from the United Kingdom, two from Ireland and two from Germany.
One, however – Irish woman Marie Kane, 43 – broke her silence, telling Irish radio RTE the audience had been an important vindication. "It can't go any higher than this," she said.
"I felt it came from the heart," she added. "For me he seemed very sincere and very sorry. And I think he realises he has a lot of changes to make. I'd like to believe he will, but, you know, I don't know. We can only leave it with him and wait and see."
She said she had prayed for change in the church while attending the mass with the pope. "You know, just do more," she said. "Get these guys out of power that shouldn't be there – that are guilty of cover-ups, and who covered up in my case, as well, and they know who they are, you know. So, yes, change. Change."
The Vatican has been hauled over the coals repeatedly this year by two United Nations human rights panels, both of which unleaded harsh criticism on the church for its handling of the scandal, and urged it to do more to punish paedophile priests and their protectors, to support victims and to protect children.
Pope Francis has said he intends to find new ways forward, having set up a commission for the protection of minors, which met again in the Vatican on Sunday. The panel, which includes Irish abuse victim Marie Collins, has been dismissed by some other advocates as a superficial gesture.
They have found fault with the way the pope, 77, has approached the scandal since his election last March. While condemning the abuse, Francis has seemed at times reluctant to mount a full-frontal attack on the church, for instance riling many in March by claiming that no other organisation or institution in the world had "done more" to tackle child abuse. Some critics have also questioned why it took him more than a year into his papacy to meet with victims.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, Lombardi said the encounters had been "extremely broad and intense" and had left the victims with "the feeling that they had been listened to … with great attention".
He rejected accusations that the event was nothing more than a publicity stunt, saying he was "not surprised" that some people could not understand the "positive intentions" of either Francis or Benedict XVI, who met with abuse victims on several occasions.
But, he said: "It is totally clear that it was not a public relations event. If you [had seen] the people coming out of this meeting with the pope you [would have seen] that this was not a public relations event."
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Jul 10, 2014, 06:52 AM »
Pope Francis Names New Leadership for Vatican Bank
By JIM YARDLEY
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis continued his efforts to modernize and reorganize the Vatican finances on Wednesday, by appointing a new leadership for the scandal-tainted Vatican Bank, streamlining other operations and signaling future changes to the church's global media operations.
"Our ambition is to become something of a model in financial management rather than a cause for occasional scandal," Cardinal George Pell, the pope's recently appointed prefect on economic affairs, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Continue reading the main story
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Nuns in St. Peter's Square last week. The Vatican has made concerted efforts to open up its traditionally secretive bank.
Vatican Is Found to Make Progress in Policing Its BankDEC. 12, 2013
The most prominent move, rumored for weeks, was the appointment of Jean-Baptiste de Franssu as the new president of the Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute of Religious Works, or I.O.R. Mr. de Franssu, a Frenchman who was formerly head of European operations for the investment management company Invesco Ltd., had been serving on an economic advisory council that Francis created in March. He replaces Ernst von Freyberg, a German industrialist appointed last year.
Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, the new president of the Vatican Bank. Credit Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press
Cleaning up the Vatican's murky finances has been a top priority for Francis, especially after many of the cardinals who elected him as pope in March 2013 spoke openly about their displeasure with the Vatican's financial operations.
In recent years, the Vatican Bank has been under growing pressure to comply with international practices to fight money laundering and meet other global norms. In 2010, Italian prosecutors temporarily seized $30 million from two accounts at the bank as part of a financial investigation.
It was Francis's predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who appointed Mr. von Freyberg to begin cleaning up the bank. Joined by outside consultants, his team was given the task of introducing greater transparency in bank practices while also examining about 18,000 accounts at the Vatican Bank for possible illegal activity.
His team published the bank's first ever annual report and instituted protocols to prevent money laundering. And more than 3,000 accounts have been closed, most due to inactivity or small balances, though nearly 400 were closed after bank officials decided to narrow eligible customers to people with direct ties to the church.
"Today, I.O.R. is in good shape, also financially," Mr. von Freyberg said at the news conference on Wednesday.
The bank's legacy of past mismanagement was evident in an annual report released on Tuesday. It showed that profits had fallen sharply because of the declining price of gold as well as write-downs on bad loans issued before 2013. One priority has been to tighten internal bank controls to prevent powerful church officials from handing out loans with limited scrutiny.
In recent weeks, European news media have reported on an unconfirmed investigation into a bank loan of 15 million euros ($20.4 million) to a Catholic filmmaker that was approved in 2012 by the Vatican's former second-in-command, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Such a write-down was listed in Tuesday's financial reports, though without specific mention of Cardinal Bertone.
On Wednesday, Cardinal Pell praised Mr. von Freyberg's role at the Vatican Bank, noting that he had overseen the first phase of reforms while working part-time, splitting his weeks between Germany and Rome. He said the position now demanded a full-time occupant.
At the same time, many analysts say, the restructuring will limit the authority of the bank and other existing Vatican financial institutions over some assets and investments while placing more power in the new Secretariat of the Economy, which was created by Francis and is now led by Cardinal Pell.
"For the I.O.R., it's an epochal change," said Paolo Rodari, an expert on the Vatican at the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica. "It will become a mere retail bank, as many cardinals during the conclave had called for. But this move allows the Vatican to keep having a bank that distributes money to all its missions all over the world."
Analysts say that Cardinal Pell, an Australian, is emerging as a major power broker in Francis's restructuring of the Vatican bureaucracy, while Italian prelates who were once dominant in economic affairs have seen their clout diminished.
Cardinal Pell also announced the formation of a committee to propose changes to the Vatican's media operation, which will be led by Christopher F. Patten, the chancellor of Oxford University.
The cardinal said the Vatican media division, which employs a large staff of translators and journalists, especially on radio, needed to be modernized, and he predicted future cost savings through attrition and restructuring.
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Jul 14, 2014, 07:18 AM »
Pope Francis reassures the faithful: Only 2 percent of Catholic clergy are pedophiles
By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, July 13, 2014 11:14 EDT
Pope Francis promised "solutions" to the issue of priestly celibacy in an interview on Sunday that raised the possibility the Catholic Church could eventually lift the interdiction on married priests.
Speaking to Italy's La Repubblica daily, Francis also condemned child sex abuse as a "leprosy" in the Church and cited his aides as saying that "the level of paedophilia in the Church is at two percent".
"That two percent includes priests and even bishops and cardinals," he said.
Asked whether priests might one day be allowed to marry, Francis pointed out that celibacy was instituted "900 years after Our Lord's death" and that clerics can marry in some Eastern Churches under Vatican tutelage.
"There definitely is a problem but it is not a major one. This needs time but there are solutions and I will find them," Francis said, without giving further details.
The interview was the third in a series with the 90-year-old founder of the La Repubblica daily, Eugenio Scalfari, a famous journalist and known atheist.
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Phosphoric Acid + Prevention of flash/surface rust
I just wanted to let everyone know about my experience in using phosphoric acid (metal etch/floor etch/metal conditioner).
A gentleman on the Hobart Welder forum recommended using it to neutralize rust.
I've got most of my sheetmetal in my basement (being that I do not have a garage). It takes time to manually strip through all of the years of paint, primer and filler. In the meantime, surface rust has appeared on many of my panels. It really doesn't take long for it to rear its' ugly head, 3 days at the most around here.
So I picked up some stuff called "Floor Etch" which is just phosphoric acid, and I've layered it on the bare metal...and I just have to say, the stuff is phenomenol.
Wearing rubber gloves and protective eyeware, soak a rag in the acid. On light rust, it will actually wipe it away in a few passes...at least it appears to.
On non-rusted bare metal, it puts a sort of grey-frosting on it. TO my understanding, you should actually hit bare metal with this stuff, it helps the primer adhere.
On somewhat thicker rust, I just pour the acid right onto the metal. If the panel doesn't have any holes in it, you can tilt it around and get full coverage. It will turn the rust into a hard black substance...not sure what it's called chemically.
Another good method is soaking a rag, smearing the stuff around, and leaving the drenched rag on the metal. The rusty areas will turn black.
I've also used a wire brush when I'm applying the acid. Kind of brush the acid around with the brush and at the same time you're brushing away little chunks of cancer.
At the end of the day, it APPEARS that this stuff at least SLOWS the rusting process substantially. I cannot say whether it completely stops the rust...I'll let you know in a few years.
I recommend at least trying this stuff where you would not use por-15. It's cheap..and I just wish I would have known about it sooner.
Hope this helps someone out.
por15's METAL READY is a zinc-phosphate etcher, and i've left parts unattended for weeks without ANY rust appearing.......
metal ready is a tad more expensive. Price difference is neglible. I'm just putting the information out there for whoever is interested.
The problem with PA is that it only gets the surface rust. If the rust has any thickness at all it will only change the top layer of rust and leave the sub-surface untouched. I would hit any rust with a 60 grit sanding pad to ensure that there is no rust left to rear it's ugly head down the road.
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FIFA Soccer 10 Cheats & Codes
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Published by: Electronic Arts
Developed by: EA Canada
Genre: Sports
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Also known as: FIFA 10
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With that mantra in mind, the NCAA's decree to lengthen college basketball's preseason is a welcome development in a sport where the run-up to the regular season barrels down on coaches and players like a fastbreak. Earlier this month, the governing body of collegiate athletics ruled that men's programs can begin practicing six weeks prior to their first game.
The 2013-14 season is set to tip-off on Nov. 8, meaning teams can begin laying the groundwork in earnest on Sept. 27.
Two weeks may not seem like a major addendum, but consider this: between mid-October and the mid-December exam break, teams around the country don't stop. One day you're holding intrasquad scrimmages and the next thing you know, it's time to play a couple of exhibition games.
Ready or not, the focus then shifts to ushering in the regular season and with it a schedule that leaves little room for squeezing in valuable practice time – or to catch one's breath.
With extra time now at their disposal, the headaches that head coaches were forced to deal with due to a compressed schedule are now alleviated. It gives these leaders of young men a prime chance to stress areas that may have slipped through the cracks before, i.e. settling on a rotation that builds cohesiveness.
"You may be able to get a little more synergy and timing in the early games and gain a better feel of what your team is going to look like," relayed Providence head coach Ed Cooley. "I think you have a chance to see who your team is sooner rather than later and it's an opportunity for you to grow."
Coaches like Cooley and Bryant's Tim O'Shea understand that the additional practice time that has been allotted doesn't give them carte blanche to put the players through the meat grinder and subject them to possible burnout before everyone starts playing for keeps.
See COOLEY, page C6
"We have to come up with what's best for Providence College, not so much what's best for the year. Do we practice Monday-Tuesday, give them Wednesday off and come back Thursday-Friday or give them Friday-Saturday off? It's all moving pieces right now to what fits who we are and what we're trying to do," Cooley stated. "We'll strategically do something where our players are fresh come November 1."
Added O'Shea, "The operative word is flexibility. You can go hard for three days and take two days off. The way it was set up before, you went six days and took one day off. It's not a game changer, but it's a rule that I think most coaches welcome."
There is a trickle-down effect to keep in mind. Per NCAA rules, teams were allowed to come together in September for only a few hours a week. The curtain figures to get lowered on such get-togethers, but remember that coaches are permitted to work with players two hours per week during the summer.
"You have more control over your players rather than having them workout with someone else," Cooley said about the NCAA granting permission for summertime workouts.
Cooley passed along that Friar guard Bryce Cotton is "aggressively rehabbing his knee and that he's coming along fine." A first-team All-Big East pick as a junior, Cotton underwent surgery last month to repair a slight tear. The procedure was performed on the same knee that hindered the sharpshooter at times last season.
"He's probably got another month before he's full-go," was the status update Cooley offered.
NBA general mangers continue to pick Cooley's brain regarding Ricky Ledo, who is in Chicago for the two-day draft combine that gets underway Thursday. The PC coach remains in constant contact with Ledo.
"Emotionally he's doing well," said Cooley. "Ricky's a hot name. I've told GMs how Ricky did during practice and the things he's good at and what he needs to work on. I want to make sure our players become the best they can be."
As far as summer schedules go, the Friars will welcome incoming freshman Brandon Austin and Rodney Bullock to campus in time for the July summer school session. For the Bulldogs, O'Shea will have just one of his four first-year additions to next season's roster – 6-foot-8 forward Ellis Williams via Ohio – in Smithfield for summer classes that get underway next Wednesday.
"The other three players don't graduate high school until June so they won't be able to attend summer school," O'Shea noted.
Recruiting-wise, don't expect the Friars to add a player for next season just for the sake of filling up one of the scholarship spots that remain available. A possible scenario is to see Cooley award one to hardworking walk-on Ted Bancroft, who will be a senior.
"We've talked about that because he's somebody who has given to our program," Cooley said.
From the scheduling department, Cooley says that Providence is still looking to add a high-level non-conference game to complement the one against John Calipari's Kentucky squad on Dec. 1 at Brooklyn's Barclay Center. Bryant's O'Shea mentioned that he needs one more home game to fill out a slate that will feature a visit by Brown.
Neither PC nor URI appear on Bryant's non-conference schedule, with the absence of the Friars mainly due to conference realignment. O'Shea expressed confidence that Providence will be on his team's schedule moving forward. The coach is also optimistic that some sort of agreement can be reached with Danny Hurley and Rhody.
"From my standpoint, I would like to play PC and URI every year," expressed O'Shea.
The sounds of silence that have been coming from Big East headquarters figure to cease when the conference stages its spring meetings beginning Sunday in Florida. Cooley and Providence Athletic Director Bob Driscoll will be on hand with the hopes of receiving some news regarding who will sit in the commissioner's chair along with the finalization of the league schedule.
"It's going to be interesting," said Cooley.
Two main contributors from North Smithfield High's once-in-a-lifetime campaign have finalized their college hoop destinations. Forward Matt Walkow is heading to CCRI while guard Cody L'Heureux is ticketed for Westfield (Mass.) State.


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- About ADHD & ADD
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Can't find what you're looking for? Our health information specialists are here to help. Contact us at 800-233-4050 or online.
When applying for SSI for children, you will be asked to provide your child's birth certificate and Social Security Number and financial information. The Social Security Administration will want detailed information about your child's condition and functioning from family members, teachers, doctors, counselors, and others who know, work with, or care for him or her. Social Security may require additional mental health and medical evaluations (at no cost to families). If your child is approved for SSI, his or her information will be reviewed every three years to determine if they still meet the disability and income eligibility requirements.
For more information on SSI, visit the Social Security Administration's Supplemental Security Income benefits webpage and/or review Social Security: Benefits for children with disabilities; call 800-772-1213; or contact your local Social Security Office. Please also see our FAQ, My child was just diagnosed with ADHD. Is she eligible for SSI?
Sources:Social Security Administration. (January 2014). Benefits for Social Security: children with disabilities. (SSA Publication No. 05-10026 ICN 455360).
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text: New York-based filmmaker Ramin Bahrani's third feature film, Goodbye Solo, opened this week in a limited Bay Area run. Ramin takes an approach to cinema that many people would call "low-budget," but which I prefer to think of as economical: doing only what the story requires, no more and no less. He's produced three feature ... More


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Basic Information
Summary of the EPA Listening Session on Sustainable Products (PDF) (16 pp, 387.6K, About PDF), September 24, 2010, to solicit input from stakeholders to help EPA better define its role in the green or sustainable products movement.
- What is "Environmentally Preferable?"
- Impact of Federal Purchasing
- Benefits of Environmentally Preferable Purchasing
- Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program Measurement and Outcomes
- Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program History
EPA's Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Program is helping agencies across the federal government comply with green purchasing requirements, and, in doing so is using the federal government's enormous buying power to stimulate market demand for green products and services.
Federal agencies are directed by federal laws, regulations and executive orders to make purchasing decisions with the environment in mind. EPA created the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program in 1993 to help federal officials meet these requirements. Most recently, these requirements have included Executive Order 13514 - Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance (PDF) (15 pp, 88 K, About PDF), which orders federal agencies to use sustainable practices when buying products and services.
As they implement these green purchasing requirements, federal purchasers need to consider:
- Their legal requirements;
- Product and service needs;
- Costs and benefits of various green products and services.
The Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program has created this Web site to make the job easier by helping purchasers:
- Identify federal requirements;
- Find and evaluate information about green products and services;
- Calculate the costs and benefits of their purchasing choices;
- Manage their green purchasing processes.
What is "Environmentally Preferable?"
Environmentally preferable means "products or services that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose," according to the Instructions for Implementing Executive Order 13423 (PDF) (51 pp, 149 KB, About PDF). This comparison applies to raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, use, reuse, operation, maintenance, and disposal.
Impact of Federal Purchasing
The United States federal government is one of the world's largest consumers. Indeed, it is the single largest consumer of goods and services within the United States, with total spending estimated at $500 billion for goods and services each year.
This purchasing power exerts a tremendous influence on which products and services are available in the national marketplace. The Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program works to ensure that federal government's buying power is working to the greatest extent possible to increase availability of environmentally preferable products, which in turn minimizes environmental impacts.
- Improved ability to meet environmental goals
- Improved worker safety and health
- Reduced liabilities
- Reduced health and disposal costs
- Increased availability of environmentally preferable products in the marketplace
Program Measurement and Outcomes
For the Federal government as a whole, the President's Office of Management and Budget has issued a series of scorecards to help track progress of Federal agencies in implementing Executive Order 13514 - Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance (PDF) (15 pp, 88 K, About PDF). Green purchasing progress is measured in the Environmental Stewardship Scorecard. These scorecards are for internal government use.
Program History
EPA's Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program started in 1993 after the signing of Executive Order 12873, and continues today under Executive Order 13514. Learn more about the history of the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program.


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Although the days when you might pack up your wallet and head to the CD store to purchase new music are gone, soon too the days of downloading music could be a thing of the past as well. In a time where seemingly everything is moving to the cloud, you have to bet that music will be one of the first industries to make the jump. Music can be easily stored and streamed through the cloud, and everyone wants access to their songs here and now, unwilling to wait for their songs to download or drive to the store to get a hold of them.
It looks as though a number of streaming music services are going to launch here fairly soon that should make for a fairly competitive industry. As things stand right now, Pandora is the undisputed leader in this market at a reasonable yearly price and a large selection of songs and playlists for their users to choose from. Other service including Zune Pass, Amazon Cloud Player and Napster have also gone with unlimited streaming plans for low monthly fees. It looks as though the future of this industry will be determined by the company that is able to capture the most mobile platforms.
The ability to stream music to your cell phone also means that you will be able to listen to virtually anything in your car as you are driving thanks to the various hook ups that these devices have. The price points of these various streaming services are all fairly in line with one another, with the most expensive being Zune Pass, which currently costs $15 per month. With many users moving toward streaming their music through the cloud, the streaming solution that positions themselves in a position to make it easiest on the end user stands to gain the most in the long run.


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Silvadream wrote:Shadowscythe wrote:Skull fucking cannot be placed into one of your puny mortal measurement systems.
It's an art form, the effortless glide of my penis into what used to be your eye sockets, ears and nose . . . and that wonderful hole in the bottom where your trachea used to be from where I fucking decapitated you and chosen to lovingly caress your locks while I fuck the every loving shit out of your skull.
No one unit of any measure can be applied to that wondrous thing, its like the mona lisa of necrophilia . . . and it's coming the fuck down on his parade.
you hate me talking about shrek but you let this slide?


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Did you know that antibiotics do not help fight viruses? Learn which common illnesses are usually viral or bacterial and when antibiotics are necessary.
Review Date: January 15, 2013
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - CDCU.S. Department of Health and Human Services
General information about the common cold including symptoms, causes, transmission, prevention, treatment and diseases associated with the cold virus. Some information on research included also.
Review Date: December 18, 2014
NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – NIAID
This page provides information on treatment, prevention and complications associated with colds and allergies.
Review Date: November 02, 2012
A checklist of symptoms designed to assist you in determining which of these health problems you may have.
Learn how to treat the symptoms of a cold or flu and when flu- or cold-like symptoms could indicate the need to seek professional help.
American Academy of Family Physicians
Note: Documents in PDF format require the Adobe Acrobat Reader®. If you experience problems with PDF documents, please download the latest version of the Reader®.


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It's crucial to your game – select a field hockey stick that helps you break boundaries on the pitch.
Select a versatile field hockey stick that delivers the hitting power, control and grip you need. Take over the game with field hockey sticks designed of varying constructions, designs and sizes and discover the right match for your playing style.
Select from outdoor or indoor field hockey sticks. Turn to top brands Grays, STX, Brine and more.
Choose high-quality wood hockey sticks for enhanced strength and stability. Look to mulberry or hickory wood for the playability your game needs.
Sticks comprised of composite wood and fiberglass are appropriate at the high school and collegiate level. Composite sticks generate more power for hit as well as increased flexibility. Look for reinforcing materials on your stick which add varying degrees of stiffness for shock absorption, power and durability.
Consider the different toe styles. The toe of your field hockey stick is the bottom end that touches the ground and strikes the ball. The toe design varies based on player position and style of play.
Many players, including midfielders, prefer to take to the field in medium-weight sticks. Forwards generally use lighter sticks for increased maneuverability and defenders typically opt for a heaver stick for a harder hit.
Field hockey sticks have bows that range from 20 to 35 millimeters. Smaller bows help with stick control and are best suited for beginners because they help reduce lifts. Larger bows produce higher speeds from drag-flicks and are preferred by more advanced players.
Keep in mind your field position when choosing the weight of your stick. Lighter, 19 or 20-ounce sticks are quicker and are typically used by offensive players. Heavier sticks weigh in around 22 to 24 ounces and are preferred by defenders for the extra power they provide.


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SoftWalk MarlaSKU: #7987814
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I also dislike censorship of the type you are noticing. It is likely due to users reporting, since the forums themselves aren't actively moderated. For myself, I only report things like duplicate posts, but I agree with you, it is quite irksome, no matter what the original cause.View Thread
I congratulate the OP on making progress on controlling their diabetes, and hope they continue to improve.View Thread
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I'm a self confessed party girl! I can never pass up a good time and the chance to spend the night dancing till 5 am. What can I say? I'm fun. I also love dressing up to go out. I'm pretty tall and I love showing off my legs, however dresses usually don't fit me correctly. Due to my taller gram they are to short or don't hit me in the right place, so I have taken to wearing skirts! Right now my new obsession is the bandage skirt. It's stretchy material works well with my curvy body, plus they are super comfortable and come in so many different styles.
I'm going to take you through some of my favorite bandage skirts and how to wear them for a night out. I found all of them through my favorite shopping app. You can check out my bandage skirt results here if you want more options than the ones I picked.
Black Bandage Skirt
This black bandage skirt from Nasty Gal is a wardrobe must! It is such a versatile piece that can be worn many ways. The length is super on point right now and is perfect for any night out! The skirt also has a bit of a metallic shimmer to it which will really pop on any dance floor. Since this skirt is longer, you can totally rock a sexy crop top with out looking to scandalous. However, if you prefer to be more covered up, you can also opt for a sleek body suit. Seriously though, this skirt was made to be worn with a crop top or a sexy shirt with a plunging neckline. Love it!
Flared Bandage Skirt
Bandage skirts aren't always figure hugging! A flared skirt is a flirty way to embrace this trend. I partially love this gold skirt from Akira. Metallics are super in right now, plus you can wear this skirt with many different colored tops. I would stick with a solid color. Black and white are always safe, bit if you are a little more adventurous, try pairing this skirt with a jewel tone. Gold and jewel tones always look great together and it will give your look just the pop it needs to really stand out from the crowd.
Printed Mini Bandage Skirt
A printed bandage skirt is an easy way to add an eye catching and trendy touch to your night out look. What I love about the pattern on this skirt, from Revolve Clothing, in particular is the graphic nature of the print. The print is also done in neutral colors which makes it that much more chic. You can totally rock this with a cute black or white top. I wouldn't add to many accessories to this look since the skirt does have so much going on. Let the bandage skirt stand on its own.


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Martin KippenbergerGerman (Dortmund, Germany, 1953 - 1997, Vienna, Austria)
Motive No. 7, from the portfolio The Raft of Medusa
1996print | lithograph
Not on view at this time; find out where you can see works from our collection at locations around the Bay Area while our building is closed for expansion
19 in. x 26 in. (48.26 cm x 66.04 cm)
Acquired 1998
Collection SFMOMA
Ruth and Moses Lasky Fund purchase
© Estate of Martin Kippenberger


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Popeye may be a man when it comes to a cartoon, but he is all lady when it comes to this dress. The Women's Sexy Popeye Costume comes with a dress, belt, and hat. The dress is designed to look like Popeye's classic outfit. It is designed with a v-neck collar line that is trimmed with red material, there are a row of buttons going down the center of the bodice, and a square back collar around the top. The belt is gold and will fit comfortably around your waist. This outfit is finished with a white sailor hat to make you look just like this spinach loving sailor. "Whoa Blow Me Down" is what everyone else will be saying when they see you wearing the Women's Sexy Popeye Costume.
Our Price: $39.99
Our Price: $3.97
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Military service can provide a solid foundation for career growth — even though it may not immediately be clear how your skills transfer to a civilian job. University of Phoenix has resources to help you successfully transition to a new career:
Discover your career interests
Transition your military skills to civilian careers
Explore your local job market
When you enroll, you get even greater benefits from Phoenix Career Services™. Here, you can access complimentary resources, like coaching, that show you how to use your military skills and education in the civilian job market. You'll find resumé and cover letter writing assistance and, if you're searching for a job, you can practice interview skills, find open positions and much more.
I put in my letter to retire, and boy did I get a wake up call.
I had no employment skills, all I knew how to do was what I was taught in the marine corps.
The hardest thing for a veteran to know is how their military skills translate to civilian skills. The MST – it's like taking off the blinders, so to speak and like 'wow there's stuff over here and stuff over here'.
You put in your MOS in there and it opens up and says hey look – you can get this job at this pay in this state – they're hiring this many. Wow. We're looking for leaders, we're looking for management skills, we're looking for this… you start going 'hey, that's me!'
And I said to myself, 'Why didn't I do this in the beginning?
The challenge of coming off active duty is you really don't know where you want to be located, you don't know if you'll be able to find a civilian job. You want to find a job that's within that same pay grade, or more. The JMRT gives you a typical salary range and a specific location for a job you're interested in. If you're able to go in and say 'I got this, I'm marketable – I know I can go out there and do this job' and those civilian companies are out there looking for you. It's just all about making life easier during a transition which we all know can be kind of hectic.
Transitioning from military service into civilian service is very difficult for many people. And what we've done at University of Phoenix is really provide a suite of offerings to make that transition easier.
When a military student is talking to a career coach, it's that third party that can look at what they've done, understanding what an employer might be looking for, help them connect those dots.
We have resume writing experts, we have mock interview experts. We have experts who are very well versed in military services.
In the interaction with a career coach, this is a great opportunity for some of our military students to really blossom and grow for themselves. Where do you want to go? What do you want to accomplish and achieve? And it's really a new horizon, kind of a second growth period of them as an individual.
For our military students, it's really important that they understand how to interact with employer or a hiring manager.
One thing that we want to make sure that they learn is the value that that service can now provide them and their employers in the future. And one of the biggest things they have to learn is how to brag about yourself a little bit, brag about what you've done, because it is impressive.
As far as transitioning out of the military, there was definitely not a clear path. For me, I was very unsure of what I was going to do next. Eventually I found my way to University of Phoenix. I think what's great is there's an actual career plan with UPX. It's not just one step, it's a whole process. If you don't know exactly where you want to be, there's so many tools and so many different people there that are able to help you along the way. I think a major misconception that a lot of students have is 'I don't have to look at these tools until it gets closer to the time that I'm looking for a job. I think that students should look at it now early in the game, and University of Phoenix makes that easy to do.
Whether you know it or not because you just go to work in the military everyday, you still have specific job skills that are transferrable to the civilian world.
The career services portal allows me to see what's out there, what's next.
You can look at the jobs that are pertinent with Phoenix, and knowing that there's people and companies and corporations that specifically are looking for the skills that you have acquired from the military and the education that you get from the University of Phoenix - it's pretty cool, actually.


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December 12, 2012
By Nina Owcharenko and Edmund F. Haislmaier
Recent decisions by the Obama Administration concerning the health care exchanges and Medicaid expansion underscore what a risky proposition the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is for the states. Congress presumed in PPACA (Obamacare) that the states would agree to build and run exchanges and could be forced to expand Medicaid. The Supreme Court, however, ruled the Medicaid expansion voluntary, which has made states increasingly concerned over new burdens related to costs, control, and coverage—in both the exchanges and Medicaid.
State Health Care Exchanges
Proponents deflect attention from the true cost of the exchanges by focusing on the PPACA grants to fund states establishing them. However, unlike past federal-state policy ventures, like Medicaid or even the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), there will be no steady flow of federal dollars to the states. The law specifies that starting in 2015, any state implementing a state exchange must develop its own revenue source to fund the exchange's annual operations. That puts the long-term costs squarely on the states.
Moreover, the recent announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that it will levy a 3.5 percent administrative fee on coverage sold through the federally run exchanges indicates there are significant costs if a state agrees to run its own exchange.[1]
Just this week a Maryland panel recommended to that state's governor and legislature new taxes and fees to fund its state exchange.[2] The Maryland report projects annual administrative costs for the state's exchange of $201 per enrollee in 2015, declining to $152 per enrollee in 2017.
In contrast, applying the 3.5 percent fee set by HHS to the $2,770 national average per-capita premium for all commercial group and individual major medical insurance sold in 2011 yields a projected annual administrative cost for exchanges of $97 per enrollee. The much higher Maryland figures are significant as they reflect thorough and detailed work by the state most committed to implementing a state Obamacare exchange.[3]
Some argue that states should establish exchanges as a means to maintain control of their markets. However, in all matters not otherwise preempted by federal law, the states still regulate insurers (including those participating in the exchanges) regardless of who operates the exchange. States can also regulate exchange "navigators" through state professional licensure statutes to ensure a level playing field with existing insurance agents, regardless of who operates the exchange.
Furthermore, regulations promulgated by HHS allow states no meaningful flexibility or advantage by operating their own exchanges, relative to a federal exchange. Those states would simply be acting as vendors to HHS.
Proponents point to the exchange as essential to expanding coverage. However, the law also created a federal default for states declining to establish exchanges. Therefore, the responsibility shifts to the federal government. With more Americans still opposed to the law than supporting it, the innumerable technical challenges to implementation, and large and uncertain future costs, there is a significant risk that the whole law could unravel, or even collapse, before fully taking effect. Given those prospects, states that agree to run exchanges could face significant fallout from failures at the federal level over which they have no control. Instead, a state should focus on creating a viable market for their citizens in the event that the law breaks down.
Medicaid Expansion
As proponents attempt to convince states that the cost of the Medicaid expansion will be covered by the federal government, the facts remain the same. To start with, the enhanced match is only for the expansion population, not the existing Medicaid population. In addition, it does not apply to administrative costs, which add about 5 percent to benefit payments. Finally, the full 100 percent enhanced match is temporary, with states picking up 10 percent of the new costs in 2020 and thereafter. At a time when Medicaid is already overwhelming current state budgets, it would be counterproductive for states to voluntarily add to those liabilities.
In addition, there are numerous other cost pressures states need to consider when assessing the expansion.[4] First, states will see increased enrollment among the non-expansion population as the law also expands eligibility by changing how income is measured and corrals those eligible, but not enrolled, into the program.
Second, states will face pressure from their hospitals to backfill $18 billion in federal payment cuts for uncompensated care. Third, the PPACA lifts Medicaid reimbursement for primary care physicians to Medicare levels, with federal funding of the difference—but only for two years. Once the federal funding expires, states will face pressure to maintain those levels and to increase payments to other physicians accepting Medicaid.
Moreover, regardless of HHS's recent claim that it has backed away from previous proposals to shift Medicaid funding to a blended rate, the fiscal challenges facing Medicaid at the state and federal level make future financing adjustments to Medicaid unavoidable.
While the HHS Secretary has touted offering flexibility to the states, the law and HHS regulations offer states no meaningful policy discretion. Specifically, the law extends the maintenance of effort (MOE) restriction from the stimulus law that prevents states from making key changes to their Medicaid programs. Moreover, the recent HHS decision to eliminate any possibility of a state expanding its Medicaid program short of the 138 percent federal poverty level (FPL) further underscores that flexibility was more talk than action.
As with the exchanges, proponents stress the importance of Medicaid in expanding coverage. Unlike the federal default in the exchange, there is no federal default for the Medicaid expansion. However, rather than throwing more people into a broken program, states should focus on improving the current program and developing sustainable alternatives for meeting the needs of the proposed expansion population.
Fighting Back to Minimize the Damage of Bad Decisions
Sometimes opposing bad policy—such as by declining to run exchanges or expand Medicaid— while important, is not enough. In those instances, lawmakers need to work to minimize the impact of bad policies that they are unable to fully reverse. They also need to insist on transparency, accountability, and a level playing field, so as to create public awareness of the true consequences of bad policies and build support for future reforms.
Still a Risky Proposition for the States
Enormous uncertainty still surrounds the health care law. With less than one year remaining before the major provisions of Obamacare take effect, it is no surprise that barely more than one-fifth of states have publically agreed to both establish a state exchange and expand their Medicaid programs. The other states would be wise to decline those risky steps and instead prepare better alternatives for health care reform.
—Nina Owcharenko is
Director of the Center for Health Policy Studies and Preston A. Wells, Jr., Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Edmund F. Haislmaier is Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Health Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Show references in this reportHide References
[1]Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: HHS Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for 2014, Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 236 (December 7, 2012), pp. 73118-73218, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-12-07/pdf/2012-29184.pdf (accessed December 12, 2012).
[2]Joint Committee on Maryland Health Benefit Exchange Financing, Options for Financing the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, December 1, 2012, http://marylandhbe.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Options-for-Financing-the-Maryland-Health-Benefit-Exchange.Joint-Committee-reportDec20121.pdf (accessed December 12, 2012).
[3]Author's calculations using premium and enrollment data from Mark Farrah Associates, http://www.markfarrah.com. In 2011, U.S. commercial insurers wrote $198,334,667,140 in group and individual major medical premiums covering 71,597,719 individuals.
[4]Edmund Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski, "State Lawmaker's Guide to Evaluating Medicaid Expansion Projections," Heritage Foundation Issue Brief No. 3720, September 7, 2012, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/09/state-lawmakers-guide-to-evaluating-medicaid-expansion-projections.
Nina Owcharenko
Director, Center for Health Policy Studies and Preston A. Wells, Jr. Fellow
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Tsunami debris a disaster in slow motion
DUNES CITY, Ore. - Beachcombers will soon be flocking to the central Oregon Coast, just in time for the summer season.
As they walk along the sand, though, chances are they'll find more than sea shells: they'll find physical reminders of a disaster.
More possible tsunami debris continues to hit the Oregon Coast from a disaster half a world away.
Dunes City resident Erinn Holmes called KVAL News to report 8 buoys he found last weekend, some with what he believes are Japanese markings.
KVAL News hit the beach and found a pile of debris on the Waxmyrtle Trail, including an orange buoy with Japanese-looking markings.
Shirley Stentz, district manager for state parks, said they take 2 or 3 calls a week about the incoming debris.
"We expect this to be one of the slowest delivered emergencies on record," she said.
Stentz confirmed her crews have collected Styrofoam pieces, countless buoys encrusted with barnacles, and other items from the Oregon Coast.
She doesn't doubt much of it is from Japan, and most - but not all - will head for the landfill.
"There will be some relics and some personal items that come to our attention and we're going to set those aside," explains Stentz.
KVAL News also found a buoy on the beach a half a football field away from a protected Snowy Plover nesting area. Wide sections of the beach near the Siltcoos River are roped off for Snowy Plover nesting areas.
Stentz told KVAL News, "If debris were to come in to designated Plover habitat, we'd carefully respond to that."
Tourists are concerned about the debris, too.
For vacationers Pat and Greg Fink of Corvallis, the debris is a reminder of the human toll of the disaster in Japan, 15 months ago.
"It's somebody's property," Pat said. "I watched that tsunami and all the stuff that washed out,"
"It was just, children's' toys and things, wow," Greg added.
State parks managers are still putting together a coast debris removal program this summer, but they don't know how it's going to be funded.
Stentz said coast visitors and residents can help if they find large amounts of debris they think may be from the tsunami. They encourage people to remove small debris on their own and recycle it as much as possible.
If they find potentially hazardous materials, Stentz says people should not touch the item or try to move it. They should call the National Response Center at 1-800-424-8802.


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Boom. Pow. Wow. Our iconic front yard has more bang than ever, thanks to taller explosions, more fireballs and a driving soundtrack from The Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart and Indian tabla sensation Zakir Hussain.
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beach glass blue, buffet, dresser, formal dining room, French Country, hutch, rain blue, serpentine, sideboard, virginia beach
This is one of the new 8 pieces I've painted this week ….. and my new favorite….. this week anyway! This piece is so versatile …… Beach Chic…… French Country…… Traditional….. Whatever your style this is a stunning piece! I have so many new items on the floor from new artists. Check out our facebook page for more photos! I still have a few items left from the end of summer sale too!


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Judge issues written order on deposition of Ben Crump in Zimmerman case
Trayvon Martin family's attorney won't have to be deposed by defense, judge says
The judge in the case against George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, has issued her written order stating that the Martin family's attorney, Benjamin Crump, will not have to be deposed by the defense.
Judge Debra S. Nelson ruled on the defense's motion last month, saying that the deposition was not needed and there was no undue prejudice. She also said that the defense has not yet deposed Witness 8, whose interview with Crump is in question, even though they've had her identity for 10 months.
She issued her written order on Monday.
Zimmerman's lead attorney, former Local 6 legal analyst Mark O'Mara, and attorney Don West argued the motion, seeking to question Crump. Zimmerman and Crump did not attend the hearing.