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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/26/2014 10:40:12 AM
	Pope calls Muslims 'brothers' at Dome of the Rock 3 hours ago Pope Francis embraces Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I as they meet outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem's Old City, Sunday, May 25, 2014. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where the pope met Bartholomew I in the central event of his Holy Land trip, marks the spot where Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner) View Gallery JERUSALEM (AP) — Pope Francis on Monday urged his "brother" Muslims to never abuse God's name through violence as he opened the third and final day of his Mideast pilgrimage with a visit to the Dome of the Rock, the iconic shrine located at the third-holiest spot in Islam. Francis took off his shoes to step into the gold-topped dome, which enshrines the rock where Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammad ascended to heaven. The mosque complex, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, is at the heart of the territorial and religious disputes between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Speaking to the grand mufti of Jerusalem and other Muslim authorities, Francis deviated from his prepared remarks to refer not just to his "dear friends" but "dear brothers." "May we respect and love one another as brothers and sisters," he said, and added, "May we learn to understand the suffering of others! May no one abuse the name of God through violence!" After the brief visit, Francis headed to the Western Wall, the only remains of the biblical Second Temple and the holiest place where Jews can pray.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/26/2014 10:48:13 AM
	Pope honors Holocaust, terror victims in Israel By NICOLE WINFIELD55 minutes ago Pope Francis visited the Western Wall, the holiest place in Jerusalem where Jews can pray. The pope touched the wall and placed a note in it. (May 26) Watch video JERUSALEM (AP) — Pope Francis honored Jews killed in the Holocaust and in terrorist attacks, and kissed the hands of Holocaust survivors as he capped his three-day Mideast trip with poignant stops Monday at some of the holiest and most haunting sites for Jews. At Israel's request, Francis deviated from his whirlwind itinerary to pray at a memorial to victims of terrorism, giving the Jewish state his full attention a day after voicing strong support for the Palestinian cause. Visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Francis prayed before a crypt with ashes of victims and laid a wreath of yellow and white flowers in the "Hall of Remembrance." And then one by one, he kissed the hands of a half-dozen Holocaust survivors in a sign of humility and honor as he heard their stories and of loved ones killed by the Nazis during World War II. "Never again, Lord, never again!" Francis said. "Here we are, Lord, shamed by what man — created in your own image and likeness — was capable of doing." Joseph Gottdenker, born in Poland in 1942, said he briefly told the pope how he was saved as a boy by Catholics who hid him during the Holocaust. Gottdenker, who now lives in Canada, said he was more emotional than he expected to be when he met the pope. View gallery Pope Francis prays in front of the Western Wall, in Jerusalem's Old City, Monday, May 26, 2014. … "The Catholic people who saved me and risked the lives of their whole families to save me, they are looking down today and proud to see me meet the leader of their faith," Gottdenker said after the ceremony. A day earlier, upon his arrival in Israel after visiting the West Bank, Francis clearly condemned the slaughter of six million Jews during the Holocaust, making up for what many Jews felt was a tepid speech from Pope Benedict XVI during his 2009 visit to Yad Vashem. Earlier Monday, Francis prayed at Jerusalem's Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, and left a note with the text of the "Our Father" prayer written in his native Spanish in one of the cracks between the stones. After praying at the wall, Francis then embraced his good friend, Argentine Rabbi Abraham Skorka, and a leader of Argentina's Muslim community, Omar Abboud, both of whom joined his official delegation for the trip in a sign of interfaith friendship. His gesture at the wall and at the terrorism memorial — head bowed in prayer, right hand touching the stone — was the same he used a day earlier when he made an impromptu stop at the Israeli separation barrier surrounding the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Israel says the massive concrete barrier is necessary for its security, while the Palestinians say it has engulfed the West Bank land and suffocated the biblical town. View gallery Pope Francis is accompanied by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, right, to the Western Wall, the holiest pla … The prime minister's office said Benjamin Netanyahu explained to Francis Israel's rationale for building the wall while they were at the terrorism memorial. Netanyahu asked Francis to add the memorial in at the last minute, and showed him the section dedicated to the victims of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish association in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. The Argentinian-born Francis was an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires at the time of the attack and later became archbishop. "I explained to the pope that constructing the fence (separation barrier) prevented many more victims of Palestinian terror, which continues today," Netanyahu said. Francis' intensely busy trip has been marked by his surprise invitation to the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to come to the Vatican next month to pray for peace. Both men accepted, and Francis met with the outgoing Israeli President Shimon Peres on Monday. Francis started the day by taking off his shoes to enter the Dome of the Rock, the iconic shrine located at the third-holiest spot in Islam. The gold-topped dome enshrines the rock where Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammad ascended to heaven. The mosque complex, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, is at the heart of the territorial and religious disputes between Israel and its Arab neighbors. View gallery Pope Francis holds an envelope as he prays at the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pra … Speaking to the grand mufti of Jerusalem and other Muslim authorities, Francis deviated from his prepared remarks to refer not just to his "dear friends" but "dear brothers." "May we respect and love one another as brothers and sisters!" he said. "May we learn to understand the suffering of others! May no one abuse the name of God through violence!" Meeting with Israel's chief rabbis, Francis called Jews the "older brothers" of Christians. The pope appeared tired, but holding up well despite the breakneck, back-to-back schedule that took him from the Dome of the Rock to the Western Wall, to Mount Herzl, the Israeli national cemetery named for the father of modern Zionism, and Yad Vashem. Meetings with the Israeli prime minister and local priests were also on the agenda, and finally, Mass in the Room of the Last Supper, where Catholics believe Jesus shared his final meal with his disciples before being crucified. Francis is due to return to Rome just before midnight. ___ Associated Press reporters Daniel Estrin and Josef Federman contributed to this report. ___ Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield View Gallery Pope honors Holocaust, terror victims in Israel The pontiff caps his Mideast trip with visits to some of Israel's holiest and most haunting sites. Kissing the hands of survivors
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/26/2014 10:56:57 AM
	Area evacuated as Alaska wildfire grows 1 hour ago ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A wildfire chewing through the forest of Alaska's Kenai Peninsula has expanded in size, prompting authorities to order the evacuation of 1,000 structures, officials said. The massive fire south of Anchorage covered nearly 243 square miles and was 30 percent contained, according to a posting Sunday night on the Alaska Interagency Incident Management Team's Facebook page. It was burning in the 1.9 million-acre Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The number of people told to flee their homes isn't clear, said Michelle Weston, spokeswoman with Management Team, which includes the state Division of Forestry and federal and local officials. The Funny River Fire is named after a nearby road where all residents were being evacuated. She says Alaska State Troopers were going door to door, evacuating an area that's mostly second homes and is home to many retirees. She says no injuries were reported, and it's unclear if any buildings were damaged. She said erratic fire behavior driven by high winds and extremely dry conditions allowed the flames to grow. Earlier Sunday, the fire spanned 193 square miles and was 20 percent contained. For size comparison, the Funny River Fire was larger than Seattle (143 square miles) but smaller than Anchorage (1,961 square miles). The size of the blaze is not unusual for Alaska but the state does not usually see such large fires this early in the season, Weston said. Crews were attacking the fire by air, with two Alaska Air National Guard helicopters and five other helicopters involved, she said. Weston said spot fires jumped over the Kenai River close to the community of Sterling. Brenda Ahlberg, spokeswoman for the Kenai Peninsula Borough, said an evacuation advisory was put in place in the area later Sunday for people to prepare to flee. Ahlberg said a Red Cross shelter was being set up for evacuees. Dennis Downs, 64, told the Anchorage Daily News (http://bit.ly/1h3R8Fw ) that he and his wife, Kelly, cleared dead brush away from his mother-in-law's home before they had to evacuate. "There's a good possibility the house will burn," Downs told the newspaper of the home his mother-in-law has lived in for 40 years. The Funny River Fire is the most active of several large wildfires burning in Alaska. Firefighters have been flown in from Oregon, Montana and Canada to help Alaskan crews. Gov. Sean Parnell flew over the fire midday Sunday, before the wind-driven expansion. He praised the multiagency effort — including state, local and federal officials. Wildfires in Alaska's remote areas are not unusual during the summer months, with an average of a million acres burned each fire season, Weston said. The state is experiencing unusually dry conditions because of unseasonably warm spring temperatures. High wind is also a challenge for crews. The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1941 as the Kenai National Moose Range and was aimed at moose protection. Wildlife viewing, fishing, camping and hiking attract visitors from around the world. Alaska wildfire grows, spurs evacuations A massive blaze south of Anchorage is being pushed by wind and prompting evacuations of 1,000 structures. Season's early start
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/26/2014 3:40:05 PM
	So sorry to post this only now UN Panel Slams Vatican On Priest Sex Abuse, Citing Anti-Torture Treaty \| by JOHN HEILPRIN and NICOLE WINFIELD Posted: 05/23/2014 9:55 am EDT Updated: 05/23/2014 3:59 pm EDT Image Source via Getty Images GENEVA (AP) — In a report that could expose the Catholic Church to new legal arguments by clerical sex abuse victims, a U.N. committee found Friday that the Vatican does exercise worldwide control over its bishops and priests and must comply with the U.N.'s anti-torture treaty. The U.N. Committee Against Torture concluded that Vatican officials failed to report sex abuse charges properly, had moved priests rather than discipline them, and had failed to pay adequate compensation to victims. Although the panel did not explicitly say that the Holy See had violated any of its obligations under the anti-torture treaty, which it ratified in 2002, panel members said that was implicit in the criticism. "Legal scholars will tell you that when the committee addresses a problem and makes a recommendation, it sees the state as not meeting the requirements of the convention," the panel vice chair, Felice Gaer, told reporters. "It's absolutely clear what we're saying." But the Vatican dismissed the 10-member panel's conclusions as "fundamentally flawed" and insisted it didn't exercise direct control over its priests worldwide. The report's most immediate impact may be to empower victims pressing the Vatican to take more legal responsibility for priests who raped and molested children. The Holy See long has sought to distance itself from the conduct of pedophile priests and the bishops overseeing them, saying the church's own structure isn't the centrally organized, top-down hierarchy that the lawyers for victims have often described. Earlier this month, the Holy See revealed to the committee that it had defrocked 848 priests and imposed lesser penalties on 2,572 others since 2004. Those figures reflected only those complaints handled directly by the Holy See, not those left in the hands of dioceses, so the total number of sanctioned priests worldwide could be much higher. Crucially, the committee rejected the Holy See's position that it should be legally liable for enforcing the treaty only within the tiny confines of Vatican City itself. Church leaders consistently have argued that legal responsibility for abuse lies with the bishops and the leaders of individual congregations of priests, nuns and brothers. The committee said the Vatican, like all parties to the treaty, must ensure that the treaty isn't violated by its representatives anywhere worldwide. It said the Vatican's contention that it did not enforce control over church personnel outside Vatican City borders was "not consistent" with the treaty or the Vatican's own laws. The panel said ratifying parties to the torture treaty, including the Vatican, "bear international responsibility for the acts and omissions of their officials and others acting in an official capacity or acting on behalf of the state." In reply Friday, the Vatican accused the panel of sloppy reasoning. It insisted the committee was wrong "to give the impression that all the priests serving around the world are indirectly, legally tied to the Vatican." The Vatican said it was not even indirectly responsible for enforcing the treaty's anti-torture obligations on all the world's 440,000 priests and the Vatican's own laws do not imply such a level of legal control. Asked about that Vatican statement, Gaer told reporters: "We're not suggesting that the Holy See is responsible for the actions of every Catholic. But the officials of the Holy See do exercise control over a significant range of conduct that takes place outside the four corners of Vatican City." The Vatican stressed that the committee's report had not explicitly stated whether it believes that rape and sexual abuse constitute a form of torture and therefore violate the Holy See's treaty obligations. It said the U.N. report makes "an implicit fundamental assumption" that any sexual abuse is equivalent to torture, an assumption not supported by the treaty. Panel members, however, say it has been firmly established in international law that rape and sexual violence can amount to torture, on a case-by-case basis. They said the torture committee had referred to cases of rape and sexual abuse in about 50 other reviews over the past decade. "We're not saying that any sexual abuse is equivalent to a form of torture. We need to see the circumstances. The issue here is the responsibility of a state," said the committee's chairman, Claudio Grossman. "A responsibility of a state comes into play if there was no prevention or there was no investigation and punishment." In 2001, the Vatican required bishops and religious superiors to forward all credible cases of abuse to Rome for review. That followed findings that pedophile priests were being shuffled from diocese to diocese, rather than facing church trials or police investigations. The Vatican in 2010 told bishops and superiors they must report credible cases to police when required by local laws. The committee's review marked the second time this year that the Vatican has been forced to appear before a U.N. committee in Geneva and peppered with questions about its handling of abuse cases. The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child concluded in February that the Vatican systematically placed its own interests over those of victims by enabling priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children through a code of silence. ___ Winfield reported from Vatican City. ___ Online: Report, http://bit.ly/1pj2x3C
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/26/2014 3:50:18 PM
	More detailed information here UN Committee Against Torture criticises Vatican failures on child abuse Posted: Fri, 23 May 2014 13:11 The UN Committee Against Torture has criticised the Vatican (in its guise as The Holy See) for several failures in its handling of the child abuse scandal. The Vatican is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture and has been questioned by the Committee as part of its regular examination of those states that have ratified the treaty. The subsequent report, published on 23 May by the Committee Against Torture is critical of the Vatican's failures. Earlier this year, the Vatican was similarly scrutinised by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Its report was similar in many respects, but more scathing in tone. The Torture Committee also slated the Vatican for failing to order that all abuse allegations should be reported to the police, for moving abusive clergy around from one diocese to another, enabling them to continue abusing children. It was critical of the Vatican helping abusive clergy to evade proper accountability for their actions and for failing to see that victims got adequate compensation. "Clergy … were transferred to other dioceses and institutions where they remained in contact with minors and others who are vulnerable," the Committee Against Torture charged. A leaked copy of the document had been obtained by the Boston Globe which reported: Unlike the earlier UN assessment, the new report mixes criticism with praise for steps taken by the Catholic Church over the last decade to combat child abuse, including tougher legal sanctions for clergy and the creation of a new papal commission in December 2013 to press for reform. That commission includes Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston. The committee lauded an April 11 statement by Pope Francis on the subject of child abuse, in which he said, "We will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, we have to be even stronger." The report follows a May 6 hearing in Geneva of the Committee against Torture in which Vatican officials disclosed for the first time that over the past decade, 848 clergy have been removed from the priesthood for acts of sexual abuse and 2,572 assigned lesser sanctions, most of the latter priests who were elderly or in ill health. At the same time, the committee suggested that pledges of zero tolerance by church officials aren't always effectively translated into action. Specific cases were referred to by the panel, including: Father Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul who, after being charged with molesting a 14-year old in Minnesota in 2004, fled to India. He is currently being pursued by American prosecutors. Archbishop Josef Wesolowski of Poland, who was a papal envoy in the Dominican Republic. He abused children both in the Dominican Republic and in Poland and is presently holed up in the Vatican. The Vatican refuses to extradite him to face the charges. The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland which abused and exploited so-called "fallen women" for more than a century. The panel asked the Vatican to properly compensate the victims and to rehabilitate them as much as possible – whether or not their tormentors have been brought to justice. The panel was also "concerned by reports'' that Catholic officials "resist the principle of mandatory reporting'' of abuse allegations. It said that the Vatican should ensure that abuse allegations are pursued by independent prosecutors to ensure that there is "no hierarchical connection between the investigators and the alleged perpetrators," and also insisted that officials who fail to respond appropriately to abuse complaints are subject to "meaningful sanctions." The Committee reflected the criticism that although individual priests might be sanctioned for abuse, there was no equally strong accountability in place for bishops and other officials who fail to report abuse or who actively cover up scandals. The Boston Goble reported: The committee called for "an independent complaints mechanism'' where victims or others can "confidentially report allegations of abuse.'' The UN panel also advised that a new commission established by the pope in 2013 to lead a process of reform should have "full power to investigate cases of alleged violations of the convention, [and to] ensure that the results of any of its investigations are made public and that they are promptly acted upon." The committee asked that the Vatican respond to its concerns in a follow-up report by May 2015. Unlike the earlier report from the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the new report does not venture into matters of Catholic moral teaching on subjects such as abortion, homosexuality, or contraception. The Vatican ratified the Convention against Torture in 2002, and its appearance before the UN panel in May was part of a regularly scheduled series of hearings to monitor implementation in various nations. Commenting to the Boston Globe on the report, the Vatican's top envoy to the United Nations, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, expressed relief that the report was not as harsh as the previous one from the Committee on the Rights of the Child. He said the new report was "more technical and professional" and even contained some congratulation on ongoing efforts to put things right. "It takes into account the positive steps taken by [the Vatican] and the church in general," he said. He was particularly relieved that it does not accuse the Vatican of having violated the UN's 1984 convention against torture – something that could have laid the Vatican open to a whole new raft of legal challenges. Tomasi did, though, say that although the report does not directly assert that the child abuse scandal is a form of torture under international law, such a conclusion could be inferred from it. He also repeated the claim that the Vatican is not legally responsible for the actions of priests around the world – only for those within the walls of the Vatican City. The Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests, the largest victims' advocacy group in the United States, said in a statement: "It has now been 12 weeks since another United Nations panel released a lengthy report about the Church's on-going clergy sexual violence and coverup crisis." "As best we can tell, every Catholic official is ignoring every one of those recommendations," the group's statement asserted. "That is shameful." The Vatican said it would give "serious consideration" to the Committee's recommendations. Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, which has been campaigning for stronger sanctions against the Vatican over its mis-handling of the Child abuse crisis, said: "The Committee should be praised for not being cowed by the Vatican's shameless threats to renounce the Convention if it was criticised. Crucially, like the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Torture Committee criticised the Vatican's refusal to instruct the Church to report credible accusations to secular authorities and its self-serving refusal to accept that its obligations under the Convention extend beyond Vatican City to the international Church, particularly on child abuse accusations. "We do not share any enthusiasm, however, for the Vatican's defrocking of thousands of abusing clerics resulting in them being released into the labour market without being subjected to secular justice, and the resultant criminal record. This will almost certainly put other children at risk from former priests reoffending." You can download the UN Committee against Torture's 'concluding observations' on the Holy See here.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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