Van Marwijk unveils final Holland squad

RNW, 26 May 2012, by Theo Tamis

(Photo: RNW/Theo Tamis)

               

Related Articles:

• Holland squad – Van Marwijk’s options
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Siem de Jong, Vurnon Anita (both Ajax), Jeremain Lens (PSV) and Adam Maher (AZ) have been left out of the final 23-man Holland squad.

“They can hold their heads high as they leave the training camp ,” Holland boss Bert van Marwijk said early on Saturday. “I’ve just spoken extensively with the four players to explain my decision. They were entitled to that after a job well-done.”

Young talents Jetro Willems (PSV) and Luciano Narsingh (sc Heerenveen) have been included in the final squad. They received ample praise from Van Marwijk earlier this week for their sterling performance during Tuesday’s away friendly against Bayern Munich.

Willems (only just 18) is a potential candidate to replace injured club-mate Erik Pieters for the left-back spot. However, midfielder Stijn Schaars (Sporting Lisbon) has also volunteered to move to that position. Narsingh (21), who scored deftly with a chip over the German goalkeeper on Tuesday, is a right winger and is only likely to come on if Arjen Robben gets injured.

Today’s announcement was made six hours before the start of the first of three official pre-Euro 2012 friendlies.

Tonight, Holland face Bulgaria at the Amsterdam ArenA.

Next week, the Dutch meet Slovakia in Rotterdam (30 May) and Northern Ireland in Amsterdam (2 June) before travelling to their tournament base in Krakow, Poland, on 4 June. 

Holland face Denmark, Germany and Portugal in a “group of death” at Euro 2012, which runs from 8 June to 1 July.

Van Marwijk's 23 men: 

Goalkeepers:

• Tim Krul (Newcastle United/ENG)
• Maarten Stekelenburg (Roma/ITA)
• Michel Vorm (Swansea City/WAL)

Defenders:

• Khalid Boulahrouz (Stuttgart/GER),
• Wilfred Bouma (PSV Eindhoven)
• John Heitinga (Everton/ENG)
• Joris Mathijsen (Malaga/ESP)
• Ron Vlaar (Feyenoord)
• Gregory van der Wiel (Ajax)
• Jetro Willems (PSV Eindhoven)

Midfielders:

• Ibrahim Afellay (Barcelona/ESP)
• Mark van Bommel (AC Milan/ITA)
• Nigel de Jong (Manchester City/ENG)
• Stijn Schaars (Sporting Lisbon/POR)
• Wesley Sneijder (Inter Milan/ITA)
• Kevin Strootman (PSV Eindhoven)
• Rafael van der Vaart (Tottenham Hotspur/ENG)

Forwards:

• Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (Schalke/GER)
• Luuk de Jong (FC Twente)
• Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool/ENG)
• Luciano Narsingh (Heerenveen)
• Robin van Persie (Arsenal/ENG)
• Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich/GER)

Related Articles:

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Former priest jailed over child sex abuse

RNW, 25 May 2012

Photo: ANP

A former priest has been sentenced to 10 months in jail and mandatory psychiatric treatment for sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy in a campground shower in France.

The priest worked in Zoetermeer in the 1980s. In 1990 he was convicted of sexually abusing underage boys but, even after his conviction, was able to find work as a priest in Amersfoort, where he abused more minors.

As of 2010, the man was no longer allowed to serve as a priest. Cardinal Simonis, who served as archbishop between 1983 and 2007, refused to defrock the priest.

Related Article:

Dutch child molester gets 18 years

The Catholic Church's inquisition of American nuns

Though castigated by their own Church authorities, US nuns are far more in tune with the actual views of American Catholics

guardian.co.uk, Victoria Bekiempis, Thursday 24 May 2012

Bishops have opposed healthcare legislation, while nuns are supporting it.
Photograph: Getty/Reuters/Kacper Pempel

So, did you hear the one about the American nuns?

No, this isn't the beginning of a joke. In April, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the Catholic Church's current iteration of the Inquisition, if you will – issued an assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,which represents 80% of the US's 57,000 nuns.

Some key context here: the conference was formed 56 years ago at the behest of the Holy See, to provide "a unified voice" for US nuns who helped the poor, nursed the sick, taught students, worked as missionaries, and fought violence. (Another important bit of background: the congregation is the same arm of the church that bullied Lavinia Byrne, feminist theologian and former British nun, for arguing in favor of female ordination in a 1993 book.)

The conference, according to the Vatican, was spending too much time doing good – and not enough time enforcing church teaching (against abortion, homosexuality etc). So, the nuns actually got in trouble for being, well, nuns. So troubled was the church by this and the women's alleged "radical feminism" that the assessment demanded the appointment of an archbishop delegate to make them behave.

Nope, no joke.

At first, many members of the conference reacted with silent shock. They didn't speak out against the Church because of their vows of obedience. Many have since shot back, however, calling the charges wrongful criticism – and a distraction from the Church's failure to address adequately child molestation charges against clergy.

The Vatican might have gotten one thing right about these women: compared to the rest of the Pope Benedict XVI's ultra-conservative administration, they are radical feminists. But the Church has also gotten something terribly wrong: US Catholicism desperately needs "radical" feminist nuns – and should embrace, not criticize them – if it's going to remain relevant to American society.

A 2008 Pew forum on religion and public life study determined that nearly a third of Americans were brought up Catholic, but that "less than one in four remained so" – meaning the faith had shed "the greatest" proportion of US-born believers. Perhaps even more startling:

• "Roughly 10% of American adults, or 22.5 million, are former Catholics. That would qualify lapsed Catholics as the second-largest single US denomination, behind Catholics, at 54.8 million, and just ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention's 15.1 million members."

In addition, a study conducted by the center for applied research in the apostolate at Georgetown University indicates that "42.7 million Catholics, or two-thirds of US Catholics, are not going to mass." Only some 33% attend regularly. Another approximately 33% attend occasionally, and the rest never go, Catholic advocacy groups report. And the only reason the percentage of Catholics in the US population still hovers around 25%, Pew notes, is because of a steady stream of Latino immigrants.

The denomination's leaders worry so extensively about the hemorrhaging of parishioners that a group called Catholics Come Home launched a $3.5m ad blitz last December, according to the Denver Post, and had sponsored similar marketing campaigns in the past. The non-profit hoped that the 400-plus planned ads, with an estimated audience of 250 million viewers, would boost these sluggish numbers. If you look at lapsed Catholics' reasons for leaving the church, it doesn't seem like a lack of televised adverts quite tops their list.

Researchers at Villanova University's center for the study of church management recently reached out to several hundred lapsed Catholics in the diocese of Trenton, New Jersey. They wanted to figure out why they stopped frequenting mass. They were specifically asked "what issues they would raise if they could speak to the bishop for five minutes," according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

Their complaints included haughty clergy, "conservative haranguing", excessive focus on homosexuality and birth control, as well as negative attitudes toward female ordination. They also "didn't like the church's handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal and were upset that divorced and remarried Catholics are unwelcome at mass."

A key point is that some 66% of respondents "were female, and the median age was 53". This demographic detail has troubled Church leaders, who recognize that it is this group that has in the past tended to indoctrinate younger generations – their children and grandchildren – into the church. Anyone else see what's going on here?

The Catholic Church is shedding US members. Those who have left they church say they don't like the Church's conservative approach toward birth control, homosexuality, and female ordination. The Church has decided not to reconsider these policies – a move that could help maintain membership. Instead, the Holy See has decided to attack the one prominent and popular group among the clergy because they back the modern ideas demanded by believers.

Thus, rather than defending the faith, the Vatican's strategy works only to hasten the extinction of the very institution it's seeking to preserve.

Related Articles:

Protesters back U.S. nuns in standoff with Vatican

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Calls for reform renewed at German Catholic convention

Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland discuss Church's future

Pope Benedict XVI rebukes Austrian dissident priests

Church subsidy reform signals Polish revolution

Catholic Monti moves to end Italy Church tax breaks

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to built Africa to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - New !

"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator, Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience?

(SaLuSa channelled by Mike Quinsey, March 16, 2012)

“…. Each project is underway and that will result in a sudden wealth of information reaching you. Events are such that the facts can no longer be kept hidden, and with that there will be an explosion of people coming forward to tell what they know. It may take longer where the Vatican is concerned, as it is akin to a secret society that has kept its dark secrets hidden well away. However, nothing will remain concealed for too long, as you are entitled to know the truth and the extent to which you have been deceived….”  

Christ Consciousness Is The Energy of The New World – Mar 7, 2012  (Kryon channelled by David Brown)

Netherlands salutes André Kuipers

RNW, 24 May 2012

Nederland groet André / Photo: ANP 

It is in a field near Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and so big it can be seen from space: a work of art created especially for Dutch astronaut André Kuipers aboard the International Space Station.

The work, called Nederland groet André (The Netherlands Greets André), consists of tens of thousands of portraits of Dutch citizens which have been printed on a 2,000-kilogram canvas that has been fixed to the ground by 1,100 tent pegs.

The work has been sponsored by Mobile Samsung. The telecommunications giant says it wants to thank Kuipers for the photographs, tweets and videocasts he sent back to Earth.

Nederland groet André was designed by Spanish street artist Notasso who works with smartphones. More than 36,000 Dutch people submitted their pictures from their Facebook profiles.

The work has the same surface area as one-and-a-half football fields - so big that André Kuipers can see it from space. Passengers taking off from or landing at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport can also see the enormous work of art in a field near the town of Nieuw Vennep.

Kuipers left for a six-month stay aboard the ISS on 21 December 2011 which means that, by the time he gets back, he will have spent more time in space than any other Dutch person.

Nederland groet André will remain in its field until André Kuipers returns to Earth on 1 July.

Astronaut André Kuipers (Photo: ANP)

Related Article:

Dutch astronaut breaks own space record

Imprisoned in a marriage? Contact Femmes for Freedom

RNW, 23 May 2012, by Erik Klooster      

 (Image: Madelon Engelen)

Many women in the Netherlands are locked in a marriage. Under Dutch law, they are divorced but, according to their religion, they are still married. A special helpline for such women was launched this week - Femmes for Freedom.

Being imprisoned in a religious marriage can have dire consequences. Muslim women, for example, who have remarried or have a new partner, often risk arrest when visiting their lands of origin. They can face prosecution for adultery - and sentences of stoning or hanging, depending on the country.

Women in this situation are not arrested immediately they arrive at the airport. Local police often only take action after they are informed of the situation by the women’s relatives or acquaintances.

Disgrace

In the Netherlands, women can be put under great pressure to remain locked in marriages by relatives who fear scandal and disgrace. This is largely an unseen problem as few women in this position dare be open about their dilemma.

One exception is Shirin Musa of the Pakistani-Dutch community. She married a Pakistani Muslim man in 2002 and, in 2005, the couple went through with an Islamic wedding.

In 2008, Ms Musa’s husband said he wanted to separate. They were divorced under Dutch law but the man refused to agree to a religious divorce.

Ms Musa appears to be the first Muslim woman who has had her religious marriage ended by a Dutch court. In fact, the Dutch judge simply imposed 250-euro damages on her ex-husband for every day he refused to end the religious marriage.

The judge was convinced by Ms Musa’s argument that her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights were being breached. Her ex-husband quickly complied with the court order and the religious marriage was dissolved.

Other religions

Roman Catholic and Hindu women also risk being locked in marriages they don’t want. Jewish women face similar problems if their ex-husbands refuse to agree to religious divorce. If the woman begins a new relationship or has children, she can be considered as bringing shame upon her family.

Jewish marriages do appear easier to dissolve in the Netherlands than is the case with Islamic ones. Lawyer Danusia Bialkowski who represented Shirin Musa says Jewish couples often have it written into their Dutch pre-nuptial agreement that the man won’t refuse to co-operate with a religious divorce if this is desired by the woman. Ms Bialkowski points out that rabbis accept these agreements.

Femmes for Freedom

Drawing on her own experience, Sharin Musa last year set up Femmes for Freedom to fight against both imprisonment in marriage and forced marriages. She says she knows directly of nearly 20 women who are locked in marriages against their will.

Her organisation aims to combat this kind of abuse both in the Netherlands and abroad. A helpline has now been set up and it is hoped in the future to train ‘buddies’ who will support women during legal proceedings.

Ms Musa believes it is important that political measures are introduced. MPs are due to hold round table discussions on the issues next month. Femmes for Freedom is pushing for draft legislation on forced marriage to cover imprisonment in marriage as well. Outgoing Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten is considering the proposal, according to a spokesperson, although the issue is said to be far from simple.

Dutch women asked to report abuse

RNW, 22 May 2012

Women who were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Roman Catholic clergy when they were children can submit their reports to the Deetman Commission from Tuesday.

St Peters Basilica

 Photo: Andreas Tille

Their reports will form part of a new inquiry by the commission, which so far has limited its inquiry to the abuse of young boys in Catholic boarding schools and seminaries.

The women have until 1 July to submit their reports.

“The independent inquiry will focus on the sexual abuse of, and psychological violence against, under-aged women in the Roman Catholic Church between 1945 and the present day,” a spokesperson said.

The commission, led by former government minister Wim Deetman, is carrying out its inquiry at the behest of parliament.

Related Articles:

Calls for reform renewed at German Catholic convention

Dutch child molester gets 18 years


Dutch SP introduces bill to protect whistleblowers

Going to jail just to get a laugh?

RNW, 21 May 2012

 (Photo: Cartoon Movement)

Politics, sex and religion: the key ingredients of satire, jokes and cartoons around the world. But beware; you have to watch what you say. Woe unto anyone who transgresses the unwritten rules.

Political leaders in particular, blessed as they often are with rather large egos, don’t usually like to be the butt of a joke. In Africa, having power seems to be a sacred right, even though personality cults are gradually disappearing, says cartoonist Damien Glez from Burkina Faso. It is still difficult for him to make cartoons of Gnassingbé Eyadéma, even though he is no longer president of Togo. “Although that has nothing to do with the sense of humour of the Togolese themselves.”

Politically correct in the Netherlands

Are there limits when it comes to making jokes? Are there jokes that should not be told? Politics is still a controversial topic, just like ethnicity and sex.

In the Netherlands, the taboo on politically sensitive subjects is receding a little. After the 9-11 attacks in 2001, the murder of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn less than a year later and of the Islam-critic and filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004, comedians openly admitted that they watched their words.

Jokes about Islam and ethnic backgrounds are no longer acceptable. Nowadays, angry audience members seeking redress are by no means the exception to the rule. Newspapers and online columnists are getting used to receiving irate reactions. “We realise more than ever what words do,” says editor Melle van den Berg of Dutch satirical online magazine De Speld. Although there are fewer aggressive reactions than there used to be: “Back then, comedians and columnists censored themselves.”

Joking in Chinese

It’s better not to make political jokes openly in a country like China. You might just get away with a bit of light parody – where the name of a politician is never actually mentioned. But it’s unthinkable for comedians to make political leaders look ridiculous like they do in the West. You can criticise everyday matters or huge wrongs, but only if everyone is talking about it. However, nobody on a comedy circuit would contemplate mentioning Chinese politician Bo Xilai’s corruption scandal.

Comedian Zhou Libo from Shanghai gets away with voicing criticism, partly because he speaks in a local language. Most Chinese simply don’t understand his jokes. Nevertheless, he is becoming better known as a result of his YouTube films.

Kenyan virgins

“It helps if you know your audience,” says Kenyan cartoonist Gado. In Kenya, his homosexuality in particular and sexuality in general are sensitive issues, as is religion. “Sometimes you push limits to remove taboos. The cultural and traditional limits set themselves. But if I know my audience, I know what I can and cannot say.”

In 2005, long before the Danish “Muhammad” cartoons, he drew a cartoon of a female suicide terrorist. She asks a sheikh how many virgins she gets. Gado was inundated with complains and had to apologise. “I never expected that. I just wondered what a woman would get if a man got so many virgins.”

Joking with purpose

Mr van den Berg explains there is a difference between gratuitous humour and humour that pushes boundaries. “Humour that is out to shock people is not my style. I prefer subtlety, but I do push the limits. And if the readers allow me, I go a little further the next time.” He’d rather not talk about the ‘limits of a joke’. The art is to push the envelope.

“We reject many ideas,” says Mr van den Berg referring to all the columns and articles sent to the website on Islam and minorities every day. “A story has to expose something that is going on in a society. It’s no use saying something hurtful for the sake of it.”

(Contributions by Mirjam van den Berg, Bei Wang, and Willemien Groot)

Dutch child molester gets 18 years

RNW, 21 May 2012

Photo: ANP

The Amsterdam court has given Robert Mikelsons an 18-year prison sentence and involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility for repeatedly abusing a large number of very young children and making photographs and videos of the abuse.

The crimes were committed at an Amsterdam daycare centre where Mikelsons worked as a child minder. He confessed to the sexual abuse of 83 children, some of them just a few months old.

The public prosecutor had sought a 20-year jail term plus involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility.

Mikelson's husband Richard van Olffen was sentenced to six years in jail for complicity in the abuse. The court found that he knew what his husband was up to and played a ‘facilitating’ role. The Public Prosecution Service had sought a 12-year jail term against him.

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Nothing wrong with Dutch hemp bread

RNW, 19 May 2012

There is nothing wrong with bread containing hemp sold by a baker in the Dutch village of Oegstgeest, the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI) has concluded.

A local police officer in the village near the town of Leiden recently seized a number of loaves on the suspicion that they contained cannabis. The NFI has refused to comment on the case and is referring calls to the police, who have so far declined to make an official statement.

Leonard Marks, manager of the bakery in question, says the police officer informed him the NFI had found his bread was alright. The baker says he sells dozens of such breads every day. The breas is made with hemp which is grown in Switzerland. Mr Marks says he uses the hemp because it’s good for the immune and muscular systems. The breads, the baker emphasises, contain just small quantities of hemp. “Maybe if you ate lots of them one after the other, you might just notice something,” he says.

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Evidence for homeopathy builds

"The Recalibration of 'Shoulds' " – Jan 26, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion/Worship, Lightworkers, Food, Health, Prescription Drugs, Homeopathy, Innate (Body intelligence), New Age movement, Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text version)

Researcher apologizes for study of gay therapy

Associated Press, by Malcolm Ritter, AP Science Writer, May 18, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) -- A prominent retired psychiatrist is apologizing to the gay community for a decade-old study that concluded some gay people can go straight through what's called reparative therapy.

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, formerly of Columbia University, now says he no longer believes his work showed that.

For the study, Spitzer had interviewed 200 people who'd claimed some degree of change. The "fatal flaw" is that there is no way to judge the credibility of their accounts, Spitzer says in a letter he submitted last month to a journal that published his work in 2003.

The work made headlines when he presented it at a 2001 meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. One reason for the attention was that Spitzer had played a leading role 30 years before in removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in the association's diagnostic manual.

Spitzer's study was attacked by critics who questioned the reliability of the accounts from the people he interviewed. At the time, Spitzer acknowledged that he had no proof their stories were accurate, but said several aspects of their accounts suggested their statements could not be dismissed out of hand.

Now he says his reasoning was wrong, and that "there was no way to determine if the subject's accounts of change were valid," he wrote in a letter to the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Spitzer, who lives in Princeton, N.J., sent a copy to The Associated Press after a reporter interviewed him about his change of heart.

"I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy," Spitzer wrote. "I also apologize to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works with some `highly motivated' individuals."

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer is a major architect of the modern

 classification of mental disorders. (Alex di Suvero for The

New York Times)

Related Articles:

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Jeremy Marks: 'I began to think that perhaps we’d got it
really wrong.' Photograph: Lydia Goldblatt for the Guardian

About the Challenges of Being a Gay Man – Oct 23, 2010 (Saint Germain channelled by Alexandra Mahlimay and Dan Bennack)

“ ... You see, your Soul and Creator are not concerned with any perspective you have that contradicts the reality of your Divinity – whether this be your gender, your sexual preference, your nationality – or your race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or anything else.The only identity that has any fundamental or lasting relevance to your Soul is your Divinity. Any other way you may label or identify yourself is transitory. It changes from one incarnation to the next. ..."

"The Akashic System" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.)

Calls for reform renewed at German Catholic convention

Deutsche Welle, 17 May 2012

Splits between reformist lay Catholics and bishops loyal to the Vatican have resurfaced at a convention in Mannheim, Germany. Organizers say there are "great discrepancies" between papal doctrine and everyday realities.

The Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) has demanded the Vatican make "improvements" by opening the church's leadership to women and ending the "exclusion" felt by divorcees and couples in mixed-faith marriages during Mass.

The so-called Mannheim Appeal issued by the committee, which has organized the annual five-day festival-like gathering in the southern Rhine river city, says reforms within the church of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics worldwide are "overdue."

Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck
rules out female priesthood

The call was promptly rejected by Ruhr District bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck, who told the Rheinische Post newspaper on Thursday that "the Church has no authorization to allow women into the priesthood." Overbeck added that he saw "little point" in making the issue public again.

Organizers expect at least 33,000 participants daily at the five-day lay convention, which on Thursday began its full program of discussions and workshops. Debate and prayer services will be spread across 76 locations within Mannheim, under the organizers' motto "dare a new beginning."

Guestlist includes parliamentarians

Guests invited on Thursday include the leader of conservative Bundestag parliamentarians Volker Kauder and opposition Social Democrat party leader Sigmar Gabriel as well as Auma Obama, the Kenya-born sociologist and German language scholar, and half-sister of US President Barack Obama.

At an open-air church service early Thursday, which is an Ascension Day public holiday in Germany, the chairman of the German bishops' conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, condemned adherence to the ideal of economic growth. 

Growth no longer panacae, says
Archbishop Robert Zollitsch

Zollitsch said the repeated call for economic growth was not the correct recipe against the injustices of the world.

"We sense it. Our lifestyle is not sustainable. It can't go on like this," he said. "Must it always be the best mobile phone or the newest fashion?"

Central ZdK committee president, Alois Glück, said pressing issues in society, the secular state, and the church had converged and required "urgent action."

Industrial society had reached "a phase of important cross-roads decisions" with long-term consequences, Glück said.

"To not decide also generates its own dynamic."

Scandal resolution sluggish, say critics

A spokesman for one of several dissenting Catholic lay movements, Christian Weisner of "We are Church" said the church's sexual abuse scandals worldwide in recent years had prompted German bishops to launch a public discussion process a year ago, "but the bishops are still not really moving it forward."

"That burdens the Catholic convention," said Weisner.

Another spokesman, Bernd Göhrig for the "Church from below" movement, accused bishops of "failing to grasp the seriousness" of the scandal and its roots, which Göhrig said, lay within church teachings on sexual morality. 

Prominent theological critic,
Friedhelm Hengsbach

Göhrig also accused organizers of overlooking Pope Benedict XVI's recent bids to reintegrate strict traditionalists of the Society of Catholic Saint Pius X. They opposed liberal reforms of the 1960s; broke with Rome in the 1980s; and include the controversial British bishop Richard Williamson.

Leading Frankfurt Jesuit theologian, Professor Friedhelm Hengsbach, accused ZdK convention organizers of behaving submissively in search of harmony. The convention was once a liberation movement, launched during Europe's revolutionary year of 1848, but it was now "totally dominated" by the bishops, Hengsbach asserted.

ipj/ai (epd, kna, dpa, AP, AFP)

Related Articles:

Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland discuss Church's future

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Pope Benedict XVI rebukes Austrian dissident priests

Church subsidy reform signals Polish revolution

Catholic Monti moves to end Italy Church tax breaks

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Based in Greece, Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to built Africa to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.)

"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator, Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience?

(SaLuSa channelled by Mike Quinsey, March 16, 2012)

“…. Each project is underway and that will result in a sudden wealth of information reaching you. Events are such that the facts can no longer be kept hidden, and with that there will be an explosion of people coming forward to tell what they know. It may take longer where the Vatican is concerned, as it is akin to a secret society that has kept its dark secrets hidden well away. However, nothing will remain concealed for too long, as you are entitled to know the truth and the extent to which you have been deceived….”  

Christ Consciousness Is The Energy of The New World – Mar 7, 2012  (Kryon channelled by David Brown)