Connect with us

World news

Pope Acknowledges Abuse Scandals Have Outraged, Driven People Away

Published

on

Pope Francis acknowledged Tuesday that the sex abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church have outraged the faithful and are driving them away, and said the church must change its ways if it wants to keep future generations.

Francis referred directly to the crisis convulsing his papacy on the fourth and final day of his Baltic pilgrimage, which coincided with the release of a devastating new report into decades of sex abuse and coverup in Germany.

Francis told a gathering of young people in Estonia, considered one of the least religious countries in the world, that he knew many young people felt the church had nothing to offer them and simply doesn’t understand their problems today.

“They are outraged by sexual and economic scandals that do not meet with clear condemnation, by our unpreparedness to really appreciate the lives and sensibilities of the young, and simply by the passive role we assign them,” he told a gathering of Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox young people in the Kaarli Lutheran Church in the capital Tallinn.

He said the Catholic Church wants to respond to those complaints transparently and honestly.

“We ourselves need to be converted,” he said. “We have to realize that in order to stand by your side we need to change many situations that, in the end, put you off.”

It was a very public admission of the church’s failures in confronting sex abuse scandals, which have roared back to the headlines recently with revelations of abuse and coverup in the U.S., Chilean and now German church. The German bishops conference on Tuesday was releasing a report that found that some 3,677 people — more than half of them 13 or younger and nearly a third of them altar boys — were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014.

The report, compiled by university researchers, found evidence that some files were manipulated or destroyed, many cases were not brought to justice, and that sometimes abusers were simply moved to other dioceses without the congregations being informed about their past, according to the results that leaked earlier in the German press.

The abuse scandal, which erupted in Ireland in the 1990s and subsequently Australia and the U.S., now threatens Francis’ own papacy since a former Vatican ambassador accused him of rehabilitating an American cardinal who slept with seminarians. In addition, Francis badly botched a case of coverup in Chile for which he has tried to make amends.

Francis has declined to respond to the accusations he himself covered for the U.S. cardinal, but the Vatican is expected to soon.

Francis’ visit to Tallinn marked the last stop in a four-day pilgrimage that also took him to Lithuania and Latvia. He aimed to encourage the Christian faith in the Baltics, which saw five decades of Soviet-imposed religious repression and state-sponsored atheism, as well as the World War II-era occupation by Nazi Germany.

Upon arrival Tuesday, Francis praised Estonia’s social and economic transformation in the quarter century since the Soviet collapse. But he warned that a certain “existential ennui” can set in when societies lose their cultural roots and put their faith in technological progress alone.

“One of the evident effects of technocratic societies is a loss of meaning in life and the joy of living,” he said. Interpersonal and intergenerational bonds can be lost, depriving young generations of foundations to build a common future, he said.

Estonia is considered both one of the most tech-advanced countries in Europe and one of the least religious societies in the world. More than half of Estonia’s 1.3 million people profess no religious affiliation. The Lutheran and Russian Orthodox churches count the most followers of those who do, while 6,000 people are Catholics.

In her welcoming speech, President Kersti Kaljulaid acknowledged that rapid changes taking place amid robust economic growth — something particularly visible in the Baltic nations — shouldn’t mean the “vulnerable among us” are neglected.

She presented Francis with a special digital ID card giving foreigners access to dozens of digital services in the Baltic country ranging from medical services to signing legal contracts and filing taxes.

The government says over 37,000 people from dozens of countries have currently been registered as “e-residents” in Estonia.

force. Therefore, in order to avoid further price increases, the Trump administration has called for other producers to boost their output and urged some other countries to cut imports from Iran. According to oil markets, it may be even about 1.5 billion barrels per day. Nonetheless, such growth in prices may be influenced not by the Algiers summit but Iran’s latest terrorist attack; gunmen attacked an annual military parade in the city of Ahvaz that killed 25 people, including 12 members of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran’s authorities have already announced retaliatory actions to be carried out.

Following the Algiers meeting, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak stated that high oil prices were not profitable for anyone. Interestingly, his Saudi counterpart Khalid Al-Falih noted that he could be satisfied with the current state of the oil market.

However, Novak assured that Russia was ready to increase its oil extraction after the U.S. restriction against Iran had finally entered into force. The state authorities are currently considering coming back to the October 2016 level. But Moscow has already criticized U.S. sanctions to be introduced and unlike large corporations, especially Western ones, it has no intention to limit its energy cooperation with Iran.

Loading

World news

Pope Hails US-Iran Deal, Appeals For Dialogue In Ukraine

Published

on

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday hailed a deal on ending the Middle East war announced between Iran and the United States as the result of “encouraging work in dialogue and negotiation”.

The United States and Iran agreed this week to a deal to end the conflict, and Leo expressed his “gratitude” to those who helped the negotiations.

“I hope that this agreement will contribute to strengthening mutual trust, security, and stability in the Middle East by promoting paths of dialogue and cooperation between peoples,” Leo said during his weekly audience at the Vatican.

The 70-year-old pope also spoke of the “painful” news about the war in Ukraine and prayed for “paths of dialogue… to make a just and lasting peace possible”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has become Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II and has dragged on longer than World War I.

“So many innocent victims, rescuers killed, churches and cultural heritage sites devastated by flames,” Leo said.

“I am close to those mourning their loved ones, to the injured, and to those who, amidst the violence, continue to serve life with courage,” he said.

Loading

Continue Reading

World news

Iran will never have nuclear weapon – Trump

Published

on

United States President Donald Trump has insisted that Iran would never have a nuclear weapon under the deal with the Middle East country.

Trump said this while interacting with reporters on Tuesday on the sideline of the G7 summit in France.

“We have our deal done with Iran. It should be successful. It goes to a second stage, which I think will be easier. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

According to the US President, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must now be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.

Recall that the summit commenced on Monday in Evian, a town on the shores of Lake Geneva in eastern France.


The three-day summit would focus on a range of issues, including the Ukraine crisis, Middle East tensions and the development of artificial intelligence.

Loading

Continue Reading

World news

Hormuz To Reopen Friday Under US-Iran Deal, Says Trump

Published

on

US President Donald Trump said Monday that ships were again moving through the Strait of Hormuz and the vital oil route would be “completely open” by Friday, after Washington and Tehran announced a deal to end the Middle East war.

The reopening of one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints would mark a major step toward ending months of deadly conflict and economic turmoil triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.

“Ships are starting to move, many loaded up with Oil, out of the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said, adding later that he did not “think we will need much help” keeping the waterway open.

Iran had blockaded the strait since the start of the war, sending oil prices soaring and raising fears of a prolonged inflation shock.

The United States, Iran and mediator Pakistan said the agreement was to be signed Friday in Switzerland.

A senior US administration official, however, said Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf had already signed the text electronically.

“The president wanted to sign it personally because he wanted to show his… dedication to bring this through to a successful resolution,” said the official.

Asked at the G7 in France when the text would be released, Trump said: “It’s a very powerful document, and I want it to be released. So probably pretty soon.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said the deal brought an “immediate end” to the war, with talks on a “final agreement” to be held within two months.

Iran’s military hailed the accord as a victory, claiming it had “humiliated” the US and Israel, while President Masoud Pezeshkian called it “a great achievement” for the region.

But Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi struck a more cautious note.

“We have a history of broken commitments… we have a history of agreements being torn up. All of this is present in our minds,” he said.


Afp

Loading

Continue Reading

Recent Posts




JOIN US ON FACEBOOK

&m

Trending