DETTERLING and DAWKINS   -   a dastardly duo...

Readers may wonder why the unholy alliance of Detterling and Dawkins are so determined to bash the Catholic Church and in particular Pope Benedict over paedophilia.

Detterling, even though his bogus pedalling of accusations in respect of a case in California involving an awful man named Kiesle, have been blown out of the water continues to make tiresome allegations.

I hear you ask why? Well, now let me see. Detterling has always come across as an implacable enemy of the Catholic Church. And he has it in for Pope Benedict XVI with a vengence. Why? I can reveal that two principal reasons exist. 

1 Although Pope Benedict was a very gentle soul he could be very forthright. He, for example, roundly condemned homosexual acts as intrinsically disordered, sinful and something that could not be accepted in the Christian faith. This did not go down well with Detterling and his Gay Lobby friends.

2 Pope Benedict dismissed the Anglican Church as 'having no legitimacy. 

  This did not go down well with Detterling and his C of E friends.

Dawkins of course hated Pope Benedict. Pope Benedict had been the cause of his greatest humiliation. Remember when the New Atheists wanted to have Pope Benedict arrested? Pope Benedict brushed Dawkins and the New Atheists aside. End of the New Atheists.

So why does this dastardly duo target the Catholic Church over paedophilia I hear you ask. There are so many other targets they could attack.  

Yes, the greatest threat of paedophilia happening to our children in this country over the past fifty years has been, while they operated, the existence of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

Did Detterling ever, even once, over the years denounce the PIE? Of course not!

Did Dawkins ever, even once, over the years denounce the PIE? Of course not!

GENE

 REPOSTED

Journalists abandon standards to attack the Pope

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Apr 10, 2010

We're off and running once again, with another completely phony story that purports to implicate Pope Benedict XVI in the protection of abusive priests.

The "exclusive" story released by AP yesterday, which has been dutifully passed along now by scores of major media outlets, would never have seen the light of day if normal journalistic standards had been in place. Careful editors should have asked a series of probing questions, and in every case the answer to those questions would have shown that the story had no "legs."

First to repeat the bare-bones version of the story: in November 1985, then-Cardinal Ratzinger signed a letter deferring a decision on the laicization of Father Stephen Kiesle, a California priest who had been accused of molesting boys.

Now the key questions:

• Was Cardinal Ratzinger responding to the complaints of priestly pedophilia? No. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which the future Pontiff headed, did not have jurisdiction for pedophile priests until 2001. The cardinal was weighing a request for laicization of Kiesle.

• Had Oakland's Bishop John Cummins sought to laicize Kiesle as punishment for his misconduct? No. Kiesle himself asked to be released from the priesthood. The bishop supported the wayward priest's application.

• Was the request for laicization denied? No. Eventually, in 1987, the Vatican approved Kiesle's dismissal from the priesthood.

• Did Kiesle abuse children again before he was laicized? To the best of our knowledge, No. The next complaints against him arose in 2002: 15 years after he was dismissed from the priesthood.

• Did Cardinal Ratzinger's reluctance to make a quick decision mean that Kiesle remained in active ministry? No. Bishop Cummins had the authority to suspend the predator-priest, and in fact he had placed him on an extended leave of absence long before the application for laicization was entered.

• Would quicker laicization have protected children in California? No. Cardinal Ratzinger did not have the power to put Kiesle behind bars. If Kiesle had been defrocked in 1985 instead of 1987, he would have remained at large, thanks to a light sentence from the California courts. As things stood, he remained at large. He was not engaged in parish ministry and had no special access to children.

• Did the Vatican cover up evidence of Kiesle's predatory behavior? No. The civil courts of California destroyed that evidence after the priest completed a sentence of probation-- before the case ever reached Rome.

So to review: This was not a case in which a bishop wanted to discipline his priest and the Vatican official demurred. This was not a case in which a priest remained active in ministry, and the Vatican did nothing to protect the children under his pastoral care. This was not a case in which the Vatican covered up evidence of a priest's misconduct. This was a case in which a priest asked to be released from his vows, and the Vatican-- which had been flooded by such requests throughout the 1970s -- wanted to consider all such cases carefully. In short, if you're looking for evidence of a sex-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, this case is irrelevant. 

We Americans know what a sex-abuse crisis looks like. The scandal erupts when evidence emerges that bishops have protected abusive priests, kept them active in parish assignments, covered up evidence of the charges against them, and lied to their people. There is no such evidence in this or any other case involving Pope Benedict XVI.

Competent reporters, when dealing with a story that involves special expertise, seek information from experts in that field. Capable journalists following this story should have sought out canon lawyers to explain the 1985 document-- not merely relied on the highly biased testimony of civil lawyers who have lodged multiple suits against the Church. If they had understood the case, objective reporters would have recognized that they had no story. But in this case, reporters for the major media outlets are far from objective.

The New York Times-- which touched off this feeding frenzy with two error-riddled front-page reports-- seized on the latest "scoop" by AP to say that the 1985 document exemplified:

…the sort of delay that is fueling a renewed sexual abuse scandal in the church that has focused on whether the future pope moved quickly enough to remove known pedophiles from the priesthood, despite pleas from American bishops.

Here we have a complete rewriting of history. Earlier in this decade, American newspapers exposed the sad truth that many American bishops had kept pedophile priests in active ministry. Now the Times, which played an active role in exposing that scandal, would have us believe that the American bishops were striving to rid the priesthood of the predators, and the Vatican resisted! 

No, what is "fueling a renewed sexual abuse scandal" is a media frenzy. There is a scandal here, indeed, but it's not the scandal you're reading about in the mass media. The scandal is the complete collapse of journalistic standards in the handling of this story.

PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT DETTERLING!

 

Mark 16:15-20 Feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist

Saint Mark the Evangelist, Illuminated miniature from Les Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne, Illumination painted by Jean Bourdichon (1456-1521), Executed 1503-1508, Tempera heightened with gold, on parchment © La Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

Gospel Reading

Jesus showed himself to the Eleven and said to them: ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned. These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.’ And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven: there at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it.

Reflection on the Illuminated Miniature

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist. Our illuminated manuscript miniature was executed circa 1503 by Jean Bourdichon (1456-1521), one of Europe’s most accomplished miniature painters. It is taken from the book of hours ‘Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany’, Queen of France to two kings in succession. In the history of illuminated manuscripts, this is a very late book. The miniature in fact looks more like a painting than a book illustration. The highly intricate detailing, especially in the gilding, is particularly exquisite. We see Saint Mark depicted at his desk, writing his Gospel. Mark was a companion of Saint Peter and is said to have survived being thrown to the lions, which is why he is shown with a lion. He is often also shown with a winged lion, as another legend has it that Mark, while taking refuge from a storm in the city of Venice, was visited in a dream by an angel in the form of a winged lion. In addition to writing his Gospel, Saint Mark is credited with founding the Church of Alexandria in Egypt, one of the original Apostolic Sees of Christianity (along with Rome, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem). I always find it fascinating that already at the time, people such as Mark evangelised the word of Christ by traveling such great distances. The Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the four Gospels (Matthew and Luke based a lot of their writings on Mark; these three Gospels of Mark, Luke and Matthew are also called the ‘Synoptic Gospels’). Mark, whose cycle we are reading in this current liturgical year (Cycle B),  doesn’t include a Christmas story. What is striking in the Gospel according to Mark is that Jesus is portrayed as a man of action who hits the ground running, with no time to waste. The start of today’s Gospel reading ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation’ reflects this sense of urgency… An urgency we are all called to act upon.

by Father Patrick van der Vorst

 

Former Labour minister Frank Field dies aged 81...  a wonderful man

Published

IMAGE SOURCE,PA MEDIA

Image caption,

Lord Field served as MP for Birkenhead for 40 years

By James Gregory

BBC News

Former Labour minister and crossbench peer Frank Field has died aged 81, his family has announced.

"He will be mourned by admirers across politics but above all he will be greatly missed by those lucky enough to have enjoyed his laughter and friendship," a statement said.

Lord Field spent 40 years as MP for Birkenhead and was a leading voice on welfare reform for much of his career.

He was a minister under Tony Blair and joined the House of Lords in 2020.

A statement from Lord Field of Birkenhead's family, issued by his Parliamentary office, said he had died following a period of illness.

"Frank was an extraordinary individual who spent his life fighting poverty, injustice and environmental destruction," the statement said.

"His decency and faith in people's self-interested altruism made a unique contribution to British politics."

The politician announced in 2021 that he was suffering from a terminal illness. He died in a London care home on Tuesday night.

Lord Field briefly served as minister for welfare reform in Tony Blair's first term in government.

Paying tribute, Sir Tony said in a statement: "Frank had integrity, intelligence and deep commitment to the causes he believed in.

"He was an independent thinker never constrained by conventional wisdom, but always pushing at the frontier of new ideas.

"Even when we disagreed, I had the utmost respect for him as a colleague and a character."

IMAGE SOURCE,PA MEDIA

Image caption,

Frank Field was a minister in the 1997 Blair government - seen here at a meeting of a Cabinet sub-committee meeting on welfare (pictured back row, fourth from right)

Labour MP Harriet Harman, who was secretary of state for social security when Lord Field was a minister in the department, said he was "clever, persistent and caring".

"At Frank's core was the conviction that poverty was never to be accepted and could be ended," she added.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting described him as "a great parliamentarian, crusader for social justice and source of wise counsel".

"What a blessing to have known him and benefited from his advice and kindness, even as his illness gripped him," he said.

Dame Angela Eagle, MP for neighbouring constituency Wallasey, said on social media: "Very sad news. Always supportive of me as his Parliamentary neighbour, brimming with ideas to make society better - a great champion of his Birkenhead constituents."

Lord Field had built a reputation as one of the most effective backbenchers in the House of Commons, with campaigns against poverty and for curbs on EU immigration.

He quit Labour's group in Parliament in 2018, saying Jeremy Corbyn's leadership had become "a force for antisemitism in British politics".

He stood as an independent candidate in Birkenhead at the 2019 general election, finishing second with 17% of the vote.

He was made a non-affiliated, crossbench peer by the Conservative government in 2020, after campaigning in favour of Brexit.

The veteran politician was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 2021, describing it at the time as a "terrific privilege".

 Man with 'Britain's biggest penis' appears on This Morning

Matt was seen live in the studio for an interview as he spoke to hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard

Man with Britain's biggest penis appears on This Morning (Image: ITV)

This Morning viewers were left sharing the same response when the man with Britain's biggest penis appeared live on the show. Matt was seen live in the studio for an interview as he spoke to hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard on Tuesday (April 23).

Introducing Matt, host Cat, 47, said: "Matt has Britain's biggest penis, measuring over 12 inches when erect, which is more than double the average size" to which Ben, 49, added: "Far from being a gift though, Matt's large penis comes with some equally large challenges," before soon bringing out a ruler.

As the chat started, Matt said: "Is it the biggest problem in the world right now? Of course it's not, but it's just something that affects you in a way people don't think about."

READ MORE: Marvin Humes fights tears after Rochelle's move during first day in new job and asks 'what are you doing'

Join our WhatsApp Top Stories and Breaking News group by clicking this link

Matt went on to share his plans release a book about his "gift or curse", considering which way people look at it, next year after he previously appeared on a documentary.

Matt, who admitted to being shy person who can be used by potential love matches for his lare manhood, added: "I don't see why it's any different talking about this to talking about breasts or any other bodily part that needs to be discussed, it's just a medical issue, it's not sexualised, it's just a fact of life."

When Cat, who took over the show as the new main co-host last month, mentioned that it is good that Matt is attempting to debunk the myth that "bigger isn't always better", Matt agreed as he said: "No it's definitely not! Besides the practical issues, a lot of the time people think that it' more virile or more manly or stuff. You often get these myths because the people that are bragging about it often are."

 

Planned Parenthood Kills 40% of All Babies Who Die in Abortions

Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report “Above & Beyond” for 2022-2023 is of special interest because it is the first by the abortion giant officially covering the time since the June 2022 overturn of Roe. As such, it gives people an idea as to how much business was and was not affected by the Dobbs decision overturning Roe and what steps the group has taken to keep the nation’s largest abortion chain open and busy.

In the report, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) says that its affiliates performed 392,715 abortions in the service year running October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022. The report shows there had been no overall dropoff at its clinics since the 374,155 the group reported in its previous report.

Nailing down just how many abortions there have been nationally since Dobbs is a difficult enterprise, but if recent reports from Guttmacher turn out to be accurate, this means that Planned Parenthood clinics are now responsible for something like four out of every 10 abortions performed in the U.S.

With not just prenatal care and adoption referrals, but staples such as cancer screenings and even contraception at or near ten or twenty year lows, one might be tempted to think that Planned Parenthood was financially suffering. But revenues at PPFA reached an all-time high of more than two billion ($2,054,300,000.000)! And given that revenues outpaced expenses by more than $178 million, it is clear that the organization has money to burn.

Please follow LifeNews on Rumble for the latest pro-life videos.

All About Abortion

From the opening “Message from Leadership” PPFA’s president Alexis McGill Johnson and Board Chair Tanujah Bahal make their fixation on abortion clear.  Placing their comments in the context of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, the two say that their “health centers” have been through “the most trying of times.”

Yet their clinics kept their doors open, welcoming patients from “down the street” and “from two, or three, or five states over.”

Later, the report details how that with more than 20 states “banning” some or all abortions, the staff was “moving mountains” by “finding appointments in other states and the resources to get patients there,” and “building as much capacity as possible for abortion appointments.”

The travel of abortion patients from pro-life to pro-abortion states was not an organic groundswell of suddenly desperate women but an orchestrated result. Planned Parenthood proudly admits that “In the year after the decision, 90 patient navigators across 41 Planned Parenthood affiliates helped more than 33,000 people get the transportation and travel support, financial assistance, and referrals they needed to get abortion care.”

Money was a big part of the increase in abortions seen at Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics post-Dobbs.  PPFA says that the organization “expanded direct financial support to help patients cover the expenses of abortion care and travel.” They don’t say how much money they gave, but the group says, “More than 15,000 people received assistance to help cover travel costs,” and “More than 50,000 people received support to cover the costs of their abortion.”

In other words, many pregnant women on the fence about abortion, perhaps being held back by the costs or logistics, opted for abortion after receiving an offer of subsidized (or free) travel and medical care from Planned Parenthood.

Abortion behind many other activities

Covering all their bases, Planned Parenthood wishes people to know how broadly they advertise and promote their abortion services. They note that 863,000 visited its special abortionfinder.org website, “helping” women get information on abortion and set appointments with clinics in their area.

PPFA also notes that 49 of its affiliates offer “telehealth” services, and that they had 123,855 telehealth appointments in 2022.  It is not specified here, but many abortion groups began setting up remote sales and delivery of abortion pills by telemedicine in 2021 after the Biden administration signaled its support for the practice.

Planned Parenthood wants people to know that they did not simply accept the High Court’s decision in Dobbs and give states the ability to determine their organization’s destiny. PPFA says that their lawyers have 30 open cases in the courts challenging abortion limits in 16 states and federal policies put in place by previous pro-life administrations. Altogether, Planned Parenthood says they and their coalition partners had filed suits about “bans” in 20 states.

They admit they were not successful in every state, but PPFA says that even where restrictions were ultimately upheld, “the delay Planned Parenthood fought for meant that more people could get the care they needed when they needed it.”

Working in social media, PPFA launched a national campaign to “destigmatize” abortion, getting women to tell their stories about their abortions. Also, when many states instituted protections for unborn, Planned Parenthood did a “Patient Reassurance Campaign” in English and Spanish for anyone confused about where they could go for (abortion) care.

More about the Money

Just over half of PPFA’s two billion dollars in revenue went toward expenses for “medical services” ($1.1445 billion) like abortion, contraception, cancer screenings. Planned Parenthood doesn’t detail how much money came from each, but abortion is one of the group’s pricier services.

To get some idea of its economic impact, though, costs at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic range from around $500 for an early chemical abortion to $2300 for a later surgical abortion. At a minimum, this leads us to believe that abortion brings in at least $196 million, though a figure at least twice that is not out of the question.

Planned Parenthood has not been above using the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs to boost giving. Revenues from “Private Contributions and Bequests” reached what is believed to be an all-time high of $997.5 million.

How much of this money went towards the subsidized or free abortions or abortion travel that we talked about earlier is unknown, but this sort of strategic giving helped keep abortions and revenues high at Planned Parenthood during what were supposed to be the organization’s darkest hours.

Of course, the government continued to be a big source of money for Planned Parenthood, responsible for about 34% of the group’s revenues. Given that $699.3 million in ‘Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants” represented a new record in taxpayer support, it is perhaps surprising that there weren’t more abortions, with so many of these women traveling from states where unborn children are protected to states where abortions are actually funded by the state.

That huge amount of government money is significant. It is probably one of the reasons that Planned Parenthood spends $46.7 million in “Public Policy” and $113 million in “Advocacy” to protect the human destruction that is essential to their bottom line.

Increasing abortion is the bottom line

There is only oblique reference to it, but Planned Parenthood and its affiliates have been doing a lot to try to keep their abortion business busy.

Employees in states with protections for the unborn have turned into travel agents shepherding people to Planned Parenthood clinics in neighboring states.  Affiliates in those abortion friendly states have beefed up staff, expanded facilities, added mobile abortion clinics to handle overflow.

Where they can, many Planned Parenthood clinics have added chemical abortions by telemedicine, so that patients do not even need to come into the clinic to get their abortion pills.  So far, we don’t believe these clinics are selling or shipping those pills to women in pro-life states, but court and administrative rulings may change that in the future.

While PPFA may not have seemed to have been as active on the national scene, they have clearly been active at the state level. They fought any pro-life laws and moved as many patients as possible to states where they have strong affiliates and high capacity mega-clinics.

Planned Parenthood has long been the biggest, most powerful, and most deadly abortion promoter and provider in the U.S.  Now, even with Roe in the rear view window, PPFA is poised to go “Above & Beyond” whatever horrible things they’ve done in the past.

LifeNews.com Note: Randall O’Bannon, Ph.D., is the director of education and research for theNational Right to Life Committee. This column originally appeared at NRL News Today.ADVERTISEMENT

 THE PINKO/LIBERAL LEFT

DETTERLING

Recent discussions on here have made me realize how much I have always loathed the pinko/liberal extreme Left. I loathe all aspects: the intolerance, the atheism, the political correctness, the hypocrisy, the brown rice, the soya milk, the lentils, the low fat yogurt.

I loathe how the Left pay lip service to the principle of freedom of speech - but not if this involves something it does not wish to hear. The following encapsulates much of what is despicable about the Left:

Some years back I had a friend, a fellow-teacher, who was a member of the Labour Party. In fact he was for some years a Labour councillor for Westminster Council. He once related in the school staff room how he had been to a Labour Party meeting the night before. Apparently the subject of paedophilia came up. I'm not sure of the context here. Probably some attempt to smear the Catholic Church. 

Anyhow my friend made the very legitimate point that the vast majority of paedophilia crimes are carried out by gay men. My God! He was howled down. He wasn't allowed to say this.

What intolerance! What dishonesty! What hypocrisy!

GENE