White smoke was seen rising over the Vatican on Wednesday, signaling the election of a new pope following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. It is not clear who the new pope is, but NBC News is covering the forthcoming announcement live. The following live video is from NBC News. Visit…
More black smoke: No new pope yet
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Black smoke again billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday, meaning that Catholic cardinals hadn’t elected a pope on their second or third rounds of balloting.Cardinals voted twice Wednesday morning in the Vatican’s famed frescoed chapel following their inaugural vote Tuesday to elect a successor to Benedict XVI, who stunned the Catholic world last month by becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign.The cardinals break for lunch at the Vatican hotel and return for another two rounds of voting Wednesday afternoon.The drama – with stage sets by Michelangelo and an outcome that is anyone’s guess – is playing out against the backdrop of the turmoil unleashed by Benedict’s surprise retirement and the exposure of deep divisions among cardinals that ensued. They must find a pope who can both clean up a corrupt Vatican bureaucracy as well as a pastor who can revive Catholicism in a time of growing secularism.The divisions and the difficulty in finding both attributes in one man, many analysts say, mean that the world should brace for a long conclave – or at least one longer than the four ballots it took to elect Benedict in 2005.Continue Reading… … Read More
Cardinals open pre-conclave talks in Vatican
Catholic cardinals began talks on Monday ahead of a conclave to elect the next pope, following Benedict XVI’s historic resignation, as a British cardinal not in attendance admitted to sexual misconduct with priests. Scotland’s Keith O’Brien recused himself last month after…
Millions Losing Health Insurance Because of Obamacare, Bitcoin Doubles in Value, Round Trip to Mars Envisioned: P.M. Links
Millions of people are losing their
healthcare coverage due to Obamacare,
according to the Heritage Foundation. The chocolate ration’s
been increased.
It’s not just Bob Woodward; the White House has a
history of throwing tantrums and threatening reporters.
Bradley Manning
pled guilty to ten charges related to illegally obtaining
classified government secrets as a private first class, and not
guilty to twelve of the more serious charges, including
espionage.
Bitcoin has
doubled in value against the dollar over the last two
months.
The government of the UK
strips people of their citizenship before they’re targeted by
American drones.
At least 23 people, including 3 police officers, are dead after
violent clashes rocked Bangladesh over an Islamist leader being
sentenced to death for charges including murder, torture and
rape stemming from his actions in the country’s 1971 war of
independence.
The reign of Pope Benedict XVI ended
earlier today.
Dennis Tito, the world’s first space tourist,
wants to send an elderly ;older couple
on an all expenses paid (hopefully round) trip to Mars.
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Australian cardinal criticizes departing pope
Australia’s top Catholic cleric, Cardinal George Pell, criticized outgoing Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday, describing his historic resignation as destabilizing and questioning his governance skills. Pell, Australia’s representative at next month’s secret conclave to elect a…
‘Benedict left pedophilia unaddressed, victims still suffering’
Nothing has been done by the current pope to support the victimsof pedophile priests, and nothing will be done in the next papacy,Lorenz said.David Lorenz: We are working to raise awareness for sexualabuse crimes crisis that’s plagued the church a minimum of 25years, if not hundreds of years longer. We want the church to takereal action. There’s been a lot of words and a lot of apologies,but there hasn’t been a lot of action and we want those people whohave sexually abused children to be held accountable.RT: According to Pope Benedict, he decided to resign forhealth reasons. How much do you think his decision is actuallyconnected to the numerous scandals surrounding the Vatican?DL: There certainly are a lot of rumors and I hate tospeculate on their truthfulness. I will say that clearly the sexualabuse crisis during his pontificate has probably weighted heavy onhis mind. It’s been difficult for him, it continually comes up. Andit continually comes up primarily out of his own failings. He hasnot fully addressed it, he said some nice words but it hasn’t beena lot of really true action. It has distracted him, it wassomething he had to deal with during his entire time. And itprobably has caused him to wear out. If he’d only addressed it, Ithink it would have been a lot better.RT: There have been many abuse scandals. How do yourate the Vatican’s efforts in these issues?DL: Oh, the Vatican’s efforts have been abysmal. We’veheard apologies, but what is the real action? We know of many manybishops who have covered up these crimes: Cardinal Mahony in theUnited States, Cardinal Brady in Ireland, most recently CardinalO’Brien in Scotland. Throughout the world, there’s just plenty ofevidence that they’ve covered up these crimes. Not only they’vecovered it up, but they’ve tried to cover their tracks.With Mahony it took legal action to bring out 12,000 pages ofdocumentation showing that he had knowingly moved pedophilesaround, and he would send pedophiles out of the country to escapelegal action. And Benedict has known about this, in fact, asprefect for the congregation the CDF he required that all abusecases go through him. So he is well aware of all of these abusecases and yet he’s done nothing to stop it or nothing to stop thebishops from covering it up.RT: What measures could be taken to improve thetarnished reputation of the Catholic Church? Can we expect thatchange to happen with the next Pope?DL: With the next Pope I don’t have a lot of hope. Thesecardinals were all appointed by Pope Benedict and his predecessorJohn Paul II, and they will keep doing what these two have beendoing. I don’t have a lot of hope in that papacy.What could be done is, one: They could be open and honest toreveal all the personal files of all the credibly accused priests.They could publish on their website all those names, not only ofthe living but of those who are dead. There is a lot of resistanceto doing that. The problem is, the priest may be deceased, but thevictims who are living in shame and guilt, they are still alive andthey are still suffering. And just by revealing that name, it couldhelp them to start the recovery process. … Read More
Vatican policies ‘catastrophic in their implications’
Failure to deal with these issues, as well as other“symptomatic” failures, is partly the reason why Pope Benedict XVIis stepping down, Porteous Wood argues. RT: One of the growing allegations right now is thatthere is some sort of influential gay network operating within theVatican. What do you think? If there is anything behind that? Isthat why the pope is leaving, or is there no mileage in that atall?Keith Porteous Wood: I think, it is symptomatic of thefact that he has lost control, which that whole episode over hisbutler showed that very strongly. But, I think there are severalother important factors playing as well. I’m certainly aware of twomajor issues over child abuses that are going to come up and aregoing to be very, very hard for the Vatican to swallow. Because itis not like it is the child abuse, bad though that is, is the issue- it is actually that the finger of blame is going to be pointed atthe Vatican for having obstructed justice and all the secret filesthat it won’t release.So, that is going to look very, very bad, and I think peoplewill get less and less tolerant about that. And the Vatican hasshown no real sign of actually coming to terms with this, ofputting its hands up and really atoning for its past sins, andbeing much more open and dealing more properly with victims andactually getting the people who perpetrated these crimes turnedover to the police.RT: It begs the question: why not? Why have they not donethat?KPW: The Vatican has forever been an organization that isonly interested in its own power and preserving its own reputationand its own finances – it has always been thus. But with the kindoff communications we have today, they can’t get away with that anylonger. And the stronger regulatory powers as well – that is alsocoming around to hit them quite big time on money laundering. Imean, there have been rumors for ages about the way the internalbanking of the Vatican works. In fact, they could not even get thecredit cards working in their museums. It’s so humiliating, and sosymbolic of the complete breakdown of the system.They just can’t get away with that any longer either. And it isvery interesting that his grace, even though he was right at theend, that Cardinal O’Brien from the UK said that he thought it wasabout time that priests should be allowed to marry, which may alsobe behind some of the child abuse problems. I think the time hascome: the church has to make up its own mind, it is not for me totell it, but I think an awful lot of people are thinking it is timethey ought to be much more open to modern thinking over issues likethese, and also their obsession with contraception is so damagingin the third world to women, to women’s health, to overpopulation.That is something that is so quiet and not talked about, but it iscatastrophic in its implications.RT: What does the Church need to do now, to change allthe negative things you’re talking about?KPW: The outgoing pope has to pad the college ofcardinals with people who are not more conservative then he is, soit is going to be pretty hard. But if they’ve got any sense theyshould look and see that the vast majority of Catholics don’tactually agree with all the positions of the sensitive socialissues. And I think, they actually need to look at their owncongregation, and start taking some signs from that, and be muchmore sensible over issues like contraception, homosexuality,abortion – all those kinds off things – and actually be open tosecular justice on matters such as child abuse and moneylaundering. … Read More
