politics for the 99%

Published on ThinkProgress, by Jack Jenkins, May 15, 2014.

… Nunzio Galantino, the secretary-general of the Italian bishops’ conference (CEI) and bishop of the southern diocese of Cassano all’Jonio, reportedly told a Florence-based newspaper on Tuesday that Italian church leaders should embrace the more liberal path paved by Pope Francis and pay closer attention to progressive religious arguments.  

“With Pope Francis the Italian Church has an extraordinary opportunity to reposition itself on spiritual moral and cultural beliefs,” Galantino said. “My wish for the Italian Church is that it is able to listen without any taboo to the arguments in favor of married priests, the Eucharist for the divorced, and homosexuality.”

The Italian bishop, who Pope Francis permanently appointed as secretary-general of the CEI last month, echoed the pontiff’s belief that the Catholic church is too “obsessed” with debates over abortion and same-sex marriage. Both Galantino and Francis still unequivocally oppose abortion, but appear eager to shift the church’s focus away from traditional “culture war” issues such as homosexuality and reproductive justice and towards conversations about how best to aid the world’s poor, sick, and vulnerable.

“I don’t identify with the expressionless person who stands outside the abortion clinic reciting their rosary, but with young people, who are still against this practice, but are instead fighting for quality of life, their health, their right to work,” Galantino told the newspaper … //

… (full text).

Links:

Ukraine’s steady transformation to a Fourth Reich nation, on Intrepid Report, by Wayne Madsen, May 16, 2014;

Low-Cost Mass Graves for the Working Class: Miners Massacre in Turkey, on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin No. 984, by Eren Buglalilar, May 16, 2014;

Civil Servants Circled By Foes: Misunderstood at the Helm of the EU – part 1, on Spiegel Online International, by Christoph Pauly and Gregor Peter Schmitz, May 15, 2014 (Photo Gallery – The European Commission’s Fact and Fiction): The highly qualified civil servants at the EU Commission wield tremendous power, but their frequent lack of political savvy has turned many Europeans against them. SPIEGEL profiles the EU’s executive in advance of the European election …;
Part 2: Well-Meaning Bureaucrats Who Often Lack Political Sense;

One, Two, Three, Four … What Are We Fighting For? on Dissident Voice, by Paul Haeder, May 15, 2014;

The Bloody War that Doesn’t Exist, What the Media is Not Telling Us about Yemen, on Dissident Voice, by Ramzy Baroud, May 15, 2014;

Files Uncovered: Nazi Veterans Created Illegal Army – part 1, on Spiegel Online International, by Klaus Wiegrefe, May 14, 2014 (Photo-Gallery – Adenauer and the Clandestine Army): Newly discovered documents show that in the years after World War II, former members of the Nazi Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS formed a secret army to protect the country from the Soviets. The illegal project could have sparked a major scandal at the time …;
Part 2: Records Have Disappeared;

Featured: Forgive us, Old Man, Axis of Logic, by Victoria Parker, with Paul Richard Harris, May 14, 2014: Editor’s Commentary – on May 11, we received and posted a video from Zaporozie, Ukraine. [here] The video was taken May 9, and showed the annual celebration and parade known as Victory Day. This day is to honour the memory of the sacrifice and victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War (known outside Russia and Ukraine as World War II) …;

Featured: A Bloody holiday in Mariupol, on Axis of Logic, by Victoria Parker in Ukraine, May 13, 2014; Last February, a fascist putsch took place in Ukraine. With the open support of Washington and its European allies, the regime installed by Washington and Berlin is now engaging in a reign of terror against popular resistance. That is the significance of the events in the major eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol on May 9 …;

Russian Dilemma: Why EU Sanctions are a Bluff, on Spiegel Online International, by Christoph Schult, Jörg Schindler and Ralf Neukirch, May 12, 2014: While the EU currently shows a united front on possible economic penalties against Russia for its interference in Ukraine, that could change once more serious sanctions are on the table. Germany is struggling to maintain the facade …;

Paul Nicklen: Tales of ice-bound wonderlands, 17.55 min, uploaded by TED, May 11, 2011;
Lepard Seals: on Google Images-search; and on en.uncyclopedia (Archaeopteryxonfucious leotillitolataria), also referred to as the sea leopard, is a small, shy and cowardly Antarctic marine mammal …;

uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit (actually 30,570 articles in English);

Edward Snowden: Here’s how we take back the Internet, 35.17 min, uploaded by TED, March 18, 2014: Appearing by telepresence robot, Edward Snowden speaks at TED2014 about surveillance and Internet freedom. The right to data privacy, he suggests, is not a partisan issue, but requires a fundamental rethink of the role of the internet in our lives — and the laws that protect it. “Your rights matter,” he say, “because you never know when you’re going to need them.” Chris Anderson interviews, with special guest Tim Berners-Lee …;