The Church's opposition to gay marriage is "non-negotiable" and Catholic politicians have a moral duty to oppose it, as well as laws on abortion and euthanasia, Pope Benedict said in a document issued today. In the document, known as an "Apostolic Exhortation," Benedict says all believers had to defend what he calls fundamental values but that the duty was "especially incumbent" for those in positions of power.
He said these included "respect for human life, its defense from conception to natural death, the family built on marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one's children and the promotion of the common good in all its forms". "These values are not negotiable. Consequently, Catholic politicians and legislators, conscious of their grave responsibility before society, must feel particularly bound, on the basis of a properly formed conscience, to introduce laws inspired by values grounded in human nature."
Whorin' around...
President Putin is beginning an official visit to Rome, during which he will see both the Pope and the Italian prime minister. It is the first time Putin will have met Pope Benedict XVI. They will discuss improving relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church, dogged in the past by long-standing differences.
The first visit of President Putin to Benedict XVI, scheduled for today, has fanned hopes for ecumenical advances. The Russian president's visit to the Vatican will strengthen cooperation between Orthodox and Catholics in preserving morals and spirituality, said Bishop Alfeev of Vienna and Austria, the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow to the European Community.
A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church has told reporters that tomorrow's meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and President Putin will not touch on ecumenical affairs. But the Vatican's representative in Moscow disagrees.
Days after Pope Benedict XVI criticised the media for its "destructive" influence, the Vatican on Monday announced plans to launch its first television network by the end of the year. H2O will broadcast news and original entertainment programming worldwide in seven languages, according to a statement. Additional details were sketchy.
Almost 62 years after his death, Adolf Hitler could lose his German citizenship. A German politician from Braunschweig wants to revoke the Nazi leader's 1932 naturalization - as a "symbolic step."
Germany's national space center is planning a mission to the moon to explore its mineral resources. And, perhaps bearing the Airbus disaster in mind, they want to do so without the help of their European neighbors.
Germany's Constitutional Court rejected a bid by 2 conservative representatives to block Berlin's deployment of Tornado jets in Afghanistan in support of NATO's offensive against the Taliban. The country's highest court dismissed the urgent application by Willy Wimmer (Christian Democratic Union) and Peter Gauweiler (Christian Social Union), on technical grounds, clearing the last possible hurdle to the Afghan mission. Wimmer and Gauweiler said they wanted to prevent Germany from "becoming entangled in US military operations that contravene international law."
Puh-leaze...
Chancellor Merkel is often inscrutible. But her diplomatic deftness managed to get 27 European leaders to agree to a far-reaching climate policy. She has made the European stage her own.
As the EU struggles to achieve a common energy security policy, the Socialist-led government of Hungary has broken with the bloc by joining forces with Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, to extend a pipeline from Turkey to Hungary. The joint project would compete directly with an EU plan to construct its own pipeline to reduce dependence on Russian energy supplies.
The EU is set to enforce a UN plan that gives supervised statehood to Kosovo, even though Serbia has rejected giving so much autonomy to the breakaway province and its largely ethnic Albanian population.
With the Serbs and Albanians unable to reach common ground, it's now up to the UN to determine the future status of Kosovo. It won't be easy. According to a new study, the international community has failed miserably.
A series of Islamist terrorist killings, kidnappings and video threats have shocked several Western European nations in recent weeks. For Germany in particular, the threats are a tough reminder that despite the country's staunch opposition to the Iraq war and its refusal to send ground soldiers into southern Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, Germany - just as other European nations are - is in the gridlock of global terrorism.
Israel seems to be warming up to a Saudi peace initiative that Arab leaders are due to discuss at their summit meeting in Riyadh at the end of this month.
Jordan has been quietly purchasing real estate surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in hopes of gaining more control over the area accessing the holy site, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials. The officials confirmed to WND the Jordanian Kingdom has been using shell companies during the past year to purchase several apartments and shops located at key peripheral sections of the Temple Mount.
"The U.S. is throwing in – all the way – with those who want to stop the Shia anywhere in the Middle East. That is a huge escalation because, among other things, the growing contradiction of the policy is that we have made the Shia in Iraq our allies. The policy is so complicated, so contradictory and so ad hoc, you just wonder what these guys are thinking of."
The US dismissed a bid by Iran's president to defend Tehran's nuclear programme at the UN, instead pressing ahead with efforts to impose more sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Green light...
Top House Democrats retreated Monday from an attempt to limit President Bush's authority for taking military action against Iran as the leadership concentrated on a looming confrontation with the White House over the Iraq War. Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.
Adm. William Fallon, President Bush's new commander of military forces in the Middle East, is looking for an "incident" that would excuse a US attack on Iran, according to sources within the Pentagon, Congress and the White House. They cite Fallon's blind faith in Israel, and its constant lobbying for an attack on Iran.
An Iranian official lashed out at the Hollywood movie "300" for insulting the Persian civilization. An art advisor to President Ahmadinejad, accused the new movie of being "part of a comprehensive US psychological war aimed at Iranian culture."
The vice president said support for Israel is "unflinching and steadfast" in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference. Dick Cheney told an audience of more than 6,000 gathered for breakfast in Washington the Bush administration "remains committed" to Israel and Palestine as 2 democratic states side-by-side. Cheney called the war on terror a "battlefield of ideas" and said the US will "stay on the offensive until the enemy is destroyed."
For President Bush, the out-of-control office of Vice President Dick Cheney is becoming more and more of a political liability and that liability will increase as calls mount for Bush to pardon former VP chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby for his role in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to the media. While Bush is not big on pardons, the actions of his vice president have forced him into a corner at a time when nothing seems to go right with the beleagured administration.
With his farewell speech, President Chirac wanted to show the French one last time that his heart and values are in the right place. His people, however, have had enough of big words.
Paranoid Protestants...
As state legislators line up against the US government's attempt to standardize driver's licenses nationwide, some believe it is a beastly plot that will draw the world closer to the apocalypse. Their inspiration: a magazine dedicated to biblical prophecy. Their fear: national ID numbers given to residents are the mark of the beast, the 666 from the Book of Revelation.
New Century Financial Corp., the nation's 2nd-biggest subprime mortgage lender, said it doesn't have the cash to pay creditors who are demanding their money, increasing speculation that the company will go bankrupt.
European stocks fell Monday after 4 straight sessions of gains, as New Century Financial said it lacked cash to pay its creditors, rattling investor confidence. "The difficulties in the US subprime mortgage market contain all the classic ingredients of a possible credit crunch."
Keep your eyes closed and hope for the best. That seems to be the general reaction in Asia to the recent global financial-market shiver and talk of an impending US recession.
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