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The dean of St Paul's Cathedral, the Rt Rev Graeme Knowles, has resigned, saying fierce criticism of the cathedral's response to the Occupy London protest group, which has spent more than a fortnight camped against its walls, made his position untenable.
The departure of such a senior figure - his replacement must be approved by the Queen - is a significant blow to the cathedral and the wider Anglican church. Both have visibly struggled to offer a coherent reaction to the camp, in particular whether it should be forcibly evicted. Knowles's departure comes four days after another senior St Paul's figure, Giles Fraser, the canon chancellor, quit.
© John Stillwell/PAThe dean of St Paul's Cathedral, Graeme Knowles, has resigned with immediate effect.
© UnknownPatrick Wall as a seminarian and junior monk at Saint Johnโs Abbey and University in Minnesota in the late 1980s.
It didn't work out that way. Two decades later, Wall has not only left the Catholic Church, he has become one of its most tireless opponents.
He's an ex-priest, driven from ministry by the feeling that his superiors used him to help cover up sex abuse by other clergymen.
And he's using the training he gained as a priest to work with victims of abuse who want to take the church to court.
Since 1991, Wall says he has consulted on more than 1,000 abuse cases, helping lawyers pick apart defenses mounted by dioceses from Alaska to Australia.
Now a senior consultant at the law firm of Manly and Stewart in Southern California, Wall spoke to CNN on the sidelines of a recent conference for legal and religion scholars at Cardiff Law School in Wales.
© Unknown
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© Warzer JaffA pedal-powered generator lies idle yesterday in a wet and snowy Zuccotti Park.
A sex fiend barged into a woman's tent and sexually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.
"Pervert! Pervert! Get the f--k out!" said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.
"They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave," said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.
She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.
"We don't tell anyone," she said. "We handle it internally. I said too much already."
With temperatures in the low 30s and their gas-powered generators confiscated by the FDNY, protesters defiantly braved the cold as the occupation hit the 30-day mark.
© Getty ImagesA supporter braves the elements in Zuccotti Park Saturday
The protesters, represented by attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild, said that the confiscation of six generators and fuel on Friday was a pretext by the city to begin dismantling their lower Manhattan encampment, which has been in place since Sept. 17. The FDNY said cited r safety reasons.
"Contrary to the Mayor's public justifications, the seizures were not motivated by health or safety concerns," the group said in a letter Saturday addressed to FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano.
"Without articulating any identifiable hazard posed by the generators, the city removed a source of heat for hundreds of people one day before the correctly predicted onset of freezing temperatures and snow," the letter said.
© Omar Sobhani/ReutersA Nato helicopter flies above the site of the bomb blast in Kabul.
The latest deaths of 13 Americans in Afghanistan in an apparent suicide bomb attack in Kabul comes at a moment when the US public's attitude to the long war is at an all-time low.
A poll late last week, by CNN and ORC International, revealed that only 34% of Americans now support the war, one percentage point down on the previous all-time low. It found that 63% of Americans are now opposed to the war. The deaths of yet more Americans in a conflict that has already cost the lives of more than 1,700 American soldiers is only likely to see support fall further. Indeed the poll showed that some 58% of Americans say that the conflict is now similar to the Vietnam war.
The war is now a serious problem in Obama's strategy for the 2012 election. For a president who already faces discontent over accusations from the left of the Democratic party that he is too close to the Republicans, the Afghan war represents another area where he is out of step with many on his own side. The same poll showed that some six in ten Republicans still supporting the war, compared to just a quarter of Democrats.
Keynote address of HE Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia at the War Crimes Conference & Exhibition that took place at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 28th October 2009.
Part 1
Part 1
© picture-alliance/ dpa/ANSAThe bishops gladly look the other way when it comes to the portfolio of the Weltbild Publishing House
"Weltbild," Germany's largest media company, sells books, DVDs, music and more -- and also happens to belong 100% to the Catholic Church. Few people knew about this connection until this month when Buchreport, a German industry newsletter, reported that the Catholic company also sells porn.
A Church spokesman responded: "Weltbild tries to prevent the distribution of possibly pornographic content."
Well, it's prevention efforts have apparently not been so successful. For more than 10 years, a group of committed Catholics has been trying to point out what is going on to Church authorities, and they are outraged at the hypocrisy of the spokesman's statement. In 2008, the group sent a 70-page document to all the bishops whose dioceses have shared ownership of Weltbild for 30 years, detailing evidence of the sale of questionable material.
Comment: The hypocrisy and corruption riddling the Catholic Church apparently knows no bounds. Money and power are their true gods.