Pope sorry for colonial Catholic crimes
A S I X T E E N - Y E A R - O L D British girl has been charged with two terror offences believed to be related to a plot to behead people in Melbourne on Anzac Day.
The teen, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was detained after an investigation by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit in Greater Manchester in April. She has since been charged under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act, which relates to the offence of collecting or making a record of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing for an act of terrorism, or possessing a record containing information of that kind.
The accused is due to appear in Westminster Magistrates Court on July 22.
Police were led to the girl after investigating a teenage boy from Lancashire, northwest England, who was held on April 2 in connection with a terrorist plot in Australia.
Counter- terrorism officers said they had uncovered mobile phone communications between the UK and Australia representing a “credible terrorist threat”.
Her house was raided at the same time and the pair are known to be friends.
Police in Melbourne arrested five suspects in an operation to foil what they claimed was an Islamic State- inspired plot on Anzac Day involving the murder of police officers during Melbourne’s Anzac parade. POPE Francis apologised yesterday for the sins, offences and crimes committed by the Catholic Church against indigenous peoples during the colonial- era conquest of the Americas.
He delivered the message at the climactic highlight of his South American pilgrimage.
History’s first Latin American Pope “humbly” begged forgiveness during an encounter in Bolivia with indigenous groups and other activists and in the presence of Bolivia’s first indigenous President, Evo Morales. The Pope noted that Latin American church leaders in the past had acknowledged that “grave sins were committed against the native peoples of America in the name of
God’’. St John Paul II had apologised to the continent’s indigenous for the “pain and suffering” caused during the 500 years of the church’s presence in the Americas during a 1992 visit to the Dominican Republic.
But Francis went farther, saying, “I would also say, and here I wish to be quite clear, as was St John Paul II: I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offences of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so- called conquest of America.”
Francis’ apology was met with wild applause from the indigenous groups gathered for a world summit of popular movements whose fight against injustice and social inequality has been championed by the Pope.