Pope asks for forgiveness
POPE Francis asked for forgiveness yesterday for scandals at the Vatican and in Rome, in an apparent reference to two cases of priests and gay sex revealed this month during a major meeting of bishops.
“Today … in the name of the church, I ask you for forgiveness for the scandals that have occurred recently either in Rome or in the Vatican,” Francis said in unprepared remarks during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square.
“I ask you for forgiveness,” he said before tens of thousands of people, who broke into applause.
The pope then read his prepared address and did not elaborate, but there have been two scandals involving the Vatican and the church in Rome in the past two weeks.
On October 3, a Polish monsignor working in the Vatican’s doctrinal office since 2003 held a packed news conference in which he disclosed that he was gay and had been living with another man for years.
The Vatican dismissed Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa, a theologian, from his job there as well as from teaching assignments in pontifical universities in Rome.
A spokesman said at the time that Charamsa’s high-profile coming out on the eve of a meeting of world bishops at the Vatican was “grave and irresponsible”. It accused him of trying to exert “undue media pressure” on the bishops’ debate on family issues, including the church’s position on gays.
After he was fired, Charamsa gave interviews to Spanish and Italian media in which he criticised the church’s rule on celibacy for the clergy.
The pope also appeared to be referring to a scandal exposed in the Italian media last week about an order of priests who run a parish in a well-to-do neighbourhood in Rome.
Vulnerable
Parishioners in the Santa Teresa d’Avila parish wrote to local church officials alleging that a clergyman there had had encounters with “vulnerable adults”. Newspapers said these took place in an adjacent park often frequented by male prostitutes.
According to the letter published in the media, parishioners said they had assembled evidence about the clergyman’s illicit activities, and were furious to discover he had been transferred to another part of Italy instead of being disciplined.
Since his election in 2013, the pope has asked for forgiveness for sexual abuse of the children by the clergy, and for the church’s treatment of Protestants and indigenous people in the course of its history. – Reuters MANILA: The Philippine army yesterday rejected demands by Islamist militants to start negotiations for the release of three abducted foreign tourists and a Filipino woman, and halt an offensive on a remote southern island.
Two Canadians, a Norwegian and the Filipino, who were taken hostage at a resort on Samal island on September 21, have appealed by video to Philippine authorities to stop military operations on the tiny island of Jolo, to the west of Samal, and to Canada to help negotiate for their freedom.
There has been speculation that the four were taken hundreds of miles west to Jolo, a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf, a small but violent Islamist militant group, known for bomb attacks, kidnappings and beheadings in the southern Philippines.
Safety
“There is no negotiation that can be made with any of those who are perpetrating this crime,” military spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla told a press briefing at the main army base in Manila.
“We cannot, as of the matter, discuss operational details, but we can assure you the safety of the hostages is always foremost in our minds.”
The army commander on Jolo, General Alan Arrojado, said the military would not stop operations against the alQaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf because there was no proof the hostages were in that area.
“It may be a mock-up scenario, it could be taken elsewhere and made to appear to be on Jolo to stop our operations,” he said about the hostages’ video appeal. “There will be no let-up in our operations.”
Asked about the video, a Canadian Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government was “pursuing all appropriate channels” to seek further information.
Armed men with covered faces were seen in the video standing behind the four hostages, who made appeals to halt army offensives and to negotiate for their release. All were shown to be sitting in a jungle while the militants with covered faces held rifles and machetes and shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).
The militants’ leader spoke fluent English, demanding the artillery attacks be halted and the negotiation of the release of the hostages. He did not identify what group they belonged to, or their location.
“The positive thing that we derive from this video is that the kidnap victims are in good health – seem to be – and that is, as far as we are concerned, part of the good news that we got out of it,” Padilla said.– Reuters