Invitation accepted

adminonDecember 9, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

Pope Francis on his travels © shutterstock

Now the date is fixed: Pope Francis will visit the island of Malta at the end of May. He wants to draw attention to refugee problem. A more detailed program follows, as the Vatican announced.

Pope Francis is scheduled to arrive in Rome on 31. May visit Malta. The Vatican confirmed the day's journey on Monday. Francis had accepted the invitation of the President of Malta, as well as the authorities and the Catholic Church of the country. Stations are to be both islands of the smallest EU state: Malta and Gozo. A more detailed program will follow in due course, it was said.

Boat trip of the apostle Paul

The motto of the trip comes from the book of Acts in the New Testament and reads: "The locals showed us unusual human kindness." The statement refers to the Apostle Paul's journey by ship to Rome, during which he and his companions were stranded on Malta due to a shipwreck and were cared for there by the locals.

A central theme of the Pope's visit could be the migration policy of the EU. Malta and a 2019 agreement of the same name on the distribution of migrants in Europe play an important role in the process. Malta's Archbishop Charles Scicluna is also a close confidant of the Pope and one of his most important collaborators in the fight against sexual abuse in the Church.

According to a new study, almost one in two physically disabled women has been the victim of sexual assault at some time or another. According to the report, every third to fourth woman with disabilities has experienced sexual harassment in her childhood and youth.

This is the result of a recent study by the University of Bielefeld, which was presented at a symposium in Berlin on Tuesday. In the survey, the scholars partly used simplified language to explain 1.561 blind, deaf and physically impaired women between the ages of 16 and 65 interviewed. According to the report, women with disabilities and impairments are two to three times more likely to be victims of abuse than the female population average. At 31 percent, almost one-third of women living in care facilities have been sexually assaulted. In a previous study from 2004, this share was still 10 percent.

Federal Family Minister Kristina Schroder (CDU) described the extent of abuse as "frighteningly high" and announced rapid help for victims. Schroder sees the main task now as setting up reliable structures so that abuse victims can reach fast and good help on their own. Better yet, he says, is to actively approach possible victims. "In doing so, we have to make sure that we manage the balancing act between the necessary sensitivity to cries for help on the one hand and avoiding a climate of mistrust on the other," the minister told the "Osnabrucker Zeitung" (Tuesday). For the high level of violence and abuse, they said, is still matched many times over by honest care and loving concern.

Special protection and support needed
Hermann Kues (CDU), parliamentary state secretary to the federal family minister, said special protection and support was needed for the women involved. He announced that the German Family Ministry would support the "Violence Against Women" help line, which is being set up and is scheduled to launch in late 2012. The free help service is available 24 hours a day and offers competent initial counseling and referral.

The current survey shows that a total of one in three to one in four women with disabilities experienced sexual harassment in their childhood and youth. In adult life, this continues in many cases. Every third to fifth woman in the study reports forced sexual acts. In the previous study, this had been only 13 percent of respondents.

Furthermore, more than 80 percent of women said they suffered from discrimination. At least one situation of physical violence in adult life has been experienced by about two out of three women, according to the study, nearly twice as many as in 2004.

The controversy over the selection of the clergyman for the inauguration of the future U.S. President Barack Obama continues to draw circles. Evangelical pastor Rick Warren is to deliver the sermon at the ceremony. Warren is highly controversial due to homophobic remarks.

The first openly gay member of the U.S. Congress, Democrat Barney Frank of Massachussetts, criticized Obama for inviting the Warren. Frank told the Washington Post newspaper it was "wrong to give Warren this high honor". Warren, best-selling author and leader of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch in Southern California, is a proponent of anti-poverty and environmental causes. Before the presidential election, he also vehemently advocated a ban on so-called gay marriage in the state of California. Obama's decision in favor of Warren therefore provoked fierce criticism from civil rights activists and homosexual organizations last week. The clergyman recently stated in an interview that he personally has nothing against homosexuals. Hardly any other church has done as much for AIDS patients as Saddleback Church. Nevertheless, he is against "gay marriage" because a "redefinition of marriage" is "tantamount to legitimizing incest, child abuse and polygamy". Rep. Frank told The Washington Post he finds it deeply unfair and hurtful to "equate homosexual couples with incest". Obama had defended Warren's election by saying that America must "come together" even if there are differing opinions on social ies. Such a dialogue was "part of what my election campaign was about".

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