Light and much shadow

adminonDecember 10, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

To mark International Women's Day on Sunday, the United Nations, politicians and aid organizations called for more action on women's rights. "Every day, women and girls in conflict regions become victims of systematic sexual violence," said German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul. The UN Children's Fund Unicef announces a positive report: Girls are catching up in education worldwide.

In most developing countries, for example, school enrollment rates for girls have risen in recent years, the UN Children's Fund announced in Cologne on Friday ahead of International Women's Day. International Women's Day is celebrated every year on 8. March committed. According to recent studies, there are now 97 girls enrolled in school for every 100 boys attending school worldwide, the report continued. Increased investment and targeted campaigns for girls' education had also led to an increase in school enrollment rates for girls in the world's poorest countries from 52 percent to more than 90 percent in the past 30 years, they said. However, girls are still particularly disadvantaged in West and Central Africa and South Asia, according to Unicef. In Mali, for example, there are only 74 girls for every 100 boys in school; in Niger, the ratio is 100 to 82; in Afghanistan, 100 to 61; and in Pakistan, 100 to 85. Major barriers to girls' school attendance remained poverty, child labor, early marriage and pregnancies, and traditional disadvantage in the family and at school. The other side: Gewa According to German Development Minister Wieczorek-Zeuls, in 2008 alone, around 100 women were killed in the Congo.000 women raped. Those affected are becoming younger and younger. Their "psychosocial annihilation" can disrupt entire societies, she warned at an international conference on violence against women in conflict in Berlin. "We are determined to hear this cry of women and not rest until these human rights violations come to an end," she said.In the Bundestag, the opposition criticized the federal government's gender equality policy. Although the Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), has scored points in family policy, said the women's policy spokeswoman of the FDP parliamentary group, Ina Lenke. But there are deficits in women's policy. The Greens and the Left faction accused the government of inaction.Von der Leyen defended parental allowance and childcare expansion as contributing to equality. At the same time, she acknowledged that women are often disadvantaged. "We have achieved a lot on paternity leave and daycare, but there is still a long way to go to achieve gender equality," she said.UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon also called for a reduction in economic disadvantage. "We need economic and social policies that promote women's empowerment," he said in New York. The International Labor Organization estimates that the economic crisis will threaten the jobs of up to 22 million women this year. "A deeply rooted gender inequality" UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, wants to advance legal and actual equality. "Deep-rooted gender inequality and widespread discrimination against women are a reality," she said in Geneva."Doctors Without Borders" called for better care for victims of sexual violence in developing countries. Many countries lack special emergency aid for women who have been raped, said Thilde Knudsen, an aid worker presenting a study on the situation in Liberia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Colombia.Help must be provided immediately, confidentially and comprehensively, Knudsen said. The most important thing is to prevent infection with HIV and other diseases. Unwanted pregnancies also need to be prevented, he added. In many cases, taboos prevent victims from seeking help.

Limburg Cathedral behind leaves © Fredrik Von Erichsen

The Archdiocese of Bamberg filed criminal charges against a priest of the Diocese of Limburg with the Marburg public prosecutor's office at the end of December. The victim has reported to the abuse commissioner of the Archdiocese of Bamberg.

At the end of December, the archdiocese of Bamberg filed criminal charges against a priest of the diocese of Limburg with the public prosecutor's office in Marburg. The accused had sexually abused a minor boy several times from 1986 to 1993. The acts are alleged to have been committed in the diocese of Limburg. In the course of the reporting on the MHG study on sexual abuse by clergy in the Catholic Church, the victim had contacted the abuse commissioner of the archdiocese of Bamberg.

The accused was active in parish pastoral care in the diocese for many decades until his retirement. He is spending his retirement in the archdiocese of Bamberg. There he had taken over occasionally divine service representations. The diocese of Limburg and the archdiocese of Bamberg have, in accordance with the guidelines of the German Bishops' Conference, banned the accused from exercising any priestly ministry. The diocese Limburg had initiated the church-criminal preliminary investigation.

Victim incriminates those responsible in the diocese

In the personnel file of the accused, which is kept in the Limburg diocese, there is no evidence of sexual abuse. In his testimony, the victim incriminates those in charge of the diocese at the time and reports that they had knowledge of the abuse.

The diocese takes the accusations very seriously and has initiated an external processing of this case. An independent lawyer will investigate the matter and question those responsible at the time. The findings will be made available to the state investigative authorities.

The eagerly awaited interview book of the Pope "Light of the World" was officially presented on Tuesday. The president of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, presented the 220-page work at a press conference in the Vatican. It contains far more surprises than the previously discussed condom ie.

One of the sensations of the new Pope's book was already revealed in advance – and developed into media hype. In his interview "Light of the World" Benedict XVI signals. More church flexibility in the fight against AIDS. Although this does not mean a turnaround in Catholic sexual morals, as the media suggested. But in certain cases, condoms – generally taboo for the church so far – could be acceptable after all: for example, to prevent infection by an HIV-infected partner.

The alleged change of course initially overshadowed the rest of the Pope's interview – which itself is already a sensation. Never before has a pope explained his pontificate in this form, explained the background to his decisions, analyzed successes and mistakes, answered critical questions from AIDS to celibacy – and in the process revealed much that is human. The "armored cardinal" proves to be an open, empathetic shepherd who talks about his personal fears (at the election of the pope) and his joys (at the World Youth Days). He gives vent to his anger over Vatican press relations on Pius brothers. It admits a "super-gau" in the case of Williamson – whose excommunication it would never have taken back, if it had known its Holocaust remarks. He admits that he does not play any sports and lets it be known that he always wears a white cassock and never a leisure sweater.

In 220 pages and 90 questions, the Munich publicist Peter Seewald presents a broad picture of five years of Benedict XVI's pontificate. Among the outstanding events, the Pope counts his trips abroad and – perhaps somewhat surprisingly – the Pauline Year of 2008-09, as well as the Year for Priests, which has just ended. He also places in the forefront the problems that overshadowed his fifth year in office after the surprisingly positive start. Politics, on the other hand, is left out of the interview, apart from a few words on human rights, peace and justice.

Work of John Paul II. continue
Benedict XVI. does not see a completely new task for his pontificate – just like John Paul II. (1978-2005) had to lead the church into the third millennium. He wants to continue his work, to grasp the drama of the times, to proclaim the Word of God in it, and to give Christianity its simplicity and depth, without which it cannot be effective.

It is astonishing, but conclusive, how Benedict XVI. puts the controversial withdrawal of excommunication for the traditionalist bishops in a parallel with the much-praised reconciliation with the patriotic bishops of China. Who submits to the primacy of the Pope
– what both groups did – for whom the reason for excommunication no longer applies, the pope made clear.

The pope speaks broadly and with unknown details about the abuse scandals. The extent of these events was a tremendous shock for him, even if it did not come as a complete surprise. His letter addressed to the Irish Church applied to all countries in similar situations, he said when asked why he did not address a letter of his own to his compatriots. He did not want to comment on the criticism of German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). She had apparently been incompletely informed about what the church had been saying and doing in the meantime.

Classic inner-church problems
On the classic inner-church problems such as celibacy, remarried divorcees or women's priesthood, the book confirms well-known positions. Homosexuality is for him "against the inner sense of sexuality"; therefore homosexuals could not become priests. In addition, Benedict XVI underlines. signals the urgency of ecumenism; it is more promising with Orthodoxy than with Protestants. He reaffirms close ties with Jews, whom he prefers to call "fathers in the faith" rather than "elder brothers" because the latter term is pejorative. He pays tribute to his predecessor Pius XII. (1939-1958), who had saved more Jews than any other
– and therefore "one of the great just". The statement has already met with criticism from French Jews.

Quite a few speculations and amptions are made in the interview of Benedict XVI. specified and clarified: that the time was not yet ripe for a Third Vatican Council. That he would have liked to be able to give the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kyrill I. He would like to meet with the people of Rome and Moscow and considers a not too distant Rome-Moscow meeting possible. That he would not resign because of individual factual problems in office, but if he were no longer physically, psychologically or spiritually up to its demands.

"Finding ways of livability"
As a task for the further course of his pontificate, Benedict XVI describes. first and foremost, the new evangelization. In a world in which science and progressive thinking seem to make the "hypothesis of God" superfluous and in which a "dictatorship of relativism" is spreading, the Christian faith must be rooted anew. An inner balance must be struck between human ability and spiritual growth, he said. And to this the church must make its contribution.

Not only on the condom ie does Benedict XVI signal. in the interview Opening. In matters of contraception and "Humanae vitae," he said, many things need to be reconsidered and restated. With all the right perspectives, she says, it is necessary to "find ways of livability". Despite church crisis and resignation numbers, Benedict XVI demonstrates. More confidence than skepticism. In addition to break-ins in the West, he says, there are encouraging break-ins elsewhere. He sees a large part of this in the spiritual movements, which bring more new elan to the church than old bureaucracies – and which make the presence of God the central point again.

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