theindependent--2019-07-23--World economy will slump to weakest growth in decade due to Trumpaposs trade war and Brexit IMF f

World economy will slump to weakest growth in decade due to Trump's trade war and Brexit, IMF forecasts

Global economic growth will slow this year to the weakest rate in a decade, the International Monetary Fund has said, blaming Donald Trump’s trade war with China, Brexit uncertainty and geopolitical tensions.  The IMF has downgraded its last forecasts, compiled in mid-March, and now expects growth of 3.2 per cent in 2019 and 3.5 per cent 2020.  There is a risk that even these lower forecasts prove to be too optimistic, the organisation said in its World Economic Outlook report published on Tuesday. One reason growth could be worse is an escalation in the US-China trade dispute, it added.  The US imposed tariffs on around $200bn of Chinese imports in May and banned American firms from doing business with Huawei, citing concerns that the Chinese company’s equipment could allow spying by Beijing on US citizens.  The IMF said there is a “pressing need” to resolve trade tensions and dispel the uncertainty around trade agreements, including between the UK and the EU.  “Specifically, countries should not use tariffs to target bilateral trade balances or as a substitute for dialogue to pressure others for reforms,” the report stated.  Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s chief economist, stressed that point at a press conference, saying: “The need for global cooperation is urgent.”  The fund has also updated its forecasts for the UK. It predicts growth of 1.3 per cent this year – compared with 1.2 per cent forecast earlier – and 1.4 per cent in 2020, as before.  However, this is based on the assumption of an orderly Brexit with a transition period. The forecasts were produced before Boris Johnson was named as the new UK prime minister, raising the risk of a no-deal Brexit. Mr Johnson has vowed to take Britain out of the EU in October with or without a deal.  The IMF’s outlook for the world economy broadly chimes with forecasts by the UK’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research, released on Monday. NIESR predicted growth of around 3.25 percent this year and 3.4 next year, both down from 3.6 per cent in 2018.  But NIESR was more pessimistic than the IMF about Britain’s prospects, seeing growth of 1.2 per cent in 2019 and 1.1 per cent in 2020, provided a no-deal Brexit is avoided.


unian--2019-01-14--Ukraine-India trade up to 23 bln Economy minister

Ukraine-India trade up to $2.3 bln – Economy minister

India is Ukraine's largest trading partner in the Asia-Pacific region.  The volume of trade turnover between Ukraine and India in the first ten months of 2018 increased by 1.5% to $2.295 billion, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv said during the International Partnership Summit in Mumbai (India).  According to Kubiv, the exports of Ukrainian products amounted to over $1.8 billion, the economy ministry press service reports.  Kubiv has noted that India is Ukraine's largest trading partner in the Asia-Pacific region.  Read alsoUkrainian producers able to export apples to India  "Ukraine has a wide range of projects in various areas interesting for attracting investment and developing manufacture of quality products with high added value. These are agri-industry and energy, industry in general, and aircraft industry, in particular, including aircraft repair and maintenance, supplies of helicopters for medical services and other civilian needs," said the minister.  He stressed that all these areas could be of interest to Indian businesses.  “In turn, we're offering the most favorable business climate,” Kubiv added.  Industrial cooperation between businesses is among the key tasks of the further cooperation between the two countries.  As UNIAN reported earlier, trade turnover between Ukraine and India in 2017 grew by 18.8%, amounting to $2.8 billion.


usnews--2019-10-16--Fed Survey Finds US Economy Being Hurt by Trade Battles

The survey, known as the beige book, will be used by Fed officials when they meet Oct. 29-30 to decide whether to cut interest rates for a third time this year.  Financial markets are expecting another rate cut as the central bank seeks to protect the economic expansion from the fallout from a trade war between the world's two biggest economies, the United States and China.  The beige book findings will likely be cited by Fed officials who believe the central bank should cut rates again because of rising risks that the nation's longest recovery, now in its 11th year, could be derailed.  Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group, said based on the beige book's emphasis on areas of weakness he expected the Fed will cut rates again at the October meeting.  The report, compiled from information gathered by the Fed's 12 regional banks, said that the banks' business contacts still expected the economic expansion to continue but many had lowered their outlooks for growth over the next six to 12 months.  The report also found conditions varied by regions. States in the southern and western part of the country generally were more upbeat than regions representing the Midwest and Great Plains.  That disparity likely was influenced by the tough times faced by many farmers. They have been caught between President Donald Trump's higher tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese imports and retaliatory tariffs imposed by China, which has also canceled purchases of U.S. farms goods, including soybeans, in an effort to hurt a key Trump constituency.  The beige book said that businesses across all regions were having to deal with persistent worker shortages and tight labor market conditions across various skill levels and occupations. This has been an issue as unemployment has continued to fall and in September dipped to a half-century low of 3.5%.  A number of districts reported that manufacturers had reduced employment because of softness in new orders. However, some firms were concerned about the longer-term availability of workers and opted to trim hours rather than lay off employees.  Even with the tight labor markets, wages were described as rising only moderately but some upward pressure was noted for lower-skilled workers in the retail and hospitality industries and for higher-skilled professional and technical workers.  Price increases were described as modest but both retailers and manufacturers noted rising input costs, often for items that had been hit with new tariffs in the trade war. The report said that retailers were finding more success in passing on the price increases to their customers than U.S. manufacturers were finding.  Trump announced last Friday a temporary truce in the U.S.-China trade battle, saying he had agreed to suspend a tariff hike scheduled to go into effect this week on $250 billion of Chinese imports. He said that the Chinese had agreed to buy $40 billion to $50 billion in U.S. farm products.  While the cease-fire lifted spirts on Wall Street, much more work will be needed to achieve a final deal. Investors have cited this lingering trade uncertainty as a main reason they believe the Fed will feel the need to cut rates again later this month.


veteranstoday--2019-11-07--IMF: Global trade tensions deepen Eurozone economy slowdown

[ Editor’s Note: This was a juicy topic. The EU downturn is partly due to its own foolish moves over sanctions against Russia for “taking over” Crimea when it voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russian rather than receiving the neo-Nazi treatment from those the EU, US and NATO backed in overthrowing the Ukrainian government.  Sure, the former Ukraine government was corrupt, but the replacements murdered lots of people simply because they were ethnic Russians, and the US government and the EU had no problem with that whatsoever.  Later, the European JCPOA partners rolled over on the JCPOA by not doing the major trading due with Iran, starting with buying a million barrels of oil a month, hiding behind the Trump sanctions threats with unfulfilled promises of “we’ll live up to the deal eventually”.  Europe lost the largest Airbus buy order, 100 planes, that it may never see again, and Boeing the same due to Trump breaking the deal.  On the Airbus deal, because US parts and technology were used – part of free and friendly trade with the EU – that allowed the US to kill that order. So all the pent-up import demand that could have helped EU economies went up in smoke and it is looking at 1.2% growth, with worse coming for the next two years.  That is not leadership. It is the total absence of leadership. Shame on the EU for not standing up for its people and the Iran deal. What the EU has done is to show that talk is cheap, with five years of negotiation thrown out the door.  That will hurt them down the road, likewise with the US’ sanctionista foreign policy. It will get worse before it gets better, which I cover in the second part of today’s PressTV interview, starting at 3:40 … Jim W. Dean ]  Jim's Editor’s Notes are solely crowdfunded via PayPal   Jim's work includes research, field trips, Heritage TV Legacy archiving & more. Thanks for helping. Click to donate >>


westernjournal--2019-06-20--Mexico Becomes First To Pass Trump Trade Deal Our Economy Is Open

Mexico Becomes First To Pass Trump Trade Deal: ‘Our Economy Is Open’

Mexico’s Senate passed the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement on Wednesday, making the nation the first to ratify the new trade pact, Politico reported.  Mexican foreign affairs undersecretary Jesús Seade announced the passing of the legislation on Twitter, writing, “USMCA passes! Mexico goes first with clear signal that our economy is open.”  “We’re confident that our partners will soon do the same,” Seade went on to say.  TRENDING: Border Patrol Agent Offers To Give Ocasio-Cortez a Personal Tour of Detention Facility After ‘Disgusting’ Holocaust Comparison  Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called a special session to consider the deal after the Senate broke for recess at the end of April. The agreement passed by 114 to 4 votes, with three lawmakers abstaining from the vote.  Despite President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to place 5 percent tariffs on Mexican goods over the ongoing southern border crisis, López Obrador maintained confidence that the deal would pass.  Prior to the vote, Mexican lawmakers expressed concern over the president’s unpredictability.  However, the deal was widely seen as a way of providing economic stability to the Mexican people.  Sen. Verónica Martínez García, the secretary to the Senate Economy Commission, told the Senate floor, “The USMCA is synonymous with opportunity in the short and long term.”  While Mexico appears confident over the deal, the U.S. Congress isn’t entirely on board yet.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said that rushing a vote on the deal would be a bad idea.  During a breakfast for reporters organized by the Christian Science Monitor, Pelosi outlined her concerns over labor and environmental protections in the agreement, as well as provisions on pharmaceuticals.  The Democratic congresswoman also said she would not accept the deal if it is simply “NAFTA with sugar on top.”  As Democrats have yet to agree to sign the deal, the text passed in Mexico’s Senate may not represent the totality of the final agreement.  Any renegotiation of terms, forced by the Democrats, would require the agreement of Mexico and Canada.  Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative, said this week that he will work with Democrats to address their concerns on enforcement.  We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.


21stcenturywire--2019-02-23--Netanyahus Slide Towards Jewish Fascism Should Shock Americans

Netanyahu’s Slide Towards ‘Jewish Fascism’ Should Shock Americans

More and more, Israel is finding increasing difficulty in justifying its overtly far-right ethno-nationalists and antiquated apartheid policies in a 21st century world which doesn’t regard its policies and practices as civilized or acceptable.  One of the main problems facing Israel as it attempts to project a ‘normal’ image to the rest of the world, is that the Zionist doctrine which claims the whole of former Palestine as being a ‘gift from God’ is itself a form of pure ideological fundamentalism – which has now morphed into the official extremist state doctrine. This extremist ideological stance then gives the state of Israel its sole claim to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and key portions of Gaza, hence, Likud’s status quo has gone past the point of no return in terms of Israel’s inclusion into an international community which sees running a pogrom in the 21st century as being not only patently illegal, but also vile in a moral and ethical sense. Rather than evolving towards a more moderate position, Israeli hawks are pushing the state institutions even further to the right – into a bona fide fascist camp.  In his recent piece entitled, “Netanyahu Now Endorses Jewish Fascism. US Jews Cut Your Ties With Him Now,” Haaretz’s Etan Nechin explains how the Likud-dominated Israeli political leadership is locked into a far-right political death spiral which it will not escape with a new and even more extremist coalition hoping to seize power this spring…  Benjamin Netanyahu faced media criticism this week for hosting the right-wing prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary who have been accused of being anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic. But in response, Likud MK Anat Berko epitomized Netanyahu’s politics in a single sentence: “They might be anti-Semites, but they’re on our side.” Netanyahu lost his moral compass years ago, but in this election cycle – a chronicle of a victory foretold – he no longer cares about appearing as the fascist-enabling Pied Piper who will lead Israel into oblivion and isolation only to keep himself in power. PM Netanyahu: "I have to commend you for taking on the effort, and your foreign minister, for confronting the lies that are put forward against Israel in places like the Human Rights Committee in EU forums and elsewhere. You stand up for Israel and you stand up for the truth" pic.twitter.com/ALdUNyI3pz Netanyahu has been working hard in the last few weeks to help create a coalition between Jewish Home, the latest incarnation of the Mafdal, a venerable religious Zionist party, and a party called Otzma Yehudit, which could be called the Jewish National Front, a radical far right party whose members, like its former leader, Baruch Marzel, were followers of Meir Kahane’s Kach Party. Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 24 Palestinians at prayer in Hebron in 1994, was a Kach member at that time. SEE ALSO: In Their Own Words: Was Every Israeli Prime Minister a Racist? The Jewish home, Jewish Power, Eli Yishai, and the National Union must unite to save 6-8 seats to the right-wing bloc. We must not lose these votes because the split on the right will lead to a loss in the elections and the establishment of a leftist government. None of them alone does pass the threshold, uniting them will bring at least 6-8 seats. This is a moment of crisis for Israel as a liberal democracy, but it is just as much a moment of crisis, and a test, for American Jews.  (…) This may seem like a political puppet show, or familiar political horse-trading. But it isn’t. It shows how far to the right the Israeli right has gone.  Betzalel Smotrich, an MK for Jewish Home who famously organized the “Beast Parade” as protest to the Pride Parade in Jerusalem and has declared his support for segregating Jews and Arabs, not only in settlements, but also in hospitals, tweeting, “It is natural that my wife would not want to lay down next to someone who just gave birth to a baby that might want to murder her baby in another 20 years,” could be the post-election minister of education.  Moti Yogev, another Jewish Home MK, said that Israel’s Supreme Court should be razed with a bulldozer. And now, Jewish Home has merged with Otzma Yehudit – who are even more extreme.  Yes, there have always been extremist elements in the Israeli political sphere, but they have always been outcasts…

religious institutions and state relations


abcnews--2019-11-12--Timeline of Cardinal George Pell's career and accusations

Australia's highest court on Wednesday agreed to hear an appeal by Cardinal George Pell of his convictions for molesting two choirboys in a cathedral more than two decades ago.  Some events in Pell's career and the criminal case:  July 16, 1996: Auxiliary Bishop George Pell is appointed archbishop of Melbourne. He molests two choirboys that December inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, according to testimony from one of the victims.  Feb. 25, 2014: Pope Francis appoints Pell to the powerful position of Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.  April 8, 2014: One of the molested choirboys dies of a heroin overdose without alleging the crime and having told his mother he had not been abused.  Aug. 5, 2014: Victoria state police establish Task Force Sano to investigate how religious and other nongovernment organizations handled abuse accusations.  June 18, 2015: The surviving choirboy gives his first statement to Sano detectives outlining criminal allegations against Pell.  Dec. 12, 2015: Australian media report that Pell has canceled an appearance before an Australian inquiry into how institutions responded to child sexual abuse. Pell said he could not fly back to Australia because of ill health.  Dec. 23, 2015: Sano publicly appeals for information relating to allegations of sexual offenses while Pell was Melbourne archbishop.  March 1, 2016: Pell begins testifying by video link from Rome to the Australian child abuse inquiry. Pell was critical of how the church had dealt with pedophile clerics in the past but denied he had been aware of the extent of the problem.  Oct. 19, 2016: Sano detectives go to Rome and question Pell. Pell hears details of the choirboy's allegations for the first time.  June 29, 2017: Police charge Pell with multiple counts of historical sexual assault offenses, making him the most senior cleric to be charged in the church's abuse crisis. Pell denied the accusations and took an immediate leave of absence as Vatican finance minister to return to Australia to defend himself.  July 26, 2017: Pell makes his first court appearance on charges that he sexually abused multiple children in Victoria state decades earlier. Details of the allegations were not made public. Pell vows to fight the allegations.  May 1, 2018: A magistrate commits Pell to stand trial, and he pleads not guilty to all charges.  May 2, 2018: A judge separates the charges into two trials, the first dating to his tenure as Melbourne archbishop and the other when he was a young priest in Ballarat in the 1970s.  Aug. 15, 2018: Trial begins in the Melbourne case and runs for four weeks.  Sept. 20, 2018: Jury discharged after failing to agree on a verdict following more than five days of deliberation.  Feb. 26, 2019: Suppression order forbidding publication of any details about the trial is lifted. Prosecutors abandon second trial on the Ballarat charges.  March 13, 2019: Judge announces Pell is sentenced to six years in prison on five sex abuse convictions and must serve three years and eight months before he is eligible for parole.  June 5-6, 2019: Victoria state Court of Appeal hears his appeal against the convictions.  Nov. 13, 2019: Australia's High Court agrees to hear an appeal next year.


abcnews--2019-12-03--Surge of new abuse claims threatens church like never before

At the end of another long day trying to sign up new clients accusing the Roman Catholic Church of sexual abuse, lawyer Adam Slater gazes out the window of his high-rise Manhattan office at one of the great symbols of the church, St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  “I wonder how much that’s worth?” he muses.  Across the country, attorneys like Slater are scrambling to file a new wave of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by clergy, thanks to rules enacted in 15 states that extend or suspend the statute of limitations to allow claims stretching back decades. Associated Press reporting found the deluge of suits could surpass anything the nation’s clergy sexual abuse crisis has seen before, with potentially more than 5,000 new cases and payouts topping $4 billion.  It’s a financial reckoning playing out in such populous Catholic strongholds as New York, California and New Jersey, among the eight states that go the furthest with “lookback windows” that allow sex abuse claims no matter how old. Never before have so many states acted in near-unison to lift the restrictions that once shut people out if they didn’t bring claims of childhood sex abuse by a certain age, often their early 20s.  That has lawyers fighting for clients with TV ads and billboards asking, “Were you abused by the church?” And Catholic dioceses, while worrying about the difficulty of defending such old claims, are considering bankruptcy, victim compensation funds and even tapping valuable real estate to stay afloat.  “It’s like a whole new beginning for me,” said 71-year-old Nancy Holling-Lonnecker of San Diego, who plans to take advantage of an upcoming three-year window for such suits in California. Her claim dates back to the 1950s, when she says a priest repeatedly raped her in a confession booth beginning when she was 7 years old.  “The survivors coming forward now have been holding on to this horrific experience all of their lives,” she said. “They bottled up those emotions all of these years because there was no place to take it.”  Now there is.  AP interviews with more than a dozen lawyers and clergy abuse watchdog groups offered a wide range of estimates but many said they expected at least 5,000 new cases against the church in New York, New Jersey and California alone, resulting in potential payouts that could surpass the $4 billion paid out since the clergy sex abuse first came to light in the 1980s.  Lawyers acknowledged the difficulty of predicting what will happen but several believed payouts could exceed the $350,000 national average per child sex abuse case since 2003. At the upper end, a key benchmark is the average $1.3 million the church paid per case the last time California opened a one-year window to suits in 2003. That offers a range of total payouts in the three big Catholic states alone from $1.8 billion to as much as $6 billion.  Some lawyers believe payouts could be heavily influenced by the recent reawakening over sexual abuse fueled by the #MeToo movement, the public shaming of accused celebrities and the explosive Pennsylvania grand jury report last year that found 300 priests abused more than 1,000 children in that state over seven decades. Since then, attorneys general in nearly 20 states have launched investigations of their own.  "The general public is more disgusted than ever with the clergy sex abuse and the cover-up, and that will be reflected in jury verdicts," said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who was at the center of numerous lawsuits against the church in that city and was portrayed in the movie “Spotlight.”  Said Los Angeles lawyer Paul Mones, who has won tens of millions in sex abuse cases against the church going back to the 1980s: "The zeitgeist is completely unfavorable to the Catholic Church.”  For Mones, the size of lawsuit payouts under the new laws could hinge on whether most plaintiffs decide to settle their cases with dioceses or take their chances with a trial.  "The X-factor here is whether there will be trials," he said. "If anyone starts trying these cases, the numbers could become astronomical."  Since the 15 states enacted their laws at different times over the past two years, the onslaught of lawsuits is coming in waves.  This summer, when New York state opened its one-year window allowing sexual abuse suits with no statute of limitations, more than 400 cases against the church and other institutions were filed on the first day alone. That number is now up to more than 1,000, with most targeting the church.  New Jersey’s two-year window opens this week and California’s three-year window begins in the new year, with a provision that allows plaintiffs to collect triple damages if a cover-up can be shown. Arizona, Montana and Vermont opened ones earlier this year. Even one of the biggest holdouts, Pennsylvania, is moving closer to a window after legislators voted last month to consider amending its constitution to make it easier to pass one.  Already, longtime clergy abuse lawyer Michael Pfau in Seattle says he's signed up about 800 clients in New York, New Jersey and California. Boston’s Garabedian says he expects to file 225 in New York, plus at least 200 in a half-dozen other states. Another veteran abuse litigator, James Marsh, says he’s collected more than 200 clients in New York alone.  “A trickle becomes a stream becomes a flood,” Marsh said. “We’re sort of at the flood stage right now.”  Church leaders who lobbied statehouses for years against loosening statute-of-limitations laws say this is exactly the kind of feeding frenzy they were worried about. And some have bemoaned the difficulty of trying to counter accusations of abuse that happened so long ago that most witnesses have scattered and many of the accused priests are long dead.  “Dead people can’t defend themselves,” said Mark Chopko, former general counsel to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “There is also no one there to be interviewed. If a diocese gets a claim that Father Smith abused somebody in 1947, and there is nothing in Father Smith’s file and there is no one to ask whether there is merit or not, the diocese is stuck.”  Slater’s Manhattan offices may have views of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, spiritual home of New York City’s Catholic archdiocese, but ground zero for his church abuse lawsuit operation is a call center, of sorts, about an hour’s drive away in suburban Long Island, in an office building overlooking a parking lot.  There, headset-wearing paralegals in a dozen cubicles answer calls in response to ads on talk radio and cable TV news channels pleading: “If you were sexually abused by a member of the clergy, even if it happened decades ago ... you may be entitled to financial compensation.”  That pitch spoke to 57-year-old Ramon Mercado, who had long kept silent about the abuse he suffered in the 1970s, in part because he didn’t want to upset his devout Catholic mother. Since her recent death, he’s ready to talk about the New York City priest who invited him into his Plymouth sedan to warm up on a cold day and ended up molesting him hundreds of times over the next three years.  "I was sitting in my living room and someone came on TV, 'If you’ve been molested, act now,'" Mercado said. "After so many years, I said, ‘Why not?’”  When such calls come in, the paralegals are trained to press for details but to do so gently.  "What age would you say you were?"  "Ten or 11? OK. Would you remember the face if you saw it?"  "He would take you out of your bed? What did he say when he came to get you?"  "Do you want to take a break? Are you OK? Are you sure?"  The next step is to get a lawyer on the line to see if it’s a case they can take to court. Slater says that out of the more than 3,000 calls his firm has taken leading up to and since the opening of New York’s one-year window, it has signed up nearly 300 clients, and expects another 200 by the middle of next year.  One recent day, lawyers talked to at least a half-dozen potential plaintiffs by lunchtime, with one saying she was raped at a first communion party and another saying a priest sodomized him after he was told to pull down his pants so his temperature could be taken.  In a windowless break room over pizza, the lawyers recounted some of the other horrific claims they’ve heard in just the past few months: A young girl penetrated by a finger, then a fist; a boy raped by three priests at the same time; an altar boy told to perform oral sex and then swallow because it would “absolve him of his sins.”  One plaintiff still smells the alcohol on the priest's breath decades later. Another says he can still hear the priest approaching his classroom as he came to get him, the squeak of shoes in the school hallway.  One man called with his story and later killed himself. A terminally-ill woman called from a hospice care center — "I've been holding this in my whole life."  Many of the accusations involve those already identified by dioceses as “credibly accused” — there are 5,173 priests, lay persons and other clergy member that meet that standard, according to a recent AP tally. Those are the easy cases.  But many others are like Mercado’s, involving priests never accused publicly before, some long dead. And so that turns lawyers into cold-case investigators, calling retired Catholic school teachers and retired rectory staff, combing through yearbooks and, in Mercado’s case, tracking down missionary workers who went on the priest’s overseas trips.  “This type of case isn’t for every law firm. It's not a hit-in-the-rear car accident,” Slater said. “There is work to be done.”  And money to be made. For his fee, Slater said he plans to ask for a full third of any awards his clients collect and he’s been spending in anticipation, hiring a half-dozen new paralegals, opening an office in New Jersey and breaking a wall in Long Island to make more room.  One of the lawyers eating pizza, Steven Alter, pushed back when asked if the people coming forward are just in it for the money.  “It’s not a cash grab,” he said. “They want to have a voice. They want to help other people and make sure it doesn't happen again.  “I haven't had one person ask me about the money yet."  This is the day the Catholic Church has long feared.  The church spent millions of dollars lobbying statehouses for decades, arguing it would be swamped with lawsuits if time limits on suing were lifted. That battle now lost, it is girding for Round Two, by turning to compensation funds and bankruptcy.  Compensation funds offer payment to victims if they agree not take their claims to court. They offer a faster, easier way to some justice, and cash, but the settlements are typically a fraction of what victims can get in trials. And critics say the church is just using them to avoid both a bigger financial hit and full transparency.  New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan set up the first fund in 2016, pitching it as a way to compensate victims without walloping the church and forcing it to cut programs. It has since paid more than $67 million to 338 alleged victims, an average $200,000 each.  The idea has caught on in other states. All five dioceses in New Jersey and three in Colorado opened one, as did seven dioceses in Pennsylvania and six in California, including the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the U.S.  Such funds, Dolan said in a newspaper op-ed piece last year, “prevent the real possibility — as has happened elsewhere — of bankrupting both public and private organizations, including churches, that provide essential services in education, charity and health care.”  Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League and a longtime critic of the new statute-of-limitations laws, said their effect — if not their intent — “is to disable the church.”  “When a diocese goes bankrupt, everyone gets hurt,” he said.  But bankruptcy has become an increasingly more common option. Less than a month after New York’s one-year lookback window took effect, the upstate Diocese of Rochester filed for bankruptcy, the 20th diocese or religious order in the country to do so, listing claims from alleged abuse survivors and other creditors as much as $500 million. Assets to pay that are estimated at no more than one-fifth that amount.  The Diocese of Buffalo may be next. It has begun paying victims of the 100 priests it considers “credibly accused” of abuse, tapping proceeds from the sale of a lavish $1.5 million mansion that once housed its bishop who is facing pressure to resign.  When a diocese files for bankruptcy, lawsuits by alleged abuse survivors are suspended and payments to them and others owed money — contractors, suppliers, banks, bondholders — are frozen while a federal judge decides how much to pay everyone and still leave enough for the diocese to continue to operate. It’s orderly and victims avoid costly and lengthy court cases, but they often get less than they would if they were successful in a trial.  A recent Penn State study of 16 dioceses and other religious organizations that had filed for bankruptcy protection by September 2018 found that victims received an average settlement of $288,168.  Bankruptcy can also leave abuse survivors with a sense of justice denied because the church never has to face discovery by plaintiff lawyers and forced to hand over documents, possibly implicating higherups who hid the abuse.  For many of his clients, Slater said, the fight in court is crucial because they want to expose the culture behind the crime, not just out a single priest.  “They want to see how the church allowed them to be abused, how they ruined their lives. The church is solely in possession of the information and there is no other way to get it,” he said. “It’s a different process in bankruptcy — you don’t get discovery and you don’t get it in compensation programs. The truth never comes to light.”  Other church tactics in the past few months could be a harbinger for the future.  In July, the Archdiocese of New York sued 31 of its insurers, fearing they would balk at paying all the new alleged victims.  And just last month, church officials on nearby Long Island sought to throw out New York’s new statutes of limitations law in sex abuse cases, arguing it violates the due process clause of the state constitution. The Diocese of Rockville Centre contends time limits to file suits can only be extended in “exceptional circumstances,” such as when plaintiffs are unable to file because they are abroad in a war zone.  Another pair of long shot cases are being closely watched because of the obvious financial implications. Five men who claim they were sexually abused by priests when they were minors filed suit in Minnesota earlier this year contending some of the responsibility rests with the world headquarters of the church — the Vatican. Then came another abuse suit last month in Buffalo accusing the Vatican of racketeering.  The Vatican is a sovereign state widely seen as off limits to abuse victims, but some lawyers say it’s time, especially now that U.S. dioceses are under attack, that it begins tapping its vast wealth.  Raymond P. Boucher, a veteran Los Angeles sexual abuse attorney, contends the Vatican’s legendary riches include stashes of art in vaults that could not possibly be exhausted “and still pay every single claim that anybody could bring in the United States.”  “They have them just in the vaults. They don’t even have to take anything off the walls.”


abcnews--2019-12-04--Surge of new abuse claims threatens church like never before


abcnews--2019-12-09--US Catholic priests beset by overwork, isolation, scandals

More than a century ago, waves of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Poland and Quebec settled in Chicopee and other western Massachusetts mill towns, helping build churches, rectories and schools to accommodate their faith. Today the priests leading those churches are under siege due to stresses, challenges and sex abuse scandals complicating their lives and those of their fellow priests across the United States.  The Rev. Mark Stelzer is among those trying to persevere. He's a professor at a Roman Catholic college in Chicopee, and its chaplain. He travels frequently to out-of-state events organized by a Catholic addiction-treatment provider, recounting his own recovery from alcoholism.  Last year, his busy schedule got busier. Amid a worsening shortage of priests, the Diocese of Springfield named him administrator of a parish in Holyoke, Chicopee’s northern neighbor, where he lives alone in a mansion-sized rectory while serving as spiritual leader to the 500 families of St. Jerome’s Church.  “I’m at an age where I thought I’d be doing less rather than doing more,” said Stelzer, 62.  Stelzer loves being a priest, yet he's frank about the ever-evolving stresses of his vocation that leave him nostalgic for the priesthood he entered in 1983.  “It was a lot simpler then,” he said. “There’s a real longing, a mourning for the church that was — when there was a greater fraternity among priests, and the church was not facing these scandals that are now emerging every day.”  Stelzer’s concerns echoed those of other priests, and some of their psychological caregivers, who were interviewed by The Associated Press.  Weighing on the entire Catholic clergy in the U.S. is the ripple effect of their church’s long-running crisis arising from sex abuse committed by priests. It’s caused many honorable priests to sense an erosion of public support and to question the leadership of some of their bishops. That dismay is often compounded by increased workloads due to the priest shortage, and increased isolation as multi-priest parishes grow scarce. They see trauma firsthand. Some priests minister in parishes wracked by gun violence; others preside frequently over funerals of drug-overdose victims.  One such victim was a 31-year-old woman whose family was among Stelzer’s closest friends. “This is one of the few times I actually felt my voice quivering,” he said of the funeral service he led last year.  Burnout has been a perennial problem for clergy of many faiths. But Thomas Plante, a psychology professor at California's Santa Clara University who has screened or treated hundreds of Catholic clerics, sees new forms of it as the sex abuse crisis persists and many parishioners lose trust in Catholic leadership.  “You’re just trying to be a good priest and now everyone thinks you’re a sex offender,” he said. “If you walk in a park with your collar on, people think you’re on the lookout for children. ... Some have been spat upon.”  The Springfield diocese, like many across the U.S., has a long history of sex-abuse scandals. In the early 1990s, priest Richard Lavigne was defrocked and several of his victims received cash settlements. In 2004, a grand jury indicted Thomas Dupre on two counts of child molestation soon after he resigned following a 13-year stint as Springfield’s bishop.  Stelzer had hoped the abuse crisis was abating but it resurfaced dramatically over the past two years. Abuse allegations led to former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s ouster from the priesthood and a Pennsylvania grand jury report asserted that about 300 priests had abused at least 1,000 children in the state over seven decades.  “It opened up an old wound and now we're back to ground zero,” Stelzer said in an interview at the College of Our Lady of the Elms.  The wound is self-inflicted, said Rev. Philip Schmitter, 74, who has served for 50 years in Flint, Michigan. His stance endears him to an African American community where he lived in public housing for three decades to maintain close ties.  “This cover up, this ‘Let's protect the institution’ was just a heinous, utterly unchristian kind of behavior,” he said.  Two miles north of Stelzer’s campus, on a recent Sunday, the Rev. William Tourigny was getting ready for the 4 p.m. Mass — his fourth and last of the day — at Ste. Rose de Lima Church.  When Tourigny, now 66, was ordained in 1980, the Springfield diocese had more than 300 priests serving 136 parishes. Since then, the ranks of priests have shrunk by more than half and nearly 60 of the parishes have closed. For Tourigny, it’s meant many more funerals to handle, including dozens related to drug overdoses and heavy drinking.  Even his own family has been scarred: Tourigny says the 27-year-old daughter of his first cousin was killed in circumstances he describes as fueled by her drug habit.  “But for her addiction, she was a wonderful mother,” Tourigny said.  Tourigny says he’s worked nearly 40 years without a real vacation. For years, he’s had therapy sessions, which he describes as “crucially important,” and he strives to minister compassionately without being engulfed in the emotions of those he consoles.  “I can share their pain but I can’t enter into it,” he said. “I’d be overwhelmed by grief.”  With 2,500 families, many of Polish and French Canadian descent, Tourigny's parish has fared better with membership and finances than several nearby parishes. Yet Tourigny says many Catholics now mistrust the church hierarchy because of the flawed response to the abuse scandals.  “I was ordained at a time when the church was so alive — there was so much optimism,” he said. “Then things began to change quickly. It has changed the way people look at us. The church has lost credibility and it’s hard to get credibility back again.”  Plante, the California psychologist, says even priests deeply devoted to their work are upset.  “A lot are angry at bishops and the institutional church for screwing up — a lot of them feel they’ve been thrown under the bus,” he said. “They’re also concerned that one of these days someone will accuse them of misbehavior, even if they’ve done nothing wrong. They’re asking, 'Did I do something 30 years ago that could be misconstrued, that will come back and haunt me?'”  The Rev. Stephen Fichter, pastor of St. Elizabeth Church in Wyckoff, New Jersey, said he has counseled people who’ve been abused by Catholic clergy and understands the “pain and horror” they experienced. Yet he voiced concerns on behalf of priests with unblemished careers who feel vulnerable to unwarranted suspicions.  “Sometimes a priest is confronted by an anonymous accusation from 30 or 40 years ago, and doesn’t have a chance to defend himself,” Fichter said. “It used to be innocent until proven guilty. Now a lot of priests feel it’s been turned upside down.”  Mark Stelzer proudly identifies himself as an alumnus of Guest House, a residential facility in Michigan that has specialized in addiction treatment for Catholic clergy since 1956. He travels frequently to make presentations on behalf of Guest House, and teaches a course at his Chicopee college titled “Addiction and Recovery.”  By the time he was ordained, Stelzer says, he was consuming alcohol daily. Only after five more years of steady drinking did acquaintances suggest he had a problem, leading to his stay at Guest House.  Guest House’s president, Jeff Henrich, is an experienced drug and alcohol counselor. He says substance abuse among priests is a longstanding problem but has been aggravated by recent developments — including the “residual shame” arising from the sex-abuse scandals and increased isolation as more priests now manage parishes on their own.  Since 1985, according to researchers at Georgetown University, the Catholic population in the U.S. has risen by nearly 20%, but the number of priests has plunged from more than 57,000 to under 37,000.  “There’s fewer of them and more work to do,” Henrich said. “That means you’re far more likely to live alone than ever before — and very few of us were meant to live alone.”  In response, treatment experts urge priests in recovery to find companionship in a support group and to form friendships outside their ministry.  Stelzer agrees that isolation raises the risks of substance abuse.  “We’re lone rangers,” he said. “Substance abuse might go undetected for longer when you’re living alone. A lot of those in treatment now say it was because of isolation, working harder and longer, and not feeling support from leadership.”  The harmful consequences of the priest shortage have come to the attention of the Vatican's ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre. Addressing U.S. bishops in November, he urged them to be attentive to their priests’ health, spiritual well-being and sense of priestly fraternity.  “Many priests are saying they no longer know one another,” Pierre said. “Others, due to the priest shortage, are forced to live in isolation, managing multiple parishes.”  Stress, burnout, depression and addictions are among the conditions treated at St. Luke Institute, a residential treatment center for Catholic clergy and lay leaders, in Silver Spring, Maryland.  St. Luke’s president, the Rev. David Songy, is a psychologist who has worked extensively with troubled priests. One growing problem, he says, is that new priests are now often assigned their own parish within three years, instead of 10 or more in the past, and may be ill-prepared to oversee finances and personnel as well as pastoral duties.  “Some of the younger people that come to us — they’ve been overwhelmed and weren’t sure how to deal with things,” Songy said. Stress, burnout, depression and addictions are among the conditions treated at St. Luke Institute, a residential treatment center for Catholic clergy and lay leaders, in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Other stressful changes relate to ideological differences. Tourigny considers himself a progressive and has welcomed lesbian couples into Ste. Rita. He says many young priests now emerging from seminary are less tolerant of LGBTQ congregants and eager to revive the tradition of celebrating Mass in Latin.  Another change noted by several priests: Some parishioners, rather than showing deference to their pastors, openly challenge them.  “In the past they might have disagreed, but they’d be courteous. Now it’s different,” said Fichter. “They think you are not Republican enough or Democratic enough depending on which end of the political spectrum they occupy. ... They want you to preach what they want to hear, and they will confront you.”  At St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York — just north of New York City — there’s increased emphasis on screening applicants for their ability to handle stress and avoid the burnout that’s now affecting some priests even early in their ministry.  “There’s no doubt these men coming forward are facing what will be a very stressful life,” said the Rev. Thomas Berg, the seminary’s vice rector. “We must be sure they have the skill set or will be able to develop it.”  “On top of that, in some places, you don’t have a sense that their bishop supports them,” added Berg. “In plenty of dioceses, priests are essentially treated as outside contractors — there’s a lack of a genuinely caring relationship.”  Police officers, firefighters and paramedics are collectively labeled first responders. Henrich, the Guest House president, says priests also merit that label.  “They see trauma and loss on a very regular basis,” he said. “They get called out to hospitals, deal with grieving families, with lost and dead children.”  Gun violence is the plague besetting the Rev. Mike Pfleger’s parish in an African American area of Chicago.  "It's a war zone,” says Pfleger, an outspoken pastor at Saint Sabina Church since 1981. “Doing funerals of children is the hardest for me.”  The violence has ripple effects: he says parents of slain young people go through divorce, mental breakdowns, addiction.  “It becomes overwhelming when it’s day in and day out, and you don’t have the resources to meet the needs,” he said.  Now 70, Pfleger says his health is good, and his work rewarding. Yet he says he and his colleagues risk being overwhelmed by the crises facing their neighborhood of Auburn Gresham.  “I was seeing myself becoming depressed, after several violent deaths in a short span,” he said. “I needed to make sure I talked to somebody.  “Last year I didn’t take any days off — I realized that was a big mistake,” he added. “It’s important to have people around you to say, ‘Are you OK?’”  In Brunswick, Ohio, a town of 34,000 people 20 miles (30 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland, the Rev. Robert Stec’s priorities have been transformed, due to the scourge of opioids, since he became pastor of St. Ambrose Church in 2005.  In 2016, Brunswick’s Medina County reported 20 opioid-related deaths. Stec presided over six funerals of those victims in a short span. While sharing parishioners’ grief, Stec resolved to combat the opioid epidemic and founded a multifaith coalition of Northeast Ohio religious leaders.  Stec is grateful that Brunswick has better-than-average mental health services. But he and his fellow priests in drug-ravaged towns still employ a triage policy, seeking help for the most dire cases, because they can’t provide comprehensive support to every affected parishioner.  “We weren’t trained for this in the seminary,” he said.  Still the priests treasure their jobs despite the challenges. Mark Stelzer holds onto his role as a comforter. “For a lot of people, I’m the last person they saw while they were still alive,” he said. “There's an energy and grace in those moments.”  Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.


abcnews--2019-12-28--Hundreds of accused clergy left off church's sex abuse lists

Richard J. Poster served time for possessing child pornography, violated his probation by having contact with children, admitted masturbating in the bushes near a church school and in 2005 was put on a sex offender registry. And yet the former Catholic priest was only just this month added to a list of clergy members credibly accused of child sexual abuse — after The Associated Press asked why he was not included.  Victims advocates had long criticized the Roman Catholic Church for not making public the names of credibly accused priests. Now, despite the dioceses’ release of nearly 5,300 names, most in the last two years, critics say the lists are far from complete.  An AP analysis found more than 900 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse who were missing from lists released by the dioceses and religious orders where they served.  The AP reached that number by matching those public diocesan lists against a database of accused priests tracked by the group BishopAccountability.org and then scouring bankruptcy documents, lawsuits, settlement information, grand jury reports and media accounts.  More than a hundred of the former clergy members not listed by dioceses or religious orders had been charged with sexual crimes, including rape, solicitation and receiving or viewing child pornography.  On top of that, the AP found another nearly 400 priests and clergy members who were accused of abuse while serving in dioceses that have not yet released any names.  “No one should think, ‘Oh, the bishops are releasing their lists, there’s nothing left to do,’” said Terence McKiernan, co-founder of BishopAccountability.org, who has been tracking the abuse crisis and cataloging accused priests for almost two decades, accumulating a database of thousands of priests.  “There are a lot of holes in these lists,” he said. “There’s still a lot to do to get to actual, true transparency.”  Church officials say that absent an admission of guilt, they have to weigh releasing a name against harming the reputation of priests who may have been falsely accused. By naming accused priests, they note, they also open themselves to lawsuits from those who maintain their innocence.  Earlier this month, former priest John Tormey sued the Providence, Rhode Island, diocese, saying his reputation was irreparably harmed by his inclusion on the diocese’s credibly accused list. After the list was made public, he said he was asked to retire by the community college where he had worked for over a decade.  Some dioceses have excluded entire classes of clergy members from their lists — priests in religious orders, deceased priests who had only one allegation against them, priests ordained in foreign countries and, sometimes, deacons or seminarians ousted before they were ordained.  Others, like Poster, were excluded because of technicalities.  Poster’s name was not included when the Davenport, Iowa, diocese issued its first list of two dozen credibly accused priests in 2008. The diocese said his crime of possessing more than 270 videos and images of child pornography on his work laptop was not originally a qualifying offense in the church’s landmark charter on child abuse because there wasn’t a direct victim.  After he was released from prison, the diocese found Poster a job as a maintenance man at its office, but he was fired less than a year later after admitting to masturbating in the bushes on the property, which abuts a Catholic high school. Still, the diocese did not list him.  Poster went on to violate the terms of his probation, admitting he had contact with minors at a bookstore and near an elementary school, federal court records unsealed at the AP’s request show. A judge sent him back to jail for two months and imposed several other monitoring conditions.  Child pornography was added to the church’s child abuse charter in 2011 and, though the diocese promised it would update its list of perpetrators as required under a court-approved bankruptcy plan, it never included Poster.  “It was an oversight,” diocese spokesman Deacon David Montgomery told the AP. He said the public had been kept informed about the case through press releases issued from Poster’s arrest until his removal from the priesthood in 2007.  Poster, now 54, lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, near a school and two parks. He hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing for more than a decade and declined to comment when reached by the AP, saying he preferred to stay out of the spotlight.  Of the 900 unlisted accused clergy members, more than a tenth had been charged with a sex-related crime — a higher percentage than those named publicly by dioceses and orders, the AP found.  Dioceses varied widely in what they considered a credible accusation. Like Poster, some of the priests criminally charged with child pornography weren’t listed because some dioceses said a victim needed to report a complaint. In addition to Poster, the AP review found 15 other priests charged with possessing, distributing or creating child pornography who were not included on any list.  Other dioceses created exceptions for a host of other reasons, ranging from cases being deemed not credible by a board of lay church people to the clergy members in question having since died and thus being unable to defend themselves.  “If your goal is protecting kids and healing victims, your lists will be as broad and detailed as possible. If your goal is protecting your reputation and institution, it will be narrow and vague. And that’s the choice most bishops are making,” said David Clohessy, the former executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who now heads the group's St. Louis chapter.  The largest exceptions were made for the nearly 400 priests in religious orders who, while they serve in diocesan schools and parishes, don’t report to the bishops.  Richard J. McCormick, a Salesian priest who worked at parishes, schools and religious camps in dioceses in Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Indiana and Louisiana, has been accused of molesting or having inappropriate contact with children from three states. In 2009, his order settled the first three civil claims against him. Yet he does not appear on any list of credibly accused clergy members.  McCormick finally faced criminal charges after one of his victims spotted the priest’s name on a very different list — one posted in 2011 by a Boston lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, who represents church sexual abuse victims.  Thirty years had gone by, but Joey Covino said he immediately recognized a photo of McCormick as the priest who had molested him over two summers at a Salesian camp, a woodsy retreat for underprivileged boys in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Covino’s boyhood had revolved around church, where he served as an altar boy, played in a Catholic Little League and where his mother — raising four children on her own — gratefully accepted assistance from friendly priests.  When she sent Covino and his brothers back to the free camp for a second year, “I was petrified — petrified — and I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even ask my brothers to see if it had happened to them,” said Covino, now 49 and a police officer in Revere, Massachusetts. “I’ve always told myself I should have done something. I should have fought back.”  Covino said the entirety of his adult life had been altered by McCormick’s abuse — failed relationships, his decisions to join the military and later the police, nightmares that plagued him. His decision to come forward led to McCormick being convicted of rape in 2014 and sentenced to up to 10 years. The priest since has pleaded guilty to assaulting another boy.  The Salesians, based in New Rochelle, New York, have never posted a list of credibly accused priests.  “Our men who have been credibly accused and have had accusations have been listed in the various dioceses that we serve,” said Father Steve Ryan, vice provincial of the order.  Ryan said he was certain McCormick’s name appeared on several lists, including Boston’s.  But when Boston posted its list in 2011, Archbishop Sean Patrick O’Malley wrote that he was not including priests from religious orders or visiting clerics because the diocese “does not determine the outcome in such cases; that is the responsibility of the priest’s order or diocese.”  O’Malley since has called on religious orders to post their own lists, spokesman Terry Donilon said.  The AP found the Boston archdiocese has the most accused priests left off its list, with almost 80 not included. Nearly three-quarters, like McCormick, were priests from religious orders. Another dozen died before allegations were received — another exclusion cited by the archdiocese.  McCormick also is not on the New York archdiocese’s list or lists posted by the Archdiocese of Gary, Indiana, and the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida — both places where he faced accusations.  After the AP inquired, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese in New Orleans, where McCormick served in 1991, said the archdiocese would seek to verify information about the priest and add him to its list.  If McCormick goes onto New Orleans’ list, he would be excluded from the AP’s undercount analysis, despite still being absent on lists in the other dioceses where he served. Because the AP counted only priests left off all lists, critics say the number of 900 unnamed priests represents just a tiny portion of the true scope of the underreporting problem.  Other priests excluded from the credibly accused lists were left off because of findings from the diocesan investigations process.  Review boards — independent panels in each diocese staffed with lay people to review allegations of abuse — make the initial recommendation on whether an allegation is credible. The standards those boards use to investigate claims and the process itself often is so shrouded from public view that some victims say they weren’t allowed to attend when their allegations were discussed.  Dozens of priests whose accusers received payouts or legal settlements were left off credibly accused lists because review boards deemed the accusations not substantiated or because bishops or even the Vatican later overturned the board’s findings on appeal. The standards for Vatican appeals are even more secretive.  In 2006, the Chicago Archdiocese’s review board investigated a claim from two brothers who alleged a priest named Robert Stepek had abused them. The board found “reasonable cause to suspect that sexual abuse of minors occurred,” but Stepek was restored to good standing in 2013 after a Vatican court said it was “unable to find evidence strong enough.” The court found Stepek engaged in inappropriate behavior for a priest, however, and he remained without an assignment under restrictions until his death in 2016.  The AP found about 45 accused clergy members who did not appear on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s list of credibly accused priests. The archdiocese said they were excluded for a variety of reasons, including deciding that about a dozen priests found unsuitable for ministry by a review board due to conduct involving minors did not do anything that rose to the level of abuse.  A spokesman said the archdiocese has a thorough and transparent investigation process, but declined to comment on any of the individual cases of priests not named on its list.  Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the AP that he had to fight church leaders to release a groundbreaking 2018 grand jury report that named more than 300 predator priests and cataloged clergy abuse over seven decades in six of the state’s dioceses, not including Philadelphia.  Several bishops played a direct role in covering up the abuse in Pennsylvania, Shapiro said.  “You can’t put much stock in the lists that the church voluntarily provides because they cannot be trusted to police themselves,” he said.  In Buffalo, New York, Bishop Richard Malone resigned under pressure earlier this month after his executive assistant leaked internal church documents to a reporter after becoming concerned the bishop had intentionally omitted dozens of names from its list of credibly accused priests.  Buffalo’s list has more than doubled to 105 clergy members since those documents were released. Still, the AP found nearly three dozen accused priests who remain unnamed by the diocese.  The number of new claims being reported to law enforcement and church officials over the last two years has increased, spurred in part by revelations of abuse from high-ranking church officials such as former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and by the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the more than 20 other state investigations launched in its wake.  The AP found more than 130 priests who were accused in the last two years whose names do not appear on any lists. Another 37 unlisted priests were accused under New York’s Child Victims Act, which recently opened a window for victims to file civil lawsuits regardless of the statute of limitations, a trend being echoed across the country.  Anne Burke, now chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, was part of the Catholic Church’s inaugural National Review Board, a commission formed to help implement the church’s 2002 child abuse charter.  “We gave our report and recommendations over 15 years ago. They never followed through. That was the final nail in the coffin as far as we were concerned in terms of the bishops ever being able to pull themselves away … from the bureaucracy and be transparent,” Burke said. “That is why we are here again today, and it’s worse.”  Many advocates say the church has a long way to go toward being transparent and are determined to see that it becomes far more open about problem priests.  Attorney Jeff Anderson, known for suing dioceses for information on accused clergy, has released almost 30 various rosters of clergy he has received allegations against or whose names appear in church documents.  “We feel a fierce public imperative to continue to release our lists because those released by dioceses contain only a fraction of the true report,” Anderson said. “And they lead people to believe they are coming clean when they are not.”  It was a list that Anderson’s law firm released in the Archdiocese of New York that led 34-year-old Joe Caramanno to file a complaint, decades after he said he was abused.  Caramanno had been hospitalized for an anxiety disorder when he was a teenager and part of his return to high school involved mandated meetings with a priest who controlled his medication. It was during those sessions that Caramanno said Monsignor John Paddack fondled him.  Caramanno, now a teacher, said it wasn’t until he saw Paddack’s name on Anderson’s list that he felt he could come forward. “I needed the validation that it wasn’t just me. It made it more real,” he said.  The archdiocese’s official list of credibly accused priests, released a few months after Anderson’s, contains only half the names and does not include Paddack, who has stepped down during the ongoing investigation.  “It makes me wonder if I hadn’t come forward … would he still be an active priest?” said Caramanno, who has filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese under New York’s Child Victims Act.  An archdiocese spokesman said a request for comment had been relayed to Paddack, but the priest did not respond.  Victims and advocates say the church should be transparent about investigations when allegations are received, arguing that trust in the church can be restored only if bishops are completely forthcoming.  Several dioceses have chosen to include priests under investigation on their lists, removing them if the allegations are determined to be unsubstantiated, but many others do not disclose investigations or include those names.  “Every cleric no matter where they came from or were ordained or went to school or who signs their paycheck ... all of that is hair-splitting and irrelevant,” said Clohessy, of the group SNAP. “What matters is one question: Did or does this credibly accused predator have access to my flock ever? Even for a few hours. If the answer is yes, then that bishop needs to put that predator on his list.”  AP reporters Ryan J. Foley, Adam Geller and Matt Sedensky and researcher Randy Herschaft contributed to this report.


theepochtimes--2019-10-17--Sen. Sasse Wants a Vote on Protecting Church Tax-Exemptions

WASHINGTON—Sen. Ben Sasse was so incensed when Democratic presidential candidate and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke proposed ending federal tax exemptions for churches that oppose same-sex marriage, the Nebraska Republican resolved to get every member of Congress on the record on the issue.  Sasse took to the Senate floor in an impassioned speech late Oct. 16 “to ask each and every member of Congress to answer this simple question: Is it right for the United States federal government to get into the business of policing Muslims’, Jews’, and Christians’ religious beliefs about whether or not they are acceptable? Is it the business of the federal government of the United States to determine true and false religion?  “Last week, a former member of Congress didn’t blink an eye—a former member of Congress now running for president—didn’t blink an eye when he announced that he would strip religious institutions, colleges, churches, and other not-for-profit service organizations. He would strip them of their tax-exempt status if they don’t agree with his political positions.”  O’Rourke’s declaration came during a CNN town hall on LGBT issues, when he was asked if he would support ending the tax-exempt status of “religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities” that oppose same-sex marriage.  “Yes,” O’Rourke responded, adding that “there can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, any institution, or any organization that denies the full human rights and full civil rights of every single one of us.”  The former Texas congressman, who gave Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) a surprisingly tough reelection battle in 2018 but has failed to make a dent in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaign, also said that, “As president, we’re going to make that a priority and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.”  On Oct. 16, Sasse described O’Rourke’s statement as “a pretty major departure from what America is and what we usually talk about in this body.”  “So, we should pause, and we should call that what it is. That is extreme intolerance. It is extreme bigotry,” he said.  “And it’s profoundly un-American. The whole point of America is the First Amendment, and the whole point of the First Amendment is that no matter who you love, and no matter how you worship, we believe in America that everyone, everyone is created with dignity.”  Sasse’s resolution declares that “the protections of freedom of conscience enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States remain central to the experiment of the United States in republican self-government under the Constitution of the United States”; “government should not be in the business of dictating what ‘correct’ religious beliefs are”; and “any effort by the government to condition the receipt of the protections of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States, including an exemption from taxation, on the public policy positions of an organization is an affront to the spirit and letter of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”  All senators present will have an opportunity to say “aye” or “no” on the issue, when the Sasse resolution is brought to the floor of the upper chamber.  That could happen as early as Oct. 21, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) used Senate Rule 14 on Oct. 17 to bypass the normal procedure that sends a legislative proposal to a committee and put the resolution directly on the Senate agenda.  A companion version would have to be introduced by a congressman before it could be considered in the House of Representatives.  The resolution could become a problem for six members of the Senate who are currently seeking the Democratic nod to oppose President Donald Trump in next year’s election, including Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Michael Bennett of Colorado, and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.  Shortly after the CNN event, a Warren spokeswoman said she opposes O’Rourke on the issue.  “Religious institutions in America have long been free to determine their own beliefs and practices, and she does not think we should require them to conduct same-sex marriages in order to maintain their tax-exempt status,” said Saloni Sharma.  Spokespeople for the other five Democratic senators didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times. Booker was asked the same question at the CNN event, but declined to answer definitively, saying: “I’m not dodging your question. I am saying I believe fundamentally that discrimination is discrimination.”


abcnews--2019-11-04--FBI: Man who spoke of hating Jews held in temple bomb plot

A man who repeatedly espoused anti-Semitic views has been arrested in a plot to bomb a historic Colorado synagogue, federal officials said Monday.  The co-conspirators in the plot turned out to be undercover agents, who arrested the man shortly before he planned to bomb the synagogue early Saturday morning, according to court documents.  Richard Holzer was arrested Friday in Pueblo just after the agents brought him what he believed were two pipe bombs along with dynamite to blow up Temple Emanuel. In fact, the undercover agents had phony bombs incapable of causing damage, authorities said.  Holzer, 27, described what he thought were the explosives as "absolutely gorgeous" and said they should go ahead with the attack overnight to avoid police, the court document said.  Holzer, who lives in Pueblo, briefly appeared in court on Monday in handcuffs and wearing a gray polo shirt with a black collar. He told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kristen Mix that he understood the charge against him, and she scheduled his next court date for Thursday.  It was unknown if Holzer had a federal public defender Monday, although one would be appointed for him before Thursday's hearing, said Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver.  The Office of the Federal Public Defender in Denver said Monday it does not comment on its cases.  Holzer was in federal custody in the Denver area, Dorschner said.  The foiled plot is the latest attempted attack against a synagogue in the U.S. just over a year.  In October 2018, a shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh killed 11 people and became the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.  In April, a woman was killed and three people were injured when a man opened fire inside a Southern California synagogue with an AR-15 military-style rifle.  The investigation into Holzer began after an undercover FBI agent purporting to be a woman who supports white supremacy contacted him on Facebook.  Holzer repeatedly espoused anti-Semitic and white supremacist views in his messages with the agent. "I wish the Holocaust really did happen...they need to die," he wrote her on Facebook, according to the court documents.  Holzer told the agent he had checked out the temple property and met with her and other undercover agents at a Pueblo motel on Friday. He brought a copy of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" with him, the documents said.  The agents then arrested Holzer, who waived his right to remain silent and spoke to investigators, the documents said.  "He referred to the plan as 'my mountain' and to Jews and Synagogues as a 'cancer' to the community," the document said.  He also told agents he didn't want to hurt anyone but would have proceeded with an attack if he knew someone was inside, the papers said.  U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn in Denver said federal and Pueblo law enforcement had thwarted "an imminent threat of domestic terrorism against a Colorado religious institution."  "Mr. Holzer repeatedly expressed his hatred of Jewish people and his support for a racial holy war," Dunn said at a news conference.  If convicted of a pending domestic terrorism charge, Holzer could face 20 years in prison, Dunn said.  The Temple Emanuel synagogue is the second-oldest in Colorado and was completed in 1900, according to Temple Emanuel's website.  It has a congregation of about 30 families and a rabbi from Denver who travels to Pueblo twice a month. Pueblo is about a two-hour drive south of Denver. A voicemail left at the temple wasn't immediately returned.  "Mr. Holzer will now have the opportunity to explain his behavior through our court system in a constitutional way — which in the spirit of irony, protects religious freedom as one of its most golden rules," Pueblo Police Chief Troy Davenport said.  This story has been updated to correct that Holzer allegedly planned a Saturday attack, not Sunday, and that Martinez is a prosecutor, not Holzer's defense attorney.


aljazeera--2019-03-21--Birmingham Muslims blame far-right extremism for mosque attacks

Birmingham Muslims blame 'far-right extremism' for mosque attacks

Four mosques in the English city of Birmingham were damaged overnight, police said on Thursday, in the latest in a spate of Islamophobic attacks in Britain since the murder of 50 people by a white supremacist at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.  West Midlands Police said detectives and counterterrorism officers are investigating after windows were smashed at four mosques in Birmingham.  The force said in a statement the incidents "are being treated as linked".  Officers responded after reports in the early hours of Thursday of a man seen shattering windows with a sledgehammer at one mosque, the police said.  "Neighbourhood officers are working closely with mosques around the West Midlands today," the force said.  "Since the tragic events in Christchurch, New Zealand, officers and staff from West Midlands Police have been working closely with our faith partners across the region to offer reassurance and support at mosques, churches and places of prayer," West Midlands Police Chief Constable Dave Thompson said in a statement.  "At the moment, we don't know the motive for last night's attacks," Thompson added. "At difficult times like this, it is incredibly important that everyone unites against those who seek to create discord, uncertainty and fear in our communities," he said.  Forensics experts are working to identify evidence at the scenes of the four attacks, while CCTV is also being examined.  Shabana Mahmood, a member of parliament for Birmingham, said the reported attacks were "truly terrible."  "I would urge all residents to remain calm and call [the police] with any info you may have," Mahmood tweeted.  A statement from the Birmingham Council of Mosques said: "We were deeply horrified to hear a number of mosques were vandalised during the early hours of this morning.  "Birmingham's mosques are a place of worship, serenity and a source of peace and tranquillity. We are appalled by such acts of hate/terror."  In August last year, Birmingham mosques were attacked with catapults during evening prayers.  The city, in the Midlands, is home to a large Muslim community.  "I think that all religious institutions do need access to a high security budget [from the government], in light of the fact that far-right extremists have been left for too long," Kamran Hussain, general manager at Birmingham's Green Lane Mosque and Community Centre, told Al Jazeera.  "Far-right extremism ... is now in Eastern Europe, it is in America, and it has been left unchangelled in many aspects. We haven't addressed it in the media or even at government level."  Hussain's mosque was not targeted, but is close to those that were, such as the Witton Islamic Centre.  "The risk from Islamophobia has been on the rise for many years now," said a Witton Islamic Centre spokesperson. "This form of hate has fallen under the radar in many aspects, including some parts of the media and our intelligence and security services. The tragic events from last week's attacks in Christchurch have caused great concern among the Muslim community."  Saddique Hussain, trustee at the Central Jamia Mosque Ghamkol Sharif, said it was impossible to fully secure a mosque.  "Trying to secure a building of this nature and calibre is extremely difficult, and not possible to do," he said. "A mosque needs to be an open place of worship. For example, we can't lock our doors when the prayers start because some people [are] late for prayers.  "To secure a place where the door is constantly open? ... You can’t."  Worshipper Ali, 26, said: "People see what is going on in the world because of social media and they get annoyed. They kind of believe it and take it the wrong way. If I die in the mosque, I would be blessed. So, I think there should be no security and the doors should remain open."


aljazeera--2019-03-30--Irans referendum and the transformation to an Islamic Republic

Iran's referendum, and the transformation to an Islamic Republic

Qom, Iran - The year was 1979. An Islamic revolution had just overthrown Iran's powerful US-backed king, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was now in charge of what for centuries had been an ancient empire.  In the months after Khomeini seized power, Iran's revolutionaries began the difficult work of rebuilding government institutions using Islam as a roadmap.  The first major act of the new leaders was to hold a referendum. On March 30 and 31, the shaky leadership asked all Iranians over the age of 16 a simple yes or no question: should Iran be an Islamic Republic?  Looking back, it may seem strange to ask that of a country that had just experienced a successful Islamic revolution. But even though Mohammad Raza Pahlavi - the shah of Iran - was gone, Iranians remained divided about what they wanted the future to look like. At the time, the Islamic Republic of Iran was far from a foregone conclusion.  In one of his first speeches after returning from exile, before the revolution had taken hold, Khomeini seemed to know he would have to put his leadership claim to some kind of vote.  "I must tell you that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, that evil traitor, has gone. He fled and plundered everything. He destroyed our country and filled our cemeteries. He ruined our country's economy," Khomeini said.  "I shall appoint my own government. I shall slap this government in the mouth. I shall determine the government with the backing of this nation, because this nation accepts me."  But even after Pahlavi's removal, revolutionaries were hit by infighting, the new government was still suppressing anti-revolution dissent in parts of the country, and just weeks before the referendum tens of thousands of women marched in the streets of Tehran to protest against a new mandatory veil law.  For Khomeini and his supporters, the referendum was a way to legitimise their rule. Nearly 99 percent of Iranians voted in favour of abandoning Iran's old constitution and using Islam as the blueprint to write a new one. The vote and its results were scrutinised by critics all over the world. But in December, Iranians voted again in favour of ratifying their new Islamic constitution.  Today, defenders of the Islamic system of government point to the referendum as a democratic mandate for Iran's current theocratic system.  It's one of the lesser known events of 1979, but the referendum was a pivotal moment that fused religion and politics, and transformed Iran's legislative landscape.  Iran's transformation from empire to Islamic Republic began in Khomeini's hometown of Qom in the 1960s. One too many fiery speeches admonishing the royal family forced him into exile in 1964. He spent 15 years away from home, much of it in another city of religious scholars - Najaf in Iraq. But that didn't stop him from criticising the shah of Iran for making concessions to Western powers that he saw as a violation of Iranian sovereignty.  He smuggled letters and bootleg cassette tapes into Iran, using an underground network of mosques and seminaries. His speeches, played in homes around the country, became the bedrock of the revolution to come.  Mahmoud Mohammadi Yazdi is the caretaker of Khomeini's family home in Qom. He was one of Khomeini's students and a young man at the time of the revolution. He was with him during his exile in Najaf and says Khomeini's primary motivation was to improve the lives of ordinary people.  "He was perfect in every way," Yazdi said. "Everyone liked him."  Khomeini's followers remain fiercely loyal. At his request, Yazdi risked his own life to return to Iran as part of a first wave of the revolution.  "We all accepted whatever he said," Yazdi said. "Two years before the revolution, he wanted someone to come to Iran [and] he said it is dangerous but there is no one to go but me. I told him if he is OK with it, I would go.  "I came here and I faced hardships, but it was not a big problem. I was arrested here in Qom and later I was released. But if [the authorities] knew why I was there, they would never have let me go. We believed what we were doing was the right thing. We all thought the same way; it was just for God and Imam [Khomeini]."  Khomeini was becoming much more than a champion for common people. His revolution changed him as much as it changed Iran, transforming him from dutiful cleric to monumental political figure. He may have considered his actions at the time to be a spiritual calling. But the wheels he set in motion decades ago made religion a right of passage for modern-day Iranian political life.  Getting anything done in the capital, Tehran, often means getting the blessing of clerics who oversee elected officials. In place for 40 years, this system has made Qom, Iran's religious heartland, one of the most important cities in the country.  "If before the revolution, very few young people were interested in entering [Islamic seminaries], today many youths that would have been educated in universities in the past are entering [Islamic seminaries]," said Seyyed Ali Mousavi, a professor in one of Qom's many religious institutions.  Before the Islamic Revolution, Mousavi said, religious scholars were primarily concerned with how Iranians conducted their spiritual lives. After 1979, their public role changed drastically.  "After the [1979 Islamic Revolution], other than their social role, clergies took on political roles," he said, adding, "not just in parliament, they even entered other branches of government. So, they became more influential.  "Today, the impact of seminaries and clergies on the social space of Iran, as well as politics, is greater than in the past. It has meant clergies have dual roles, and that both have been expanded. Firstly, in society and secondly in the ruling class."  For Iran's younger generations, religious study has become a precursor to any ambitions of government work. The city is filled with young men and women in their 20s, hoping to someday climb the political ladder in the capital.  One seminary student running between classes was clear in his assessment about the value of a religious education in modern-day Iranian politics.  "The most important issue in any society is its ideology," he said. "The ideology of Islam is the best and the clerics of Qom have the right ideology. So, because it is where the clerics are, Qom is Iran's most important city."


aljazeera--2019-07-02--UN expert No rights improvements in Eritrea after peace deal

UN expert: No rights improvements in Eritrea after peace deal

The human rights situation in Eritrea shows no sign of improvement since it signed a peace agreement with neighbouring Ethiopia last year, ending two decades of war, a UN expert said in a report.  UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, Daniela Kravetz, on Tuesday expressed her regret the peace deal failed to bring widespread abuse and violations to an end.  "The dividends of peace are not yet benefiting ordinary Eritreans, nor are there any signs to suggest they will," said Kravetz, who was appointed to the position last October.  "Eritrean authorities remain unwilling to tolerate any expression of dissent," she added, pointing out that "hundreds continue to flee the country every month".  In response, Eritrea's ambassador to the UN, Gerahtu Tesfamichae, called Kravetz's report "unacceptable".  "The overriding objective of [her] mandate was to vilify, isolate and destabilise [his country]," he said.  Eritrea, ruled by President Isaias Afwerki since 1993, has been fiercely criticised by human rights watchdogs, especially over reports of arbitrary arrest and detention, bans on certain religious faiths, and open-ended military conscription.  Hundreds of thousands have fled the country in recent years, many taking the perilous route across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.  The signing of a peace agreement with Ethiopia last July raised hopes that warming diplomatic ties would be matched by domestic change in Eritrea.  But Kravetz said those hopes failed to materialise.  Kravetz highlighted the continued restrictions placed on religious communities in the country.  In recent weeks, she said she received "troubling" reports of arrests of Christians at different locations in and around the capital, Asmara, during prayer gatherings, including women and children. Five Orthodox priests were reportedly detained at the Debre Bizen monastery.  And, in mid-June, authorities "seized all health facilities managed by the Catholic Church in the country", she said, adding this had affected a total of 21 clinics and health centres that had long served rural communities.  Kravetz said authorities justified the move under a 1995 regulation banning religious institutions from carrying out development activities.  She voiced regret they had decided to enforce the regulation just weeks after the Catholic Church in the country called for dialogue and reforms to prevent further mass departures.  Christians were not the only ones targeted, Kravetz said, decrying that numerous Muslims were also imprisoned.  She raised the case of Said Mohammed, a Muslim man in his 30s, who died on June 13 from "mistreatment in prison and lack of proper medical attention".  Like her predecessors, Kravetz took issue with Eritrea's system of open-ended military conscription, stressing it "remains one of the main drivers of migration from Eritrea".  She urged the country to reform the system and limit military service to 18 months.


aljazeera--2019-11-15--Egyptian woman fights unequal Islamic inheritance laws

An Egyptian woman is taking on the country's inheritance laws that stipulate that female heirs inherit half as much as male heirs.  Since her father's death last year, Huda Nasrallah, a Coptic Christian, has stood before three different judges to demand that the inheritance left behind by her father be divided equally between her and her two brothers, who have testified in court alongside her, but the court has twice ignored their testimony  The courts have twice issued rulings against Nasrallah, basing them on Islamic inheritance laws that favour male heirs.  Nasrallah, a 40-year-old human rights lawyer, is now challenging the rulings in a higher court. A final verdict is expected to be handed down later this month. She has formulated her case around Christian doctrine which dictates that heirs, regardless of their sex, receive equal shares.  "It is not really about inheritance, my father did not leave us millions of Egyptian pounds," she said. "I have the right to ask to be treated equally as my brothers."  Calls for equal inheritance rights began to reverberate across the Arab world after the Tunisian government had proposed a bill to this effect last year. Muslim feminists hailed the bill.  But there has been a backlash from elsewhere in the Arab world.  Egypt's Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni religious institution in the Muslim world, vehemently dismissed the proposal as contradictory to Islamic law and destabilising to Muslim societies. But there is hope that Tunisia could have broken the taboo on the topic for the region.  Nasrallah belongs to Egypt's estimated 10 million Coptic Christians, who live in a predominantly Muslim society governed by a constitution in which Islamic Shariah is the main source of legislation. Christians face restrictions in inter-religious marriages and church building, and are banned from proselytising to Muslims.  Egypt's legal system grants the Coptic church full authority over personal status matters of Copts, namely marriage and divorce. But the church does not have the same powers over its followers' inheritance rights.  One of the oldest Christian communities in the world, the Egyptian Coptic church is also deeply conservative on social matters, banning divorce except in cases of adultery or conversion to Islam.  Nasrallah says she is making her case on religious grounds because she believes the court is more likely to respect existing structures within the society. She says she is trying to capitalise on a rare Christian doctrine that respects gender equality.  Karima Kamal, a Coptic female columnist at the privately-owned al-Masry al-Youm daily, says that Nasrallah's case highlights the double discrimination that Coptic women can face in a society where religion is printed on government-issued identification cards.  "You should not implement the rules of one faith on people of another faith," she says.  In early December 2018, Nasrallah's father, a former state clerk, died, leaving behind a four-story apartment building in a low-income neighbourhood of Cairo and a bank deposit.  When she and her brothers filed their request for inheritance at a local court, Nasrallah invoked a church-sanctioned Coptic bylaw that calls for equal distribution of inheritance.  She says she was encouraged by a 2016 ruling that a Cairo court handed down in favour of a Coptic woman who challenged Islamic inheritance laws.  While Nasrallah's brothers also testified that they would like their father's inheritance to be divided fairly between them, many Coptic men prefer to benefit from the Islamic laws, she said, using the excuse that it is out of their hands.  "The issue of inheritance goes beyond religious rules. It has to do with the nature of the society we are living in and Egypt's misogynistic judicial system," said Hind Ahmed Zaki, a political science assistant professor at Connecticut University.  She says the state fears that if they grant equal property rights to Christian women, Muslim women will soon ask for the same.  Girgis Bebawy, a Coptic lawyer, has represented dozens of Copts in similar cases over the last two years, though he has yet to win a single one. He's hoping that the latest case, which is currently before Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court, could end differently.  "It's religious intolerance," he says.  Many Coptic families decide to settle inheritance matters outside the legal system, but Nasrallah says that as a lawyer, she hopes her case could set a precedent for others.  "If I didn't take it to court, who would?" she said.


bbc--2019-06-20--US Supreme Court rules WW1 cross can remain on state land

The US Supreme Court has ruled that a concrete cross honouring World War One soldiers can remain on state land, reversing a lower court decision.  The American Humanist Association had sued to remove the Bladensburg, Maryland, monument, saying it was an unlawful endorsement of Christianity.  But the top court said the 94-year-old cross was a "historical landmark" and destroying it would be disrespectful.  Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented in the 7-2 vote.  Two of the court's liberals, Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Elena Kagan, joined the five conservatives in the majority.  The American Legion, which holds commemorative events at the site, had said the memorial merely honoured veterans and was not religious.  He acknowledged the 32ft (9.7m) cross was "undoubtedly a Christian symbol".  But he wrote that the monument had come to represent "a symbolic resting place for ancestors who never returned home, a place for the community to gather and honour all veterans and their sacrifices for this Nation, and a historical landmark".  As such, the court's majority concluded, destroying or defacing the Bladensburg Cross "would not be neutral and would not further the ideals of respect and tolerance embodied in the First Amendment".  Justice Ginsburg, in the dissent, wrote that the cross violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment - that "demands governmental neutrality among religious faiths and between religion and non-religion".  She added: "By maintaining the Peace Cross on a public highway, the Commission elevates Christianity over other faiths, and religion over non-religion."  But the majority concluded that due to the passage of time, "there was no way to be certain about the motivations" of the monument's creators.  "And this is often the case with old monuments, symbols, and practices," Justice Alito wrote. "Yet it would be inappropriate for courts to compel their removal or termination based on supposition."  The American Humanist Association said in a statement following the ruling that their "legislative efforts will be redoubled...to strengthen the wall of separation between church and state".  The group also said that the majority opinion "fails to honour the sacrifice of Jewish soldiers that went intentionally unrecognised" in the memorial.  While some local residents had joined the association's lawsuit against the landmark, other organisations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars group, had petitioned to save the cross.  They said its removal could affect similar memorials across the country, including Arlington National Cemetery.  Wednesday's ruling does not offer a blanket support of all similar displays, however.  Justice Alito noted: "Retaining established, religiously expressive monuments, symbols, and practices is quite different from erecting or adopting new ones. The passage of time gives rise to a strong presumption of constitutionality."  The Supreme Court's conservative majority has previously been swayed by religious freedom arguments.  They have defended the right to public prayer, allowed religious institutions to receive public funds for secular purposes, and determined that family-owned companies should not be forced to cover birth control.