Thursday 12 January 2012

Zambia- gets a new Bishop

Article by Marc Aupiais

Zambia, has a new bishop appointment, says the good Old Pope's News Service: VIS.

VIS says:

OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
 
VATICAN CITY, 12 JAN 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Bishop Ignatius Chama of Mpika, Zambia, as archbishop of Kasama (area 59,130, population 1,182,000, Catholics 705,208, priests 66, religious 177), Zambia, and as apostolic administrator "sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis" of the diocese of Mpika.
NER/

Pope on destiny- the collective humanity makes the individual destiny happen

Article by Marc Aupiais

A simple, simply brilliant look at destiny/serendipity by the pope?

Benedict XVI, God's Rottweiler looks at simple destiny, and says simply enough, that we influence the collective destiny and it makes our own fate for us. How people act, each of us, like butterfly wings, causes the hurricane that is the ends and starts that are human life!

Or as the Pope's news service puts it:

INDIVIDUAL DESTINY IS LINKED TO COLLECTIVE DESTINY
 
VATICAN CITY, 12 JAN 2012 (VIS) - "The challenges we are currently facing are numerous and complex, and can be overcome only if we reinforce our awareness that the destiny of each of us is linked to that of everyone else. For this reason ... acceptance, solidarity and legality are fundamental values". With these words the Holy Father welcomed the authorities of the City of Rome, the Region of Lazio, and the Province of Rome, whom he received this morning in a traditional annual meeting for the exchange of New Year greetings.
 
  The Pope went on: "The present crisis can, then, be an opportunity for the entire community to verify whether the values upon which social life is founded have generated a society that is just, fair and united, or whether it is necessary to undertake a profound rethink in order to rediscover values which ... not only favour economic recovery, but which are also attentive to promoting the integral good of human beings".
 
  Benedict XVI expressed the view that the roots of the current crisis lie in "individualism which clouds the interpersonal dimension of man and leads him to close himself into his own little world, concerned first and foremost with satisfying his own needs and desires with scant concern for others". The consequences of such a mentality are "speculation in housing, increasing difficulty for young people to enter the world of work, the solitude suffered by so many elderly, the anonymity which often characterises urban life, and the sometimes superficial attention paid to situations of marginalisation and poverty".
 
  The first step towards creating a more human society is "to rediscover relationships as the constituent element of our lives". Man is called to live in relation with other people and with God, Who alone "is capable of welcoming man unconditionally and of giving him infinite love".
 
  Institutions must foment and increase the awareness that we all form part of the same structure, encouraging values of acceptance, solidarity and legality, said the Pope highlighting the work of Christian organisations which welcome people who have abandoned their own countries due to poverty or violence. He invited his audience to develop ways to integrate people into the social fabric, so that "individuals may learn to consider the place in which they reside as a 'common home', in which to live and for which to care".
 
  Acceptance must be accompanied by solidarity, because "charity and justice require that, in times of need, those with the greatest resources should look after the disadvantaged". Benedict XVI insisted that institutions must give particular support to families, especially large families, in which context he invited the authorities "to defend the family founded on marriage as an essential cell of society". They must also show solidarity towards young people, "who are most penalised by the lack of work, ... implementing policies which ensure fairly priced accommodation and which help to guarantee employment", so as to avoid the risk that young people "fall victim to criminal organisations offering easy takings".
 
  Finally, the Pope turned his attention to the need "to promote a culture of legality, helping citizens to understand that law exists to channel the many positive energies that exist in society, and thus to promote the common good. ... Institutions have the task ... of issuing just and fair provisions, also taking account of the law which God inscribed in man's heart, and which everyone can understand through reason".
AC/                                       

Wednesday 11 January 2012

How to defraud an electorate and the Republican front runners

Article by Marc Aupiais

Primaries- where presidents are made, before they are made. The Republican primary voters are facing a dilemma. Vote for the best candidate, or vote for the one you think Democrats and non-republicans may vote for.

The Republican primaries are being strongly fought- between Mitt Romney, controversially more Democrat than Republican, and a mormon (still demonised in mainstream American society), and his opponent: aka every other candidate. The Democrat media all say that Mitt could beat out Obama, by making the election a referendum on Obama. The other candidates would have to fight based on their actual policies, which shockingly are Republican.

The fact that Romney and the other candidates keep competing strongly, with one or other often polling much stronger than him. The sudden low turnouts at rallies he attends, and other factors, hint at a different equation.

Romney, seems to be so UN-Republican, rather than a made to fit candidate, that Mormon, not so pro-life, not so pro-marriage Romney, seems to have both angered and alienated the Republican base, and Tea Party grassroots.

It is rare if ever that someone is elected purely because they aren't someone else. Generally voters just don't appear at stations.

Republicans who want the election handed to them on Obama's unpopularity, have a distinct problem. If they don't have a candidate who is not only slightly different than Obama, but who is independently someone who inspires their own grassroots, they will land up having to run a likely disastrous and meek anti-Obama campaign, replacing the epic evil dictator with another evil dictator- that is- like with like.

Its much easier to win on a positive campaign than a negative one.

Its sort of cheating really, voting not for who you support but who you think can hand you an election. The sort of cheating which backfires, so alien to Democracy is it. Its not even Republican anymore. The only party that can save America right now: through austerity and good social; economic policies! Not Obama's closed minded denialism!

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