WESTERN EUROPEAN NEWS DIGEST
'Pedophilia Scandals' in U.S.: Cardinal Rodríguez Calls Them an Attack on the Church
In his May 28 webcast, Lyndon LaRouche was asked by a leading Roman Catholic figure about the U.S. media campaign against the Roman Catholic Church, on the issue of the so-called pedophilia scandals. He replied that this is part of "the attempt to destroy what might be called traditional religious bodies, and to grind them up, as in a blender ... into a world religion, as a part of an empire" after the model of the Roman Pantheon. A few days later, LaRouche's words were echoed by a prominent leader of the Catholic Church, Honduras Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa.
In an interview with the Italian magazine 30 Giorni, Rodríguez compared the campaign against the Catholic Church in the United States to the persecutions of Christians under Nero, Hitler, and Stalin. The Honduran Cardinal did not deny that there have been cases of pedophilia among Roman Catholic priests, and that such practices have to be exposed and severely punished, but he said this should be done without what he called "witchhunts," and without having priests turned into, as he put it, "FBI or CIA agents."
The fact that the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa released his statements in Rome, to a magazine very close to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, strongly indicates that his statements reflect the views of the Pope's closest collaborators. At a meeting with the leadership of the American Church in Rome on April 23-24, Cardinal Ratzinger led the discussion. The outcome of the deliberations was that the so-called "zero tolerance" policy was rejected as a surrender to the media-dominated vox populi. The media, and some factions of the U.S. Catholic Church, had demanded the suspension of any priest suspected of pedophilia, even before such allegations could be proven, and called this "zero tolerance." Curiously, the most zealous supporters of such a policy in the Church are the same right-wing circles which, when the first cases were reported, suggested that the Church pay reparations, in order to avoid public scandal. In both cases, then and now, this faction objects to establishing the truth, and has been co-responsible for dragging the U.S. Catholic Church into a very difficult position.
At the meeting in Rome, the Vatican opted for fair trial procedures and transparency in each individual case. At the same time, what the Vatican considers the root of the problem was exposed: that the education of priests in the United States has been, in many cases, influenced more by sociological than by theological doctrine, and that this must be reversed. In his official address at the meeting, the Pope indicated that Church leaders must not allow the presence in the barrel of a few rotten apples to be used by the media to smear the reputation of the Church. This aspect in particular was picked up by Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga.
The pedophilia scandal, Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga said, "is a painful issue, manipulated by the media. When you mix money, politics, and justice, justice becomes unjust. We all know that Ted Turner is openly anti-Catholic, and he is the owner not only of CNN, but also of Time Warner. Not to speak of the other dailies, like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe, which have been protagonists of what I do not hesitate to characterize as persecution against the Church. I reflect on the fact that in a moment when the whole mass media attention was focussed on what was happening in the Middle East, with the many injustices done to the Palestinian people, the U.S. press and television were obsessively concentrated on sex scandals which occurred 40, 30 years ago." Rodríguez suggested that the reason was the Roman Catholic Church's support for a Palestinian state, its fight for the defense of life and against "dehumanizing policies." "Only in this way can I explain to myself this rabid attitude against the Catholic Church in the United Statesan attitude reminding me the times of Nero, Diocletian, and, more recently, Stalin and Hitler."
Those priests "who committed serious crimes must be punished with the appropriate canonical measures [suspension], and, if necessary, must also face state [civil] justice. But, without witchhunts, even inside the Church," the Cardinal said. "We bishops must not forget that we are shepherds of mercy and not FBI or CIA agents.... Allegations must always be proven in a just trial and without persecuting modalities by state authorities, such as are instead occurring now. What they are doing, for instance, against [Boston Archbishop] Cardinal Law, is a scandal.... I know him well. He is a man who did a lot of good for us in Latin America.... I heard that the judge leading the trial is one who supports all feminist movements. Thus, it occurred that, while trials in the U.S.A. last quite a long time, Cardinal Law has been immediately interrogated, with procedures that recall the dark times of Stalin's trials against priests in Eastern Europe. And the records of such interrogations were immediately circulated via the Internet and published with great emphasis by all major dailies. I disagree with this show-trial justice. This is no justice, I repeat, this is persecution."
Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga spoke also on the neo-liberal, free-trade economic policies which are victimizing Ibero-America. Unfortunately, he seemed to accept demands for market liberalization, in hopes of allowing poor countries to sell their productsa proposal which has the appearance of responding to demands for justice in trade relationships, but which is used in reality by financial globalizers as a means of looting. Without protection of national industries and agriculture, as EIR has shown, the poor countries become victims of even greater exploitation (as the case of Argentina shows most vividly), while the advanced agricultural and industrial capabilities of the wealthy countries are also destroyed.
However, on a precise question about economic policies imposed on Ibero-America, Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga was right to the point: "For some, unfortunately including Catholic circles, these neo-liberal doctrines are tantamount to the 'word of God.' They have been taken uncritically and they thought that by applying all recipes, one would achieve economic welfare. The result has been dramatically negative. Let us, for instance, take so-called privatizations, which such neo-liberal 'priests' held to be necessary. What did they produce in reality? In Argentina they privatized everything they could privatize, but the money ... has disappeared. In Peru, ... sure, some macroeconomic indicators have improved, but these are relative signs of progress, because we know that those indicators are artificially determined and have no real relationship with the concrete situation of the majority of the population."
Claudio Celani
Pattern of Labor Strikes in European Countries
Just on the eve of the summer season, Spain's labor unions staged a one-day general strike June 20, to make known their opposition to the plans of Spain's conservative government for deregulation of labor laws.
In Germany, meanwhile, construction workers expanded their strike beyond Berlin, into other, mostly eastern German cities. In the Frankfurt region, banks and insurance companies have seen repeated warning strikes by employees in recent days, and a large part of Frankfurt International Airport has been paralyzed by a strike of flight control personnel, with 64 international flights having to be cancelled.
In Greece, ferry traffic between the mainland and the islands came to a halt June 20, because ferry personnel were on strike.
In eastern Ukraine, miners went on a hunger strike in the Donetsk region over wage arrears, lack of health care, and related issues. Another march by miners on the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, cannot be ruled out.
Strike Specifics
In Spain, a good part of the 15 million workers organized in the country's labor movement, went on out during the June 20 strike; in addition to government plans for labor-law deregulation, the strikers' other target was various policies of the European Union Commission.
In Greece, the seamen's unions expanded their strike, which went into its second day June 19, and have announced that if core demands of their campaign are not metincluding defending a pension level of 70% of an average pre-retirement income, and improved job conditions and safetythe strike may last a long time.
The flight controllers' strikes in Germany and other European countries, were geared to affect the beginning of the vacation flight season. The protest is aimed against plans of the EU Commission to put the different civilian flight control systems in the European Union under one coordinating umbrella body; labor unions fear that, given the Commission's general deregulation and privatization policies, including in the airlines sector, the loss of many jobs would go along with the reorganization.
Finally, employees of 450 offices of banks and insurance companies in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia went on warning strikes June 19, in addition to those that have been on similar strikes in Frankfurt, protesting plans of the banking managements to downsize massively after the summer recess.
Consumer Spending Reported To Be Falling Across Europe
On the heels of the sharp drop in U.S. retail sales in May, come reports of total consumer spending falling in major European economies. France, which has recently been claimed to be "Europe's strongest economy" by econo-babblers and talking heads, reported that consumer spending fell by a large 3% from April to May, after a smaller drop from March to April. Consumer spending reports for Germany and Italy also showed month-to-month declines. In Italy, auto sales fell particularly sharply in May.
Government leadership, however, continued to fall faster than economic indicators; the weekend Group of Seven Finance Ministers' meeting, according to its communiqué, was unable to spot any problems in the global economy!
Italy Facing Risk of Energy Blackouts
On June 18, Italian electricity consumption reached a peak of more than 50,000 megawatts (MW). Air conditioners, in extra use because of an extremely hot summer, are the main reason for the peaking. Additionally, during the World Cup Soccer championship game that, an increase of 4,000 MW consumption was recorded, as eager soccer fans tuned the game in on televisiona circumstance requiring the national provider to deploy the full power available. The overall situation is critical, and the threat of a blackout is real.
Italy depends heavily on oil and gas imports to produce its electricity, since it renounced nuclear power in 1987 in a misguided popular referendum. This results in a heavy load on the trade balance (50% of Italy's import bill is oil and gas). But Italy's production capacity is also insufficient, and therefore, the country is forced to import 20% of its electricity from its neighbors, including, ironically, nuclear-produced electricity from France.
The Italian government has sped up procedures to build new conventional power stations to avoid a blackout crisis in the near future, and some sections of the governing coalition are boldly suggesting a review of the anti-nuclear decision. Industry Minister Antonio Marzano, however, said recently that public opinion is not yet ready to accept nuclear energy, and predicted it would take another 10 years for that to occur.
French Legislative Elections Give President Chirac the Whip Hand
As was to be expected, the second round of the legislative elections June 16 confirmed the victory of newly reelected French President Jacques Chirac's UMP party in the first round a week earlier. With 358 seats (out of 577 total), the UMP has the absolute majority (289) in the present assembly. The Socialists suffered major losses, going from 248 seats in the previous legislature to 140 in this one. Altogether, the right wing, including the centrist UDF and others, controls 399 seats, while the left wing has 175. One of the major players in the election, however, was voter abstention, which hit a record high of over 39%.
During the first round of the Presidential elections earlier this year, the electorate sent Socialist Prime Minister and Presidential hopeful Lionel Jospin into oblivion, gave incumbent President Chirac the cold shoulder, and qualified ultra-rightwinger Jean-Marie Le Pen for the second round. Then, in the second round, to stop Le Pen, voters came out in droves, electing Chirac with a landslide he could never have earned on his own merits.
Then, in the legislative elections, voters decided to vote for the very power bloc they had massively rejected in the first round of the Presidential race. According to polls and discussions, people decided to vote "practically": they voted against the "cohabitation" with the Socialists; gave Chirac all the powers he needs to carry out his policies; slashed the vote totals of the small, more radical parties, including the Communists, the Greens, etc., and oriented the left wing of French politics around the battered Socialist Party. Big losers were the extreme leftwing movements, with vote totals less than 3%, after having reached a high 10% in the last Presidential round. Also, Le Pen was brought down to slightly over 11%, from a high 17% in the Presidential race.
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