Dudley Do Nuttin' in DooDoo (Again)

August 12, 2009
Top Mounties failing in leadership role, watchdog says
By Daniel LeblancFrom Thursday's Globe and Mail
Critics pan RCMP's reluctance to change its ways
RCMP brass are failing to live up to the legendary can-do spirit of the Mounties and are undermining the efforts of provincial divisions that are striving to modernize the force, watchdog Paul Kennedy said Wednesday.
Mr. Kennedy, chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, was joined by critics who panned the RCMP's reluctance this week to change the way its officers are investigated following in-custody deaths and other serious incidents involving the public.
Mr. Kennedy said he expected more than a defensive reaction from the RCMP, pointing to the force's frequent references to the “man of action” mentality of legendary Mountie Sam Steele.
“These are people who I thought used to confront a problem and do something about it,” said Mr. Kennedy, adding the RCMP is at a point in its history where it can “be a leader or a follower.”
A government spokesman suggested that Ottawa will continue to push reforms on the RCMP following incidents such as the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant tasered by RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport, and the force's involvement with Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen deported to and tortured in Syria.
“We have been very pleased with [the commission's] work to date. However, there's much more work to be done,” said Christopher McCluskey, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan.
On Tuesday, the RCMP rejected a CPC report [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/rcmp-reject-watchdogs-findings/article1248002] that said Mounties involved in serious incidents, such as the death of a member of the public, should not be investigated by their colleagues to avoid a “perceived risk of bias or intimidation.”
Mr. Kennedy accused the RCMP of failing to take a leadership role when it resisted changes to its taser policy, and said it now runs the same risk in the matter of internal investigations.
He said he was not impressed by RCMP Commissioner William Elliott's response to his report urging the national police force to let outside agencies investigate serious incidents involving its officers.
“You saw [Mr. Elliott's] answer; he has a draft policy of some kind,” Mr. Kennedy said.
He added that the response by the top Mountie reinforces the notion that the RCMP is refusing to change, even as four provincial divisions have already moved to improve their policy on internal investigations.
“The unfortunate thing here is that it portrays the image of a force that is reluctant to do something. That is really unfortunate because it belittles, and to some extent undermines, the significant effort that is being put in place by some divisions,” Mr. Kennedy said.
The public battle between Mr. Elliott and Mr. Kennedy is caused by the federal government's failure to act on long-standing calls for a beefed-up oversight body for the RCMP, critics said.
“This requires the intervention of the government,” said Liberal MP Mark Holland, who said Ottawa's inaction is inexcusable. “Does a recommendation need to be made 10, 15, 20 times before it is implemented?”
Wesley Wark, an expert on security matters at the University of Toronto, said the RCMP obviously “doesn't like to be pushed” by the CPC. He said the government must introduce legislation addressing the need to change the RCMP's internal operations.
“I am astounded that there hasn't been more progress,” Prof. Wark said.
The RCMP has said internal reforms are under way, guided by the RCMP Reform Implementation Council, which last provided an update on its work in March.
Mr. Elliott could not be reached for comment yesterday. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, he said he would prefer that Mounties not be investigated by their fellow RCMP officers, but it is impractical in remote communities to do otherwise. He criticized the CPC report for being negative and “bleak.”
There have been calls for increased oversight of the RCMP for years, including the O'Connor inquiry that looked at the role of Canadian authorities in Mr. Arar's torture in Syria.

Hie Thee to a Nunnery!

Fears of Vatican crackdown on 'liberal' US sisters
Wednesday, August 05, 2009 - 08:47 AM
Roman Catholic sisters in the US will be questioned about their loyalty to church doctrine amid fears of a Vatican crackdown on liberalism in women’s religious communities.The review “is intended as a constructive assessment and an expression of genuine concern for the quality of the life” of around 59,000 US Catholic sisters, according to a Vatican working paper delivered in the past few days to leaders of 341 religious congregations.But the nature of some questions in the document seems to validate concerns expressed privately by some sisters that they are about to be dressed down or accused of being unfaithful to the church.The report, for example, asks communities of sisters to lay out “the process for responding to sisters who dissent publicly or privately from the authoritative teaching of the Church”.It also confirms suspicions that the Vatican is concerned over a drift to the left on doctrine, seeking answers about “the soundness of doctrine held and taught” by the women.Other questions explore whether sisters take part in Mass daily, or whether they follow the church’s rules when they take part in liturgies. Church officials expect consistency in how rites and services are celebrated, with approved translations and Masses presided over by a priest.The study, called an apostolic visitation, casts a net beyond fidelity to church teaching, with questions also covering efforts to promote vocations and management of finances.The investigation is focused on members of women’s religious communities, or sisters. These are women who do social work, teach, work in hospitals and do other humanitarian work of the church. The investigation is not looking at cloistered communities, or nuns.“The sisters being investigated have for many years made almost nothing, took very little and gave everything,” said the Rev. James Martin, an editor at America, a Jesuit magazine.Francine Cardman, associate professor of historical theology and church history at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry, said it was not clear why these questions were being asked now in the US.But she said the focus on doctrine put it in the context of establishing a “correct” and exclusive interpretation of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s and of women’s religious communities.She said the inquiry should be seen “as part of a much older tradition of misogyny in the church and especially distrust of women who are not directly and submissively under male, ecclesiastical control”.Catholic sisters, Ms Cardman said, have repeatedly over history been “returned to the confines of the cloister” or restricted in the kinds of ministries they could perform in public view.Conservative Catholics, however, have long complained that the majority of sisters in the US have grown too liberal and flout Church teaching. Some have taken provocative stands, advocating for female priests or challenging church teaching against abortion rights or gay marriage.Helen Hull Hitchcock, director of St Louis-based Women for Faith and Family, a Catholic women’s group that includes sisters and lay people, said an examination of women’s religious communities’ claims to “the right to complete self-determination” with no regard to church hierarchy was 30 or 40 years overdue.“Some good can come of it by identifying where the main problems are, or at least by dealing openly and honestly with a problem that has been going on for a long time,” she said.After Vatican II, many sisters embraced Catholic teaching against war and nuclear weapons and for workers’ rights, shed their habits and traditional roles as teachers or hospital workers and took up activism.The inquiry is being directed by Mother Mary Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a more conservative order.She has already held meetings with heads of religious communities. Next, the superiors will be given detailed questionnaires to be completed by later this autumn, to be followed by visits to selected congregations starting next year and concluding with a confidential report from Mother Millea to the Vatican.The Vatican also has opened a separate “doctrinal assessment” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the largest umbrella group for communities of Catholic sisters in the US Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/fears-of-vatican-crackdown-on-liberal-us-sisters-421323.html#ixzz0O4VwoW3Z

Boys in Silk Dresses Worried About Women

The Vatican has started “two sweeping investigations of American nuns,” said Laurie Goodstein in The New York Times, and many sisters are bracing for a “doctrinal inquisition.” The church usually only launches such “apostolic visitations” when a church community has “gone seriously astray,” but this seems more like a move to “reel in American nuns” who have moved from the convent and Catholic institutions to academia, social work, and activism.A nun “inquisition”? said Rod Dreher in BeliefNet. It’s about time. The Vatican has turned a blind eye to “heterodox nuns” for decades, letting them preach about moving to a “Post-Christian” spirituality and the like, without “so much as a peep from Rome.” If that’s what these nuns think Catholicism is, it’s no wonder the only growing Catholic women’s religious orders are those practicing “fidelity and orthodoxy.”What growth? said Tim Carmody in Snarkmarket. There are only about 60,000 nuns left in the U.S., down from 180,000 in 1965. So now “the Vatican wants to start an inquisition into what’s left of the orders, ’cause some o’ them ladies just maybe ain’t been doin’ what they’re told”? Thanks a lot, Pope Benedict.

Nutbar defences of the indefensible

Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston is praising Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of four traditionalist bishops, saying the move is a step toward "unity and reconciliation" within Catholicism. But the cardinal also describes the statements denying the Holocaust by one of the bishops (Richard Williamson,) as "outrageous," says, "it certainly raises questions as to the caliber of the leadership that the Society (of Saint Piux X) has," and, in a novel defense of the pope's actions, says, "it underscores the importance for the Holy Father to have increasing influence over those communities.'' O'Malley offers an apology of sorts, saying, "We are very sorry that the people in the Jewish community have been so pained and outraged by Bishop Williamson’s statements," and he repudiates Holocaust denial, saying, "It is very important for us to always remember the Holocaust so that such an atrocity could never take place again."

What Was She Thinking? (Or Not!)

The California mother who gave birth to octuplets on Monday already has six children between the ages of 2 and 7, including a set of twins, The Los Angeles Times reports. The woman's mother told the paper that her daughter had the embryos implanted last year and refused to reduce their number after learning she was carrying multiple fetuses.

John Cleese dumps Barbie

British comedian John Cleese has dumped his 27-year-old girlfriend because he is reportedly sick about her joking about his age.
The Monty Python star, 69, has ended his relationship with US-born comedienne Barbie Orr, British tabloids reported.
The stunning blond - who has been gleefully discussing her older man's new teeth and hair plugs - says she "kept picturing him naked wondering what someone that old looks like, and would I actually sleep with them".
Orr joked: "For his birthday, I was thinking about buying him a Zimmer frame."
Orr also publicly praised comic actor's lovemaking abilities - calling him "athletic" in the bedroom and a "great kisser".
Cleese called time on the romance after he grew tired of being used as material for her gags.
An insider said of Orr: "What she did to Cleese was undignified. He was very vulnerable."
The actor is currently battling out a multi-million pound divorce settlement with third wife, US psychotherapist Alyce Faye Eichelberger, who is also demanding half of Cleese's nine properties.

Say it Ain't So: Pope Elevates Jew Baiters!

Pope Benedict's decision to undo the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, an unrepentant Holocaust denier, has been met with wall to wall condemnation. Short of the launch of a new Crusade, it is hard to imagine how the Pope could have ignited such outrage with one decision. Yet there is an even greater crisis waiting in the wings that will soon be picked up by world media. Williamson's fellow travelers -- the entire network of the breakaway Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) -- are vocal enthusiasts of a medieval religious anti-Semitism that gives the Islamist imams in Pakistan some serious competition.
The papal move to re-embrace SSPX was carefully negotiated. And if Pope Benedict was expecting any cosmetic changes in SSPX's Jew-hatred he was dead wrong. True ideologues in their hatred, their group's website remains unchanged. Jews, it tells us, are directly responsible for the crucifixion. Jews are cursed with the "blindness to the things of G-d and eternity." As a people, they stand "in entire opposition with the Catholic Church." "Christendom and Jewry are designed inevitably to meet everywhere without reconciliation or mixing." Jews "should neither be eliminated from among us, nor given equality of rights."
SSPX bookstores sell the anti-Semitic screeds -- "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and Henry Ford's "The International Jew." But Jews, we are told in an essay by SSPX icon Fr. Denis Fahey, should not worry. He explains why he is not an anti-Semite. Anti-semites hate Jews, which he does not. He hates the Jewish naturalism, which is the plot of Jews (who have secretly abandoned God for the last two millennia) to take over the world.
Pope Benedict XVI has made a personal crusade of hastening Church unity. According to the Vatican document announcing SSPX's rehabilitation, lifting the ban against the four bishops allows the Church to talk in earnest with the four, and the tens of thousands of traditionalist Catholics they represent. Short of assigning Bishop Williamson a stint as intern in the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum it's not clear what else can be said to a man of God who just last week denied the Nazi gas chambers and that 6 million Jews were the victims of genocide.
The Pope's moves reveal a stunning blindness and deafness to the troubling reality all around him in Europe. He rehabilitated Holocaust denier Williamson in the days before both the 50th anniversary of the Convocation of Vatican II, and Holocaust Memorial day, January 27th, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest Jewish cemetery on the planet. More troubling is that this Pope's outreach to this brazenly anti-Semitic group comes amidst an explosion of anti-Semitism not seen since the days before World War II. As synagogues and Jewish places of business are firebombed, as placards at demonstrations organized by extremist Muslim groups sport the slogan, "Upgrade to Holocaust 2.0" and "Jews to the ovens," the Pope has unwittingly lent credence to those who unleash hate and violence against Jews. Why now?
Some Church apologists argue that the Pope has reached out to the four in order to rein them in. He will have more control over them, more influence over what they can teach and preach, if they are brought under the umbrella of the Church. But this move has not been accompanied by declarations that there is no turning back the clock on the teachings of Vatican II that blazed the way for new understanding between Catholics and Jews. In fact, other Church observers speak more ominously, claiming that Vatican II is "not a dogma of faith," and therefore no barrier to the reintegration of SSPX faithful into the Church.
Millions of Jews, and tens of millions of mainstream Catholics, wait in dismay and anxiety. The teachings of Vatican II and Nostra Aetate were the most serious moves by any religious group to undo the effects of hundreds of years of Church-inspired anti-Semitism and persecution. They also helped bring Catholicism firmly into an age of modernity, without sacrificing its integrity. They allowed hundreds of millions of Catholics to escape the tension between modernity and sincere religious belief. They do not want tosee a return to the medieval abbey.
Both Jews and Catholics wait for the next moves of the Holy See. The Pope can repair the public relations debacle by declaring unequivocally that the teachings of Vatican II are not optional and not just tools to be taken off the shelf for interfaith op-eds. He can state that they represent the true spirit of the Church, from which there is no return.
The ultimate irony may lay in the fact that one of the intellectual architects of Vatican II, responsible for seeing that the progressive innovations of Vatican II were consistent with rigorous Church theology, was one Father Joseph Ratzinger--the future Pope Benedict XVI. Jews and Catholics can only pray that at the end of day it will be the voice and conscience of that Father which will ultimately prevail.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the Associate Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein is its Director of Interfaith Affairs.
Posted by Abraham Cooper and Yitzchok Adlerstein