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.