Catholic nuns, priests join Myanmar anti-coup protestsMore Catholics take part in demonstrations as security forces open fire to disperse protesters in Myitkyina

UCA News reporter Updated: February 15, 2021 05:41 AM GMT

More Catholic nuns, priests and laypeople have joined anti-coup protests in Buddhist-majority Myanmar following the Feb. 1 coup.

Hundreds of Catholics including dozens of nuns marched on the streets of Yangon on Feb. 14 and recited prayers and the rosary.

Youths held placards reading “Free Aung San Suu Kyi” and “We support CDM,” the latter referring to the civil disobedience movement.

Nuns from various congregations have shown solidarity with the people of Myanmar by marching on the streets, saying prayers at convents and offering snacks to protesters in Yangon and elsewhere.

In the Christian stronghold of Kachin state, nuns stood at the entrance of a church compound while holding placards stating “No to dictatorship” and “Listen to the voices of people” while protesters swarmed the streets of Myitkyina, the state’s capital city, on Feb. 14.

Nationwide anti-coup protests have intensified for nine consecutive days in Yangon, Mandalay, villages and the ethnic regions of Kachin and Chin states.

On Feb. 14 night, security forces opened fire to disperse protesters at a power plant in Myitkyina, according to video footage shared on Facebook. Soldiers had been deployed to power plants in Kachin, sparking a confrontation with protesters.

On Feb. 14 evening, armored vehicles were seen in commercial hub Yangon, Myitkyina and Sittwe in Rakhine state, according to media reports.

Some 15 embassies including those of the European Union and Britain issued a statement late on Feb. 15 calling on security forces to refrain from violence against demonstrators and civilians who are protesting the overthrow of their legitimate government”.

The internet in Myanmar was shut down from 1am to 9am on Feb. 15.

Spiritual closeness

The UN’s top rights body has called on Myanmar’s military to restore civilian rule and immediately release civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

In a resolution on Feb. 12, the 47-member Human Rights Council called for the immediate and unconditional release of all persons arbitrarily detained and the restoration of the elected government.

China and Russia disassociated themselves from the consensus and said the coup was Myanmar’s internal affair.

“To the people of Myanmar, we express our support for your rights to justice, to freedom, to democratic participation, to personal safety and security, and to peaceful, sustainable and inclusive development,” Nada Al-Nashif, deputy high commissioner for human rights, told the council.

The Holy See said it has been following with “great attention and deep concern” the developments in Myanmar, which Pope Francis visited in November 2017.

“In this most delicate moment, the Holy See wishes to assure once again its spiritual closeness, prayer and solidarity with the people of Myanmar,” Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the UN Human Rights Council, said on Feb. 12.

“The Holy See also implores that those who hold responsibility in the country will place themselves, and their actions, with sincere willingness at the service of the common good of fundamental human and civil rights, of promoting social justice and national stability, for a harmonious, democratic and peaceful coexistence.”

Pope Francis has expressed his solidarity with the people of Myanmar and called for the release of detained leaders including Suu Kyi.

The impoverished Southeast Asian nation was under military rule for more than five decades, but the democracy experiment with political, economic and social freedoms that began in 2011 was ended by the military coup.

https://www.ucanews.com/news/catholic-nuns-priests-join-myanmar-anti-coup-protests/91408

What a coincidence that the RCC + U.N. is siding with the Villains once again.

DPP seeks convictions in Pell media contempt case

Melissa Iaria NCA NewsWire February 16, 2021 2:46AM

Prosecutors say heavy fines and convictions should be given to media outlets that breached court orders in Cardinal George Pell’s sex abuse case.

Roslyn Kaye, acting for Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that even though the outlets obtained legal advice, they still took a risk by publishing and broadcasting reports about Cardinal Pell’s case in the days after his guilty conviction.

The high-ranking Catholic, a former adviser to Pope Francis, was eventually acquitted on appeal.

A non-publication order prevented any reporting on Cardinal Pell’s 2018 trial because it could have affected the jury in his forthcoming second trial, which was later dropped.

Fourteen media outlets, including entities owned by News Corp Australia and Nine, pleaded guilty earlier this month to contempt by breaching the order.

None of the outlets named Cardinal Pell or his charges but referred to the conviction of a high profile Australian.

Ms Kaye alleged the companies were driven by their disagreement with the court order, a desire to attract viewers and readers, and to pressure the trial judge to lift the order when he was due to review it the following day.

She asked Justice John Dixon to convict each outlet and impose a substantial penalty on each charge, saying the breaches were deliberate and at the “very high end of seriousness”.

But Will Houghton, representing News Corp outlets, said while they accepted they had frustrated the aim of the suppression order, the breach was at the “lower end”.

The articles did not name Pell, the state in which he was convicted, his charges or the Catholic Church, instead referring to the conviction of a high profile Australian.

Mr Houghton said there was limited evidence readers could easily discover their identity by finding the 35 overseas articles detailing Pell’s conviction.

Mr Houghton submitted a mid-range fine and conviction for the publication of a news.com.au online article was appropriate, as well as a modest fine without conviction for an article in The Daily Telegraph.

But he asked the court not to impose convictions or penalties for the rest of the News Corp outlets charged.

Recent similar cases reveal media penalties for contempt of court ranged from $10,000-$300,000, but none involved not naming the accused or their charges, he said.

The media companies entered guilty pleas to a total 21 charges, as part of a deal with the DPP to drop dozens of charges against individual journalists and editors, who faced potentially severe penalties, including jail, if convicted.

All media companies have agreed to pay a contribution towards the DPP’s costs of $650,000 as part of the plea deal.

The companies that have pleaded guilty included News Corporation’s The Herald and Weekly Times, NewsLifeMedia, Queensland Newspapers, Geelong Advertiser, Nationwide News and Advertiser Newspapers, as well as The Age, Fairfax Media Publications, Mamamia, Allure Media and Radio 2GB Sydney and General Television Corporation.

The material was published or broadcast in the Herald Sun, Weekly Times, news.com.au, the Courier Mail, Geelong Advertiser, Daily Telegraph, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, Mamamia, Business Insider, Radio 2GB Sydney and the Today Show.

Cardinal Pell was cleared of abusing two choirboys by the High Court and immediately freed from jail in April last year after spending 13 months behind bars.

The penalty hearing continues on Wednesday.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/crime/dpp-seeks-convictions-in-pell-media-contempt-case-ng-57a3cc8127479caff20f6dea47c3fc50

What a coincidence that the AU News Media was forbidden to discuss the Pell Abuse case and are now about to be punished for speaking out about it.

Trump's impeachment: 'The cowards stand aside'

by Michael Sean Winters Feb 15, 2021

At the start of the impeachment trial last week, the Rev. Barry Black, chaplain to the U.S. Senate, offered a prayer in which he quoted from poet James Russell Lowell's "The Present Crisis":

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.

It was a powerful invocation at such a moment, and the minister's follow-up question was equally pointed: "Could it really be that simple?"

The former president, Donald Trump, stood accused of inciting an insurrection. The connection between words and actions is never an easy and straightforward instance of causality. It is one of the triumphs of liberalism to have made speech immune from government censure. As I noted last week, this was not a criminal proceeding but a political one, and so the standard of proof was, in a sense, whatever the Congress determines it to be. They must decide what is and is not beyond the pale.

The House managers spent hours making the case that without Trump's words, there would have been no mob storming the Capitol. One of the most powerful videos showed a man with a bullhorn, reading a tweet the president had just sent, excoriating Vice President Mike Pence. The crowd responded by calling Pence a traitor. Some chanted, "Hang Mike Pence." Someone had even thought to bring a noose that was mounted outside the citadel of democracy. It was hard not to see the connection between Trump's words and the crowd's actions.

The House managers also detailed the months of comments Trump had made questioning the integrity of the election, making the argument that the only way he could lose is if the election were stolen. He made such statements before, as well as after, the election. These statements were the stock for the insurrectionist soup, the groundwork, setting the table for the main course. When he lost the election, his devoted followers were primed to do the patriotic thing and defend democracy from those who were allegedly trying to steal it.

Let us return to election night. In the early hours of the morning, he addressed a group of supporters in the White House. He listed some states he had indeed won, such as Florida and Texas. He prematurely claimed he had won Georgia and began casting aspersions on the decision by Fox News to call Arizona for Biden. He correctly said he was winning Pennsylvania, but failed to note that very few of the mail-in ballots had been counted. "We were getting ready to win this election," Trump said. "Frankly, we did win this election."

It was hard to know that night if he believed what he was saying. It is often difficult to know if Trump and his followers really believe the demonstrably false things that come from their mouths. One of the most dangerous qualities about a narcissist is their penchant for believing their own propaganda, which creates a variety of sincerity. As the ballots were counted and it became clear Trump had lost, his speech became more fantastical. After the votes in the states were certified and the electoral votes counted in the state capitals, he supported a bizarre legal challenge from the attorney general in Texas, which the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed without even granting it a hearing. By the fateful day in January when Congress was to ratify the votes from the states, his legal challenges had been tossed out in almost 60 cases. His last-minute effort to get the secretary of state in Georgia to "find" 11,780 votes, in a Jan. 2 phone call, showed how desperate and disconnected from reality Trump had become.

MORE AT LINK - https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/trumps-impeachment-cowards-stand-aside

>>12944019

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Intent is a key element in a crime but it is often difficult to nail it down when the accused is not really tethered to reality. Further, to sustain a charge of inciting an insurrection, you would think the former president's intent would need to be made crystal clear, that he wanted those people in that crowd to storm the capitol building and do … what? It is not at all clear how he thought this would play out. His defense lawyers and political allies argued that his repeated calls to fight were metaphoric, that his speech was no more an incitement than the speeches of many Democrats who sometimes use combative language.

It is a nice question: How did Trump expect the mob was going to "stop the steal"? Republicans say that the difficulty in answering that question required an acquittal because the connection between his fiery language and the actual misdeeds of the mob was necessarily too diffuse. Weeks later, we still are not sure what he or they intended. How could that be deemed a high crime?

Trump's defense, then, was that his language about fighting and stopping the steal was metaphoric. But what was the metaphor? Did he expect the mob to enter into the Senate or House chamber and put forward some amazingly persuasive argument that would convince enough of the legislators to toss out the certified Electoral College votes of the several states? Was he hoping they would make an appeal to the United Nations? Was he expecting divine intervention?

The 43 Republican senators, by voting to acquit, have set a terrible precedent. Democracies are at their most vulnerable during the transfer of power from one party to another. Refusing to surrender power when you have lost an election is the most dangerous threat. And, now, future presidents who wish to cling to power know they can go all lengths to overturn the election and not be punished, so long as they can hold the allegiance of a third of the Senate.

We may not know the "how" that motivated Trump when he called his surly and angry followers to march on the Capitol, but we know the "what." He wanted to overturn the results of a constitutionally valid election. He had every right to make his case in court, but once he had lost there, his words could have only one objective, the subversion of our democratic government. If the Republicans did not see the need for the prophylactic remedy of barring such a man from future office or sinecure, they are blind, or more likely, suffer from a different affliction. They put one in mind of another verse from Lowell's famous poem:

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside.

All but seven Republican senators stood aside.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/trumps-impeachment-cowards-stand-aside

What happened at the Capitol was not civil disobedience

Feb 15, 2021 by Fr. Peter Daly

I was arrested at the U.S. Capitol. Not on January 6, 2021, but 50 years ago on May 4, 1971.

Back then, I was part of a protest against the war in Vietnam. More than 12,000 people were arrested that day in Washington, D.C. My protest was a classic case of civil disobedience. It was ethically different from the acts of terror and insurrection at the Capitol last month. Both actions took place in the same building. There the similarity ends.

I was arrested in the Senate gallery in 1971, along with one of my roommates from the University of Virginia. We entered the gallery legally and peacefully, on passes obtained from the office of Sen. Harry Flood Byrd Jr., the "political boss" of Virginia at the time.

Our only weapon was our words. My roommate read from an essay by linguist Noam Chomsky. I read from the Beatitudes from St. Matthew's Gospel. We had transcribed them on notebook paper. Shortly after the Senate session began, we stood, one at a time, and read from the papers. My hands trembled terribly.

I remember that the senators looked up momentarily and paused their discussion. Capitol Police took a little while to reach us in the gallery. I managed to get to verse nine of the Beatitudes, ("Blessed are the peacemakers …") when four policemen grabbed me. My roommate was similarly arrested moments later.

We were immediately handcuffed and taken to a holding room in the basement of the Capitol. There we were searched, read our rights, booked, photographed and fingerprinted. Eventually, we were taken to the D.C. central lockup, which was overflowing with thousands of demonstrators arrested elsewhere around the city. My roommate and I were put into a holding cell so crowded everyone had to stand for several hours.

We were allowed one phone call. I called a number I had been given to arrange a volunteer lawyer. We hit the jackpot. Our case was assigned to Arnold and Porter, then the fanciest law firm in Washington. Before 9 p.m. our lawyer got us released on our recognizance. We took a late-night bus back to Charlottesville.

Eventually, we were convicted of a misdemeanor, "obstruction of Congress." We accepted our punishment as part of our witness. Our trial was a few months after our arrest. Before a judge in the U.S. District Court, we pleaded nolo contendere, which means we did not contest the facts, but wanted the prosecutor to prove the elements of a crime. It also gave us a chance to address the court about the reasons for our civil disobedience. The judge was sympathetic to our goals and our witness, but he correctly convicted us, because we had broken the law. He sentenced us to two years of probation.

MORE AT LINK - https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/priestly-diary/what-happened-capitol-was-not-civil-disobedience

>>12944077

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The arrest came up twice later in my life.

Ten years after our arrest at the Capitol, I applied to become a lawyer in Maryland and the District of Columbia after I had passed the bar exam in each jurisdiction. I had to explain myself to a panel of judges. They found no cause to refuse my law license.

The second time was when I applied to the seminary in 1982. Cardinal James Hickey interviewed me. He seemed intrigued by my record and said, "I was going to ask you to read from the Beatitudes, but I see you already read them to the U.S. Senate."

Nonviolent civil disobedience has played an important role in social movements both in U.S. history and in Catholic social action. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi outlined the requirements for ethical violation of the law, which they called civil disobedience. I can remember four elements.

First, civil disobedience must be used only in the interest of achieving a moral good or in opposing a grave moral evil, such as racial segregation or unjust wars. At its core, there must be moral "truth" in any act of civil disobedience. Gandhi called this "Satyagraha," or "truth force." Civil disobedience is not lawlessness. It takes the law seriously and recognizes that breaking the law is action to be taken only for grave reasons. The riot by Trump supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was not based on truth, but based on a lie that the election was stolen.

Second, civil disobedience must be nonviolent. The riot at the Capitol in January was violent. In 1971, no person or property was physically threatened by my action. In January, five people died at the Capitol, including a police officer. Rioters threatened innocent people. They called for the lynching of Vice President Mike Pence and the kidnapping of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Third, those who commit nonviolent civil disobedience must be willing to submit to the punishment of the law as part of their witness on behalf of their cause. The rioters at the Capitol tried to escape justice and evade the law.

Fourth, the protest must be "intelligible" to observers. An objective observer must be able to see the connection between the action taken and the remedy sought. The rioters at the Capitol had no clear program or purpose other than to cause chaos and stop a lawful process.

Civil disobedience has held an important place in Catholic social movements. People like Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez and Catholics who participated in the labor and civil rights movements all used civil disobedience to try to bring about greater justice and the common good.

As the impeachment trial progresses, remember the distinction between civil disobedience and a riot. One had a moral foundation. The other was simply an act of violence.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/priestly-diary/what-happened-capitol-was-not-civil-disobedience

Vatican not mentioned in China’s new rules on Bishop appointments

China’s new “Administrative Measures for Religious Clergy” will go into effect on May 1. The rules were translated by the magazine Bitter Winter, which reports on religious freedom conditions in China.

Feb 16, 2021

VATICAN: According to new rules which will reportedly take effect on May 1, China’s state-run Catholic Church and bishops’ conference will select, approve, and ordain episcopal candidates—with no mention of the Vatican’s involvement in the process. China’s new “Administrative Measures for Religious Clergy” will go into effect on May 1. The rules were translated by the magazine Bitter Winter, which reports on religious freedom conditions in China. Under the new rules, the state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) will be responsible for selecting episcopal candidates. The candidates will then be “approved and consecrated by the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Conference. ”The rules do not mention any role of the Vatican in approving bishops, despite the 2018 Vatican-China agreement reportedly involving both Chinese authorities and the Holy See in the process of appointing bishops.

In 2018, the Vatican reached an agreement with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops; the terms of the agreement, which was renewed in Oct., 2020, for two more years, have never been fully revealed. According to reports, however, the agreement allows for China’s state-sanctioned church (CCPA) to select episcopal candidates, who would then be approved or vetoed by the Holy See. At the time the Vatican-China agreement was renewed in October, a Vatican newspaper reported that two Chinese bishops were appointed under the “regulatory framework established by the agreement.” The Vatican confirmed in November that a third bishop had been appointed under the regulatory framework of the agreement. Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former bishop of Hong Kong and a vocal critic of the agreement, said it could put the Vatican in the position of having to veto repeatedly episcopal candidates advanced by China. The agreement was undertaken to help unite the state-run Church and the underground Catholic Church. An estimated 6 million Catholics are registered with the CCPA, while several million are estimated to belong to unregistered Catholic communities which have remained loyal to the Holy See. According to the new rules, once a new bishop is consecrated, the CCPA and the state-sanctioned bishops’ conference will send his information to the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Registration of clergy in a database is a key part of the new administrative measures, under which clergy in China will also be required to promote the values of the Chinese Communist Party. For instance, Article III of the administrative measures states that clergy “should love the motherland, support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, support the socialist system,” and “adhere to the direction of the Sinicization of religion in China.” The practice of Sinicization has been announced and implemented by president Xi Jinping in recent years; critics have called the plan an attempt to force religious practice under the control of the Chinese government and in line with the values of the CCP.

In addition, clergy are expected under the rules to “operate to maintain national unity, religious harmony, and social stability. ”Section D of the measures states that clergy must “guide” citizens “to be patriotic and law-abiding.” They are forbidden from working to “undermine national unity” or from supporting “terrorist activities. ”It is unclear how “terrorist” is defined according to these new administrative measures. In Hong Kong’s national security law that was imposed from without by the national legislature in 2020, “terrorism” included such acts as arson and vandalizing public transport. Registered members of the clergy in China will not be allowed to “organize, host, or participate in unauthorized religious activities held outside the authorized places of religious activities,” and will not be permitted to preach in schools other than religious schools. Registered clergy must belong to one of China’s state-run religions. Pastors of “home churches” or “underground” churches will not be permitted to be registered clergy. Entering places of worship “should be regulated through strict gatekeeping, verification of identity, and registration,” says the document. The rules also call for a “religious clergy training program” for “the political education of religious clergy” as well as their “cultural education.” Clergy should also be judged on their behavior with a system of “rewards, and punishments” in place.

http://www.heraldmalaysia.com/news/vatican-not-mentioned-in-chinas-new-rules-on-bishop-appointments/58021/4