Sunday, February 24, 2013
Shadows Accompany Gathering to Pick Pope
Osservatore Romano/NEWS.GNOM.ES
Pope Benedict XVI, right, spoke to cardinals at the Vatican on Saturday.
VATICAN CITY — As cardinals from around the world begin arriving in Rome for a conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, new shadows have fallen over the delicate transition, which the Vatican fears might influence the vote and with it the direction of the Roman Catholic Church.
In recent days, often speculative reports in the Italian news media — some even alleging gay sex scandals
in the Vatican, others focusing on particular cardinals stung by the
child sex abuse crisis — have dominated headlines, suggesting fierce
internal struggles as prelates scramble to consolidate power and attack enemies in the dying days of a troubled papacy.
The reports, which the Vatican has vehemently denied, touch on some of
the most vexing issues of Benedict’s reign, including the child sex
abuse crisis and international criticisms of the Vatican Bank’s opaque
record-keeping. The recent explosion of bad press
— which some Vatican experts say is fed by carefully orchestrated leaks
meant to weaken some papal contenders — also speak to Benedict’s own
difficulties governing, which analysts say he is trying to address,
albeit belatedly, with several high-profile personnel changes.
The drumbeat of scandal has reached such a fever pitch that on Saturday, the Vatican Secretariat
of State issued a rare pointed rebuke, calling it “deplorable” that
ahead of the conclave there was “a widespread distribution of often
unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories, that cause serious damage to persons and institutions.”
The Vatican compared the news reports to past attempts by foreign states to exert pressure on the papal election, saying the latest efforts to skew the choice of the next
pope by trying to shape public opinion were “based on judgments that do
not typically capture the spiritual aspect of the moment that the Church is living.”
Benedict had hoped to address at least one scandal with the Feb. 15
appointment of a new head of the Vatican Bank. It is less clear why he
reassigned a powerful Vatican diplomatic official to a posting outside
Rome, though experts say it diminishes the official’s role in helping
steer Vatican policy.
On Feb. 11, Benedict made history by announcing that he would step down
by month’s end. He said he was worn down by age and was resigning “in
full liberty and for the good of the Church.” The volley of news reports
since appeared to underscore the backbiting in the Vatican that
Benedict was unable to control, and provided a hint of why he might have
decided that someone younger and stronger should lead the church.
At the conclusion of the Vatican’s Lenten spiritual retreat,
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the director of the Pontifical Council for
Culture and a papal contender, spoke darkly of the “divisions, dissent,
careerism, jealousies” that he said plagued the Vatican hierarchy.
The recent spate of news reports were linked to an earlier scandal in
which the pope’s butler stole confidential documents that was considered
one of the gravest security breaches in the modern history of the church.
Last week, largely unsourced articles in the center-left daily La
Repubblica and the center-right weekly Panorama reported that three
cardinals whom Benedict had asked last summer to investigate the leaking
of the documents, known as the “VatiLeaks” scandal, had found evidence
of Vatican officials who had been put in compromising positions.
The newspapers reported that,
after interviewing dozens of people inside and outside the Vatican, the
cardinals produced a hefty dossier. “The report is explicit. Some high
prelates are subject to ‘external influence’ — we would call it
blackmail — by nonchurch men to whom they are bound by ‘worldly’ ties,”
La Repubblica wrote.
Vatican experts speculated that prelates eager to undermine opponents
during the conclave were behind the leaks to the news media over the
last week.
“The conclave is a mechanism that serves to create a dynasty in a
monarchy without children, so it’s a complicated operation,” said
Alberto Melloni, the director of the John XXIII Center in Bologna and
the author of a book on conclaves.•
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Nuclear tank leaking in Washington state!
Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Washington state governor Jay Inslee said on Friday.
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Mr Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in
Washington DC. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at
south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids.
Mr Inslee called the latest news "disturbing."
The tanks, which already are long past their intended 20-year life span, hold
millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of
plutonium production for nuclear weapons.
The US Department of Energy said earlier that liquid levels were decreasing in
one of the tanks at the site. Monitoring wells near the tank have not
detected higher radiation levels and there was apparently no immediate
health risk.
The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret
Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The government spends $2 billion
each year on Hanford cleanup - one-third of its entire budget for nuclear
cleanup nationally. The cleanup is expected to last decades.
Central to cleanup is the construction of a plant to convert millions of
gallons of waste into glass-like logs for safe, secure storage. The $12.3
billion plant is billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule.
Mr Inslee and Oregon governor John Kitzhaber have championed building
additional tanks to ensure safe storage of the waste until the plant is
completed. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said earlier this week
that he shares their concerns about the integrity of the tanks, but that he
wants more scientific information to determine it's the correct way to spend
scarce money.
Mr Wyden noted the nation's most contaminated nuclear site - and the challenges associated with ridding it of its toxic legacy - will be a subject of upcoming hearings and a higher priority in Washington DC.•
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Mr Wyden noted the nation's most contaminated nuclear site - and the challenges associated with ridding it of its toxic legacy - will be a subject of upcoming hearings and a higher priority in Washington DC.•
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# posted by Missygirl : 3:20 PM
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