More shriEEEEking about Development and Peace - now with update.

I read in today's headlines that Development and Peace has helped finance a documentary called Operation Diablo about how a Peruvian priest who opposed a mining project became the victim of harassment. It was produced by Stephanie Boyd. Is this what parishoners had in mind when they gave money to the organization? Give a western woman money to produce a movie? Does this really help development in the Third World? One wonders.

One does indeed wonder why Blob Blogging Wingnut called this a 'headline'. HER link takes the reader to a specialised catholic radio network. Does SHE have "Development and Peace" on google news alert?

Given HERs and SoConOrNuts' obsession with the organization, that should be expected.

HER claims are rife with truthiness. The documentary was developed, filmed and distributed by the Guarango Association, in fact.

Nor is this the first documentary produced about the struggles of peasants and farmers fighting the mining companies who extract gold and devastate their communities, which leaves them without the means to feed their families, as well as poisoned by the metal exploitation techniques.

But it seems that Blob Blogging Whinger is fine with all that. From HER perspective, those are not victims worthy of HER compassion and support.

However, parishioners blindly giving money to the Vatican Taliban so they can whitewash the findings by conducting their own inquiry into pedophile priests and child abuse in Ireland? Now there's a project SHE can support.


Update: One could not make this s**t up - though there's synchronicity at work.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bathurst, N.B., wants to be able to use money set aside to train future clergy to help compensate people sexually assaulted by a priest in the past. Rev. Wesley Wade, the bishop of the diocese, has asked the New Brunswick Court of Queen's Bench, which deals with such requests, to allow it to take money from a trust fund used to help educate people entering the priesthood. The trust fund consists of money left to the church over the years.

Got that? Years, possibly decades ago, parishioners willed money (kept in trusts) to pay for seminary costs and priests' training. Now the diocese wants to use the money to compensate victims of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of convicted pedophile priest Levi Noël. There appears to be a particular logic that applies, though I imagine it will provoke more shriEEEks from la SAINTENITOUCHE.

Pope Maledict Calls The Kettle Black.

Faithful as ever to the paternalizing approach he has perfected when speaking about the African continent, Pope Maledict condescends to telling its people what is wrong with them.

Benedict praised Africa's rich cultural and spiritual treasures, saying they were the "spiritual lung" for a world increasingly in a crisis of faith and hope. But he said Africa had also been afflicted by materialism – the "toxic spiritual garbage" exported by developed countries.

"In this sense, colonialism – while finished in the political sphere – hasn't really ended," he said, adding that as a result Africa was also at risk of another "virus": religious fundamentalism. Groups claiming to be from religious backgrounds are spreading across the continent.

"They are doing so in the name of God, but with a logic that is opposed to divine logic: teaching and working not with love and respect for freedom, but with intolerance and violence," he said. ...

The church is growing enormously in Africa; between 1978 and 2007, the number of Catholics nearly trebled, from 55 million to 146 million. Vatican statistics show that more than 17% of Africa's population is Catholic.

But at the same time, the region's poverty, conflicts and Aids have posed challenges. Among the thorny issues bishops may raise at the synod is the Vatican's ban on condom use. Many say condoms could help prevent the spread of Aids.

Let me repeat what Pope Maledict said about the groups who also trading in the business of religion and competing with the Vatican Taliban, as they try to indoctrinate and convert MASSIVE numbers of people to their own brand of doctrine in Africa.

"They are doing so in the name of God, but with a logic that is opposed to divine logic: teaching and working not with love and respect for freedom, but with intolerance and violence."

That reminds me of something .... and oh yes, this.

Women for Women: Afghanistan.

As the results of the Afghan election await official confirmation, it seems appropriate to write about some small, hard-earned successes in this country.

First, Flora MacDonald has been involved with CARE projects in Afghanistan before the attacks on the WTC.

When she first traveled to Afghanistan, in 2001, the country was still under Taliban rule. Ms. MacDonald was working to establish underground schools for girls who were being denied an education. One day, when Ms. MacDonald was walking back from a visit to one of the secret schools two “big Taliban gentlemen” fell in step on either side of her. One could speak English and told her they knew what she was doing, but wouldn’t tell anyone if their daughters could attend the school too.

“Not all Taliban are militant, many want peace,” said Ms. MacDonald. This year in January, Azra Jafari became the country’s first female mayor of the town Nili, in Daikundi province. “I tell you I could have done a Highland dance,” said Ms. MacDonald.

The 82-year-old is passionate about the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan. Ms. MacDonald has been working to improve the plight of widows, the lack of education for girls, the thousands of street children orphaned by years of conflict, the lack of access to water and many other problems created by years of war and Taliban rule.

“Progress is being made in Afghanistan, although certainly not uniformly throughout the country,” said Ms. MacDonald. “It gives us all hope, though the work is long and hard and will not be carried out overnight.”

From here. MacDonald's agenda is not political in the partisan sense of the word - it is progressive, respectful and compassionate.

Then from The Star, this:

"The women are growing carrots, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, grapes," says Catherine Sobrevega, country manager for MEDA Afghanistan. "But these are not the products you find being sold from the back of trucks on the side of the highway. These are higher-quality fruits and vegetables that are sold in supermarkets and to hotels."

MEDA is the Mennonite Economic Development Association, headquartered in Waterloo, which provides microfinancing for the Garden Gate Project in conjunction with CIDA. ...

"I'm not a Mennonite," notes Sobrevega, who hails from the Philippines and spent 14 years working for CARE International in Afghanistan before taking the MEDA job. "We don't try to bring faith. The only important thing is the sincerity you bring to the project."

The undertaking started with three villages in 2007, since expanded to nine, and 14 more are knocking on the door to join. That, too, is a victory of alien practice over rural culture, where women are severely circumscribed by Afghan patriarchy, rarely venturing outside their homes, discouraged from any activities not directly related to their families.

Through direct $2,000 MEDA grants and funds secured via various agencies, microfinancing is extended to these rural ladies for instruction in modern horticultural techniques and marketing acumen, linking them to a network of development organizations such as Women for Women and the Afghan Women's Business Council.

"What we do is provide the horticultural experts and link them to financial institutions that can provide them with loans because 50 per cent of the funding needs to come from the women themselves," says Sobrevega. ... A woman needs only show she has 250 square metres of land at her disposal, to start, with capacity to double that in the second or third year of gardening. Zero profit is expected in the first season of planting but $150 in the next and – with a greenhouse constructed, for example, an average of $380 in the third. That may seem piddling but it makes an immense difference to a rural household – allowing for the purchase of school supplies, appliances and other conveniences, even the odd luxury. And it's no small benefit that children get a better diet out of it to boot.

What an idea: a religious organization with a progressive, respectful and compassionate agenda. Those fundamentalist catholics attempting to destroy their very own Development and Peace might want to take a time-out from their shrieeeking temper tantrums to observe how small miracles actually work. With goodwill, an open mind and and a kind heart.

Check out this post at A Creative Revolution about RAWA - Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan - too.

Development and Peace cleared.

Last spring SoWrongOrNuts had himself some testerical hissy 'episode' about the Catholic-supported and widely respected Development and Peace. He, and other self-righteous religious individuals and groups (Lifeshite) accused the international organization of funding groups that advocate for practices forbidden by the Church, including contraception, abortion and the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of AIDS.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has released a report about the investigation into those accusations. Dennis Gruending wrote an excellent blogpost about some of the history behind this explosive situation.

Shorter Blob Blogging Wingnut on the report: "They lied! TheyliedtheyliedtheyliedtheyliedTHEYLIED!!! (Not the bishops. I'm not saying the bishops are lying - they were manipulated!)"

So, Canadian Catholic religious fundies are now foaming at the mouth about this, because the report also .... how shall we say this? ... reprimands them.

We make an urgent appeal to the leadership of Lifesite News that it establish an open and fruitful dialogue with Canadian Catholic groups. We are convinced that when a group makes allegations, accusations and denunciations against another, this can bring nothing positive to our Church and is a counter-witness to that Gospel spirit that should guide all Christians. Negative actions of this kind encourage suspicion, scandal and division in the Church.

But, but, but, but, BUT-HEADS! Fetishists of The Fetus©™ like and want suspicion, scandal and division.

Why? Because they truly believe: "We're right! We'rerightwe'rerightwe'rerightwe'rerightwe'rerightwe'reRIGHT!!! And everyone else is wrong and wishy-washy lefties."

It's why we call them zealots.

UPDATE: An article, from the Western Catholic Reporter - Canada's Largest Religious Weekly says that Bishop Weisgerber ...

is urging Catholics to turn to their bishops rather than blogs and websites when it comes to defining who or what is Catholic. "People are taking interpretations and making them fact. People are believing these facts as though they were indisputable, when clearly they are very disputable," said Weisgerber. "They are interpretations from a political standpoint."

Blogs and websites ... by that does he mean sanctimonious scolds like HERSELF and SoWrongOrNuts and their political agenda for The Fetus©™ ?

SoCon Or Bust = Member of the Catholic Taliban

SoCon Or Bust's recent bout of brain diarrhea is a mess of hysterical, vituperative and deranged attacks on the Youth section of the internationally respected Development and Peace organization. Warning: sit back from your screen when you read it, you might retch.

According to SoCon, fundamentalist Islamist and Catholic men share the same agenda: return women to the control that religious political authority allows men to enjoy.

His remarks about the programs that Development and Peace support: For SoCon Or Bust, this is ...

The whole thing is one big hate-fest against men and the traditional family, not to mention the promotion of sexual license, “reproductive rights”, and abortion.

This is what gets him foaming at the mouth:

Women participate in their government The East Timor Women’s Network that works towards empowering women and promoting democracy: Hosted legal workshops which enabled the participants to lobby the national parliament to pass a pending law against domestic violence.

His obsession with death reveals much about the demons he keeps corked up in a bottle. He is completely uninhibited about displaying the neuroses and phobias that feed his religious zealotry. Since sex is the ultimate evil, allowing women to die by being infected with AIDS is a validation of the Vatican's doctrinal authority.

Whenever I read SoCon's vile, overwrought, agonizing screeds, it brings to mind the martyr Saint Sebastian in all his representations. He should post that icon on his website, and not Mary who was asked by God to consent to being Jesus' mother and who chose to do so.

Merci to unrepentantoldhippie who giggled at Blob Blogging Wingnut's shrieeeking at this. DAMMIT JANET! doesn't find SoCon quite as amusing.