Vatican Inc.

[Jan Klimkowski]

I find this interesting on two counts . Firstly, that the church is claiming damage for something that was never damaged or even touched in real life. Secondly, that the motion picture industry, which likes to viciously protect its 'property' from unauthorised use by others totally ignored the churches position in this case because they wanted that image come hell or high water so fuck other people's property rights. I wonder how they would accept that position if done to them?

Church sues filmmakers for destroying Rio's Christ

It's guffaw territory.

This is the rich people's version of ambulance chasing: Armani-suited lawyers minting it as one rich monopoly fleeces another rich (near) monopoly.

Legally, it is blatant copyright violation. Hollywood will settle out of court. But may get its revenge by remaking Sleepers and setting it in an Irish Catholic orphanage.

Kevin Bacon would be so believable as an evil paedophile priest... :flute:

[Jan Klimkowski]

Meanwhile, I ses that Lauryn Hill, who as a child was called the "girl with the big joyful voice", managed to upset Vatican Inc immensely during a Christmas concert at the Holy See in 2003.

What Lauryn Hill told the Vatican
From Jeremy Charles In Rome
The London Mirror - December 16, 2003

SOUL singer Lauryn Hill stunned Vatican officials at a Christmas concert by launching an attack on paedophile priests.

Former Fugees star Hill, 28, said she accepted her invitation only so she could protest at child sex scandals in the United States.

She told the 7,000 crowd: "I am sorry if I am about to offend some of you. I did not accept my invitation to celebrate with you the birth of Christ. Instead I ask you why you are not in mourning for him in this place?

"I want to ask you, what have you got to say about the lives you have broken?

"What about the families who were expecting God and instead were cheated by the Devil?

"Who feels sorry for them, the men, women and children damaged psychologically, emotionally and mentally by the sexual perversions and abuse carried out by the people they believed in?

"Holy God is a witness to the corruption of your leadership, of the exploitation and abuses which are the minimum that can be said for the clergy. There is no acceptable excuse to defend the church."

There was silence for several minutes from the audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican as many of them could not speak English.

There were cries of "Enough" and "Shame" from those who understood while one or two whistled and jeered before she picked up her guitar and sang.

After her performance her comments were translated for Cardinal Camillo Ruini, head of the Italian Bishops Conference, who was sitting in the front row - and he walked out in protest.

No one at the Vatican would comment yesterday on Hill's outburst.

But Monsignor Rino Fisichella, one of the organisers of the traditional concert, said: "It was in poor taste and very bad mannered. It showed a complete lack of respect for her invitation and for the place where she had been invited to perform.

"However I am not going to respond with insults to an insult. It's a shame that it happened."

Pope John Paul II was not at the event but had earlier met the artists and a special greeting from him was played during the performance.

Hill flew back to New York last night unrepentant. She said: "What I said was the truth. Is telling the truth bad manners? What I asked was the church to repent for what has happened."

Hill, who is married to reggae legend Bob Marley's son Rohan, set a record for female artists in 1999 when she won five Grammy awards for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which sold more than six million copies.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/news/vatican/...atican.htm

Here is some of that big joyful voice, searching for a little truth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hvntSfvqGQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr2RKy0jA...re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERNhwxCwitQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ5BXfXUY...re=related

Lauryn Hill sings Bob Marley's Redemption Song with lyrics from a Marcus Garvey speech:

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwNlQRvV-...re=related

[Keith Millea]

Yeah,Lauryn is for real.Try this snippet....

http://www.hiphopisland.com/biographies/...nhill.html

“For two or three years I was away from all social interaction. It was a very introspective time because I had to confront my fears and master every demonic thought about inferiority, about insecurity or the fear of being black, young and gifted in this western culture. It took a considerable amount of courage, faith and risk to gain the confidence to be myself. I had to deal with folks who weren’t happy about that. I was a young woman with an evolved mind who was not afraid of her beauty or her sexuality. For some people that’s uncomfortable. They didn’t understand how female and strong work together. Or young and wise. Or Black and divine.”

During this time, Hill abandoned celebrity and stopped doing interviews. She stopped watching television and listening to music and explored other methods of expressing herself, including creating and writing an extensive amount of music, poetry, screenplays, clothing designs, etc.
Hill said:
“People need to understand that the Lauryn Hill they were exposed to in the beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at that time. There was much more strength, spirit and passion, desire, curiosity, ambition and opinion that was not allowed in a small space designed for consumer mass appeal and dictated by very limited standards. I had to step away when I realized that for the sake of the machine, I was being way too compromised. I felt uncomfortable about having to smile in someone’s face when I really didn’t like them or even know them well enough to like them”

and went on to say:
“I had to fight for an identity that doesn’t fit in one of their boxes. I’m a whole woman. And when I can’t be whole, I have a problem. By the end I was like, I’ve got to get out of here.”

[Austin Kelley]

And of course there's Sinead O'Connor:

http://www.notbored.org/sinead.html

Simulating Sinead

On 3 October 1992, the Irish rock singer Sinead O'Connor was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. For her first song, Sinead performed the title track from her most recent album, Am I Not Your Girl? with a full backing band. For her second, she went with "War," a song by Bob Marley that had once been banned for its apparent advocacy of violence. In a very risky move, musically speaking, Sinead performed the song a capella. Dressed all in white, surrounded by candles and (as usual) shaven-headed, she was a riveting sight. With NBC-TV's cameras focused in-tight on her, Sinead ended her "War" by crying for another one to begin. "Fight the real enemy!" she called, and, out of nowhere, produced a copy of a photograph of Pope John Paul II, which she ripped into pieces. There was stunned silence, and then the station went to a commercial.

The NBC switchboard was immediately inundated by complaints (supposedly 4,484 in all) called in by outraged viewers. Denunciations of Sinead's "blasphemy" poured forth from all kinds of religious figures and celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, who was quoted as saying he wanted to "punch" the singer "right in the mouth." NBC was supposedly fined $2.5 million dollars by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which had never before fined the network for content aired on Saturday Night Live.

In the meantime, Sinead herself said nothing about what she'd done or why she'd done it. (Simply changing one of Marley's lines so that it referred to "sexual abuse" instead of "racial injustice," as Sinead had done in mid-song, hadn't been sufficient explanation and so the press was filled with lurid denunciations of her.) When she returned to the United States on 16 October 1992 to perform at a birthday concert for Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden in New York, Sinead was greeted by a weird mixture of cheers and boos. Despite the severely divided response to her presence, she once again sang an a cappella version of "War." Once she was done, she staggered offstage, where she was comforted by Kris Kristofferson. Shortly thereafter, Sinead O'Connor permanently retired from the "pop" entertainment industry.

Eventually, Sinead O'Connor made her peace with the Pope. On 22 September 1997, in an interview with the Italian weekly newspaper Vita, she asked the Holy Father to forgive her. She claimed that her attack on the photo had been "a ridiculous act, the gesture of a girl rebel," which she did "because I was in rebellion against the faith, but I was still within the faith." Quoting St. Augustine, she went on to add, "Anger is the first step towards courage." Another courageous step Sinead took in the late 1990s was to join the congregation of the controversial Irish Bishop Michael Cox, who eventually ordained Sinead as a priest. Lacking a sense of humor, the Vatican has refused to recognize Sinead's membership in the priesthood, which the Pope considers "bizarre." This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but the Pope is right: Sinead's story is a bizarre one.

And NBC? In the informative and relatively even-handed biography of the singer that airs on VH1 as part of the cable TV station's on-going "Behind the Music" series, it's said that, "even to this day," NBC refuses to allow the photo-ripping scene to be re-broadcast by anyone. VH1 itself had to settle with a blurry shot of Sinead in mid-rip that was published by one of New York's tabloid newspapers. You can catch a glimpse, but you can't actually see what Sinead did that night in 1992: you can only hear about it, thanks to the Vatican's clout and NBC's cowardice.

This would seem a good point to talk about censorship. But it isn't -- not yet.

The Comedy Channel shows back episodes of Saturday Night Live several times a day. In early August 2001, I happened to see the episode in which Sinead O'Connor is the musical guest. Everything goes as it should -- dressed all in white, Sinead performs "War" a capella as her second number -- until the end of the song. There is no war cry, no identification of "the real enemy." Sinead doesn't hold up a picture of the Pope, but a picture of a cute little black boy, instead. And then the song is over, and Sinead stands, smiling, holding the picture behind her back, as the crowd applauds and cheers.

It took a while for it to sink in that NBC hadn't simply blacked out or removed the photo-ripping scene. Instead, NBC had gone beyond mere censorship and either had replaced the Pope-ripping sequence with another one (the song as it was performed in rehearsal?) or had digitally altered the broadcast so that there was apparently nothing in "the original" to black out or remove in the first place. Why would anyone want to block or cut out Sinead's impassioned plea for the children? In times of war, don't we tend to forget about the children, especially the cute little black ones? Nice bullshit, but it wasn't Sinead's.

Like the authors of textbooks on Soviet history, who had to keep changing the past so that it would conform with Stalin's latest purges, NBC has created its own Sinead O'Connor and is now passing her off as the original.


(A video of Sinead singing "War" and ripping up a picture of the Pope can be seen on You Tube.)

But more recently:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BA39Y20091211

Singer Sinead O'Connor demands Pope steps down

Fri, Dec 11 2009

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish singer Sinead O'Connor called on Friday for Pope Benedict to step down over a Irish government report that said church leaders covered up widespread sexual abuse of children for 30 years.

The Vatican issued a statement on Friday saying the pope felt "outrage, betrayal and shame" over the scandal and would write to the Irish people about sexual abuse.

But O'Connor, who once inflamed Catholic sensibilities by ripping up a picture of Benedict's predecessor Pope John Paul on live television, said in a letter published in a British newspaper earlier on Friday that the pope had remained silent on child abuse for too long.

"I demand the Pope stand down for his contemptible silence on the matter and his acts of non-co-operation with the inquiry," O'Connor wrote in a letter to the Independent newspaper, published ahead of a meeting between Irish church leaders and the pope at the Vatican.

"Popes have had no problem voicing their opinions when we wanted contraception or divorce," O'Connor said. "No problem criticizing 'The Da Vinci Code'. No problem criticizing Naomi Campbell for wearing a bejeweled cross.

"Yet when it comes to the evils done by pedophiles dressed as priests they are silent. It is grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented. They stand for nothing now but evil."

The Church in the overwhelmingly Catholic country has been rocked by two reports this year on abuse. The Murphy Commission Report issued on November 26 found it had "obsessively" hidden child abuse from 1975 to 2004.

O'Connor, whose 1990 song "Nothing Compares 2 U" was a number one hit across the world, caused uproar in Ireland when a breakaway Catholic group ordained her a priest at a ceremony staged in Lourdes 10 years ago.

[Keith Millea]

Great link Austin.I haven't seen the SNL song in a long while.

In the meantime, Sinead herself said nothing about what she'd done or why she'd done it. (Simply changing one of Marley's lines so that it referred to "sexual abuse" instead of "racial injustice," as Sinead had done in mid-song, hadn't been sufficient explanation and so the press was filled with lurid denunciations of her.) When she returned to the United States on 16 October 1992 to perform at a birthday concert for Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden in New York, Sinead was greeted by a weird mixture of cheers and boos. Despite the severely divided response to her presence, she once again sang an a cappella version of "War." Once she was done, she staggered offstage, where she was comforted by Kris Kristofferson. Shortly thereafter, Sinead O'Connor permanently retired from the "pop" entertainment industry.

The Dylan Show was "Ugly Brutal".....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvlqM7IiI...re=related

[Jan Klimkowski]

Yeah,Lauryn is for real.Try this snippet....

Agreed.

Here's young Lauryn, aged 13, initially being boo-ed at a filmed talent show, and then winning the audience over with her great natural voice and presence. Note her hair and clothes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdwhGmvB7aA

And here's Lauryn in 2001, after walking away from the Grammies and her career, performing live on MTV, just her voice and basic guitar, singing her own song "I gotta find peace of mind".

She breaks down, weeping, near the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyOhUXsGq...re=related

There are more joyful moments - eg "Redemption Song" and "Killing Me Softly" - in the links in my post above.

But yes, Keith, I agree that she's for real. As is Sinead O'Connor. They are both far too real for the brand and image makers, and a genuine danger to the powerful such as Vatican Inc.

Unlike the phony philanthropist popstars with their grinning photo-ops with Bush and Blair. You all know who I mean.

[David Guyatt]

It really seems to be never-ending.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...18357.html

March 9, 2010

Pope's brother linked to new claims of child abuse by clergy

By Jerome Taylor, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Fresh allegations emerge over Bavarian school where Georg Ratzinger led choir for 30 years


Pope Benedict XVI visiting his brother , Georg Ratzinger in hospital in 2005

A series of allegations in Germany and Holland have plunged the Catholic Church into a renewed crisis over how it has dealt with child abuse after it emerged that the Pope's brother ran a renowned choir at the centre of some of the latest claims.

Reports of systematic historical abuse by clergy have surfaced at three schools in the Regensburg diocese in Bavaria. One of them is the much-heralded Regensburger Domspatzen, a thousand-year-old male choir and boarding school, whose choral master for 30 years was the Pope's older brother, Georg Ratzinger.

Monsignor Ratzinger has agreed to testify in any eventual prosecutions - but says that he knew of no abuse. And last night the German Justice Minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, joined a growing chorus of politicians in Berlin to criticise the church over its attitude to the investigation, accusing Catholic institutions of a policy of secrecy.

"In many schools there was a wall of silence allowing for abuse and violence," said Ms Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a prominent critic of the church. She pointed to a Vatican directive from 2001 which required that even the most damaging allegations should be first investigated internally and then reported to the authorities. A church spokesman called her criticisms "absurd".

A separate sex scandal has also enveloped the Catholic Church in the Netherlands after three people said they were abused at a boarding school run by priests in the 1960s. Since the allegations were published on Friday more than 200 people have come forward to a designated helpline claiming that they were also abused by monks and priests.

The new allegations are a source of major embarrassment to the Vatican, which had been hoping to draw a line under child abuse. Over the past decade the issue has enormously damaged the church's reputation and finances.

The allegations in Germany first surfaced last month when investigators began looking into a series of Jesuit schools, but the scandal broadened out over the weekend into the heart of deeply Catholic Bavaria. The allegations coming out of the Regensburg diocese are particularly awkward because the Pope and his brother spent much of their careers in senior positions there, which will inevitably raise questions as to whether they ever encountered or heard about clergy who sexually abused minors.

Throughout the 1970s Joseph Ratzinger taught theology at the University of Regensburg. His older brother Georg took over the Regensburger Domspatzen in 1964 and, over the next 30 years, helped turn the male-only choir into one of the best in the world.

But he says that he never heard of any abuse in his time with the choir. Asked by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica whether he would talk to German officials, the 86-year-old Mgr Ratzinger replied: "Obviously I'd be ready to do so, but I am not able to provide any information on any deed that could be punished, because I don't have any - I never knew anything about it."

Any abuse at the Regensburger Domspatzen, he said, occurred before he took over. He did admit that pupils at the school were subjected to a climate of "discipline and rigour" but added that this was necessary in order to reach "a high musical, artistic level".

But Franz Wittenbrink, a German composer who lived at the school until 1967, described the school as being run by "a sophisticated system of sadistic punishments in connection with sexual lust". He was also quoted by Der Spiegel as saying that it was "inexplicable" that the Pope's brother knew nothing of what was happening.

The new sex scandals have emerged just weeks after Pope Benedict XVI gave Ireland's bishops a public dressing down for failing to deal with child abuse which he described as a "heinous crime". He also called on Catholic bishops to tackle allegations with "honesty and courage". But, while the Vatican has given its backing to a full investigation of the allegations, the Pope has so far remained personally silent on the matter.

We Are Church, a prominent Christian support network for abuse victims, has now called on the Pope publicly to declare whether he knew of any abuse allegations when he was a bishop.

"He must answer the question about what he knew and what he did about it," said Christian Weisner, the group's German spokesperson.

[Magda Hassan]

::facepalm:: Hardly seems the right choice to me but then he has lots of experience working for a organisations wanting to cover up child sexual abuse. So maybe he's perfect.

God's spinner: Tory peer Lord Patten becomes the Pope's media advisor just two months after leaving BBC on health grounds

• Former Cabinet minister will advise the Vatican on how to use the internet
  
• Pope Francis wants to reach a wider and younger audience
  
• Patten stood down as BBC Trust chair in May after heart surgery
  

By Tom Mctague, Mail Online Deputy Political Editor
Published: 22:25 AEST, 9 July 2014 | Updated: 22:33 AEST, 9 July 2014



Tory peer Lord Patten has become a spin doctor for the Pope - just two months after stepping down from the BBC for health reasons.
The former Cabinet minister will advise the leader of the world's Catholics how to use the internet to get his message across - including sites like Twitter and Facebook.
Lord Patten said the part-time role was 'important and challenging' - despite leaving the BBC in the lurch in May after having major heart surgery.


Pope Francis wants to reach a younger audience around the world and has brought Tory peer Lord Patten in to the Vatican to be a media advisor

The 69-year-old was admitted to hospital with serious chest pains and underwent a successful bypass operation that saved his heart from major damage.
At the time, Lord Patten said he had to stand 'on the advice of my doctors'.
He said: 'I have concluded that I cannot continue to work at the same full pace as I have done to date, and that I should reduce the range of roles I undertake.'

Lord Patten will now chair a Papal committee over the next year which is expected to report in the summer of 2015. He said the post was unpaid.
Their goal is to re-vamp the Holy See's online presence and communications strategy in an effort to reach a wider and younger audience.



Former BBC Trust chair Lord Patten will help the Pope's spin chief

The Vatican already has a number of websites and Twitter accounts, including that of Pope Francis (@pontifex) in nine different languages.
The Pope also has six separate communications departments, including a press and internet office and a communications council.
It also has a newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, and a radio station, Vatican Radio, which broadcasts in 40 languages.
The appointment is the latest high profile move by Pope Francis to shake-up the Vatican since he was elected to succeed Pope Benedict last year.
The Argentinian pope has vowed to overhaul the Vatican's tarnished institutions after decades of corruption and scandal.
Lord Pattern said: 'This is an important and challenging part-time assignment over the next year. I'm looking forward to beginning work in late September.'
The Oxford university chancellor, a leading British Catholic, is said to be easing himself back into work and will hold his first Vatican meeting this autumn.

According to the Financial Times, Lord Patten has said the committee wants to develop a 'digital strategy' and ways for the church to speak to those already committed Catholics.
Lord Patten also wants to expand the range of Vatican's range of media outlets, which include a newspaper, television and radio station.

During his time at the BBC, he was criticised for the number of positions he held including serving as Chancellor of Oxford University and Co-Chair of the UK-India Round Table.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...ounds.html

[David Guyatt]

::facepalm:: Hardly seems the right choice to me but then he has lots of experience working for a organisations wanting to cover up child sexual abuse. So maybe he's perfect.

::laughingdog::