1948-2023 . Retired Statistician, Poet, author, historian and campaigner. Co-founder of International Society for Bayesian Analysis and of the Edinburgh All Comers Writers Club and Participant in the 2019 UCL Eugenics Inquiry.
Pele sadly passed away today at age 82 following the greatest world cup since 1970 when Brazil beat Italy 4:1 In the final. Then in 1973, the great man scored from the penalty spot during the friendly game at Home Park, Plymouth. My father Cecil Leonard was in the crowd and reported that the Brazilian football was exquisite . Please click on:
Upon observing the unexpectedly large crowd (37639), the Santos players had delayed the start of the game until they'd been reimbursed with large amounts of cash!! Plymouth promptly went three nil up before conceding goals to Pele and Edu.
Update: New Years Day 2023. Much to their discredit, some Scottish churches seem to be celebrating this reprobate's achievements along with far more humane personalities who passed away during 2023.
(I was convenor of Integrity-Dignity of Madison during the late 1980s, before which Cardinal Ratzinger had thrown Dignlty USA (founded in 1969) off Holy (Roman) ground. See: October 1, 1986, theCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic body charged to "spread soundCatholic doctrineand defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines",[6]issued a letter entitledOn the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. In it, the Catholic Church affirmed its position that homosexuality was an "objective disorder" and that all support should be withdrawn from any organization that undermined the Church's teaching or were ambiguous about or neglectful of it.
According to writer Neil Miller, an immediate effect of the document was the decision by several American bishops to order that DignityUSA no longer be allowed to hold Mass in Catholic churches. Dioceses in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Brooklyn, Pensacola, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., and New York City all rescinded permission for the organization to hold services on church property. In some cases the group chapters had been holding Masses for a decade or longer)
Ratzinger's much vaunted theologies distort Christ's teachings by seeking a make democracies less democratic and more right wing
Horrible views concerning rampant child abuse (see below)
In January 2022, a report written by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl and commissioned by the Catholic Church concluded that Cardinal Ratzinger failed to adequately take action against clerics in four cases of alleged abuse while he was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977–1982. The pope emeritus denied the accusations.[188][189][190]Benedict corrected his former statement that he had not been at a meeting of the ordinariate of theArchdiocese of Munich and Freisingin January 1980, saying he mistakenly told German investigators he was not there. However, the error was "not done out of bad faith", but "the result of an error in the editorial processing" of his statement. According toReuters, lawyer Martin Pusch said that "in a total of four cases, we have come to the conclusion that the then Archbishop Cardinal Ratzinger can be accused of misconduct in cases of sexual abuse."[191][192]
In February 2022, former Pope Benedict XVI had admitted that errors were made in the treating of sexual abuse cases when he was archbishop of Munich. According to the letter released by the Vatican, he asked forgiveness for any "grievous fault" but denied personal wrongdoing. Benedict stated: "I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate."[193]
Legion of Christ founder Marcial Maciel
One of the cases Ratzinger pursued involved Marcial Maciel, a Mexican priest and founder of the Legionaries of Christ who had been accused repeatedly of sexual abuse. Biographer Andrea Tornielli suggested that Cardinal Ratzinger had wanted to take action against Maciel but that John Paul II and other high-ranking officials, including several cardinals and the Pope's influential secretary Stanisław Dziwisz, prevented him from doing so.[176][181]
According to Jason Berry, Cardinal Angelo Sodano "pressured" Ratzinger, who was "operating on the assumption that the charges were not justified", to halt the proceedings against Maciel in 1999.[194] When Maciel was honored by the Pope in 2004, new accusers came forward[194] and Cardinal Ratzinger "took it on himself to authorize an investigation of Maciel".[176] After Ratzinger became pope, he began proceedings against Maciel and the Legion of Christ that forced Maciel out of active service in the church.[175] On 1 May 2010, the Vatican issued a statement denouncing "the most serious and objectively immoral behavior of Father Maciel, confirmed by incontrovertible witnesses, which amount to true crimes and show a life deprived of scruples and authentic religious feeling."[195] Benedict also said he would appoint a special commission to examine the Legionaries' constitution and open an investigation into its lay affiliate Regnum Christi.
Theodore McCarrick controversy
In November 2020, the Vatican published a report blaming not only Pope John Paul II, but also Benedict for allowing defrocked former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to rise in power despite the fact that they both knew of sex abuse allegations against him.[196][197] Despite the fact that Benedict pressured McCarrick to resign as Archbishop of Washington D.C. in 2006, McCarrick remained very active in ministry throughout Benedict's papacy and even made a very public appearance when he presided over U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy's burial service at Arlington National Cemetery in 2009.[196][197][198
If a report on Thursday, Feb. 21, in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica is to be believed, Pope Benedict XVI’s recent decision to resign just got a whole lot more interesting. The paper claims that around the time that Pope Benedict decided to step down, the pontiff learned of a faction of gay prelates in the Vatican who may have been exposed to blackmail by a group of male prostitutes in Rome. The revelations allegedly appeared in a 300-page report by three cardinals that the pope commissioned to investigate the release of internal documents by his butler, the so-called "Vatileaks" scandal. (A Vatican spokesman has refused to confirm or deny La Repubblica‘s claims, and the internal Vatican report is reportedly stowed away in a papal safe for Pope Benedict’s successor to peruse.)
Seen in the context of Pope Benedict’s career in the Catholic Church, it is difficult to understand why revelations of yet another sex scandal would push him to resign. For over a decade, he has served as the church’s point person for responding to allegations of abuse. From 1985 until his election to the papacy in 2005, Benedict served as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a powerful Vatican body charged with policing church doctrine. In 2001, Pope John Paul II transferred responsibility for dealing with the sex scandals enveloping the institution to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s office. In that role, Ratzinger received tens of thousands of complaints alleging sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Those documents often went into lurid detail, and Ratzinger is said to have been deeply affected by the experience.
As a theologian and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict gained the not-so-flattering nickname "God’s Rottweiler" for his rigid interpretations of doctrine and his stringent enforcement of church rules. In practice, he has frequently displayed a preference — both as a pope and as a cardinal — for confronting predatory priests behind closed doors and protecting the church’s reputation at the expense of public accountability.
Here’s how Benedict tackled some of the most prominent scandals to have struck the church during his career.
Peter Hullermann, Germany, 1980 While serving as the archbishop of Munich, Ratzinger may have played a role in shielding a pedophile priest, Peter Hullermann, from prosecution, transferring him to different parishes when parents complained that he had abused their children. In 1980, Ratzinger approved a plan to send Hullermann, who was facing allegations (that he did not deny) of abusing children in the German city of Essen, to Munich for therapy. Over the objections of a psychiatrist who was treating the priest, the German archdiocese permitted Hullermann to resume his pastoral work shortly after beginning therapy and did not inform the priest’s new parish of his history. In 1986, Hullermann was convicted of sexual abuse in Bavaria.
Lawrence Murphy, United States, 1996 As head of a Wisconsin school for deaf boys from 1950 to 1974, Father Lawrence Murphy is alleged to have molested upwards of 200 children. Yet when the case was presented to Ratzinger in the mid-1990s, he declined to defrock the priest. In 1996, Ratzinger ignored letters from Rembert Weakland, the archbishop of Milwaukee, seeking guidance from the cardinal on how to proceed against Murphy and another priest. Eventually, the church initiated a canonical trial against Murphy, but when the priest personally appealed to Ratzinger for clemency, saying that he was in poor health, the cardinal intervened to stop the proceedings against him.
2001 Letter to Bishops After being tasked in 2001 by Pope John Paul II to assume responsibility for sex abuse allegations, and after gaining access to a trove of documents that laid out allegations against abusive priests, Ratzinger took action. He did so in a 2001 letter sent to every one of the church’s bishops. In it, Ratzinger laid out the church’s guidelines for investigating claims of sexual abuse, which asserted that the church — and not civil authorities — still held primary authority over investigations and that the church had a right to keep evidence in such cases confidential until 10 years after a minor turned 18. That assertion led to charges by victims’ rights advocates that Ratzinger had committed worldwide gross obstruction of justice, a charge that critics saw as compounded by Ratzinger’s assertion in the letter that such cases required absolute secrecy. Breaking the code of silence carried a range of penalties, among them excommunication. Ratzinger’s order effectively removed the possibility that sex abusers would be brought to justice in lay courtsand guaranteed that the church would retain its investigatory prerogative.
Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, Ireland, 2010 In an attempt to help bring closure to victims affected by sexual abuse in the Irish Catholic Church, two auxiliary bishops, Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, accused of helping to cover up rampant abuse offered Pope Benedict their resignation in 2010. In a move that stunned critics of the church and victims’ rights groups, the pope rejected their resignation and informed the bishops that they would be allowed to stay on in the church, despite the fact that other priests accused of covering up the scandal were allowed to resign. "By rejecting the resignations of two complicit Irish bishops, the Pope is rubbing more salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of thousands of child sex abuse victims and millions of betrayed Catholics," said Barbara Blaine, president and founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, in a statement. "He’s sending an alarming message to church employees across the globe: even widespread documentation of the concealing of child sex crimes and the coddling of criminals won’t cost you your job in the church."
2010 Apology to Ireland By 2010, the hard-line strategy advocated by Pope Benedict became unsustainable. Explosive and wide-ranging reports of abuse — including allegations against Ratzinger himself during his time in Munich — put the church firmly in the cross-hairs of public opinion. Detailed investigations by the Irish government unearthed widespread abuse, and Ireland became something of a ground zero for the scandal. In response, Pope Benedict issued a public apology to his parishioners in Ireland. "You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured," the pope wrote. "Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen." Priests read the letter aloud in church.
But if the apology to Ireland signaled a willingness within the church to more openly confront its past, subsequent guidelines to bishops quashed that notion. In 2011, Pope Benedict issued new guidelines that reaffirmed bishops’ authority in adjudicating cases. Although that letter underscored the importance of stopping the abuse of minors, victims remained dismayed at the lack of an enforcement mechanism.
little mouth, you're not the first to say i am little mouth, purse of noises still as a rose, now harbour of sleep little mouth, when you return from the dumb glen tell those who haven't heard your new language that you don't like pain
UPDATE: I watched my Anglo-Canadian second cousin Celia Hatton on the BBC last night, she is a sweet and wonderful lady, and so similar to her mother Janette, my dear Auntie Audrey, and my great Aunt Olive.
Greetings to all my friends and relatives, and I hope that you are bearing up during these troubled times. My social bubble (with my very forbearing flatmate Scott and his equally dynamic girlfriend Julie who is now teaching autistic children) have experienced our fair share of troubles and more than our fair share of good times (e.g Scott and Julie's wonderful trip to Prague while parts of Czechia were in flames)
and we are as always looking forward to Scrabble at Julie's place on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. My carers, mainly from Africa and India, are following the World Cup, and also looking after me, as are the GPs and nurses at my new medical practice as I now fall into cognitive (according to my recent CT scan, I have a smaller than expected cerebellum) as well as physical decline, My memory has already become very selective indeed, but I am hoping that my mind will improve if and as I progress into dementia!!.
8th December 2022: Nevertheless, with a draw against Gussarom of Colombia (rated 2091) I this evening achieved a Chess.Com rapid play rating of 1960, in the top 0.3% in the world, though there are lots of beginners among the over 2 million Chess.Com players.
My congratulations to Plymouth Argyle on their recent successes, about 64 years after I first started attending Home Park, and to my statistical friends Julian and John at the University of Plymouth for compiling all the relevant statistics on Argyle's behalf.
I pray for my ex-partner Nicky, and my dear friend and literary collaborator Lindsay as they remain productive, in Tucson and in Edinburgh, during all their adversities. My thanks to Jim (Dame Ophelia Mountshaft) and several fellow attendees of Broughton St. Mary's Parish Church, and Rev Bill Taylor and Geoff Floyd for all their help and support.
Dame Ophelia
My thanks to Dr. Jan Kerr and the staff of Princess Alexandra's Eye Pavilion for speedily and successfully operating on the cancer in my eyelid, and the consultants in respiratory medicine at the Western General for treating my complicated chest condition.
