In July, sick with cancer, Jo Beecham talked in this newspaper about stashing life-ending drugs in her fridge, in case she wanted to hasten her end. But as the disease wore on, she had second thoughts
Paula Cocozza Guardian/UK 26 October 2014
When Jo Beecham was diagnosed with cancer three years ago, her first instinct was to control the moment of her death, to bypass the worst of the pain. In fear, she bought some life-ending drugs, and in July this year, she gave an account in these pages of the challenges of living with poison hidden behind the bags of salad in the fridge.
Jo’s health has deteriorated quickly since then. But though the time to use it must be close, the poison has never felt more out of reach. Is it fear that is stopping Jo from choosing to use the drugs, which once offered reassurance but now seem to ask for too much strength? Or has she found a different kind of succour – in the form of Annie Lister, an independent cancer and palliative care expert with 30 years’ experience?
When Annie first met Jo in late spring, Jo had a detailed plan for her death, and Annie had “a long in the tooth” palliative carer’s belief that legalised assisted dying might be “the start of a slippery slope”. After all, Annie’s life’s work has been to soothe difficult endings. But the intensity and intimacy of Jo and Annie’s conversations have lifted the debate out of a moral maze and made it a matter of personal friendship. Over the past five months, Jo and Annie have travelled so far towards each other emotionally and intellectually that both have changed their minds about what makes a good death. While Annie has become more sympathetic to the idea of legalised assisted dying, Jo has chosen to confront the approach of death with palliative care.
These days, Jo says, the drugs “are not in my thinking”. What has made the difference, Jo says, is “Annie’s experience, her calmness. I’m being accompanied. I’m not alone. When I’m in pain and I don’t recognise it, and it’s really strong, it panics me. I want Annie more and more to be here. I know she’ll calm me quickly.
Has it felt challenging for Annie to care for someone who wants to anticipate the end, when her work is to manage symptoms until the end comes? “The truth is, I don’t think the palliative care world really had to think of assisted dying seriously,” she says. “Palliative care professionals have hidden behind the fact that it’s illegal.”
Annie has travelled to a point of great sympathy with, and affection for, Jo. Does she feel she could be there, at her side, if Jo wishes to end her life? “There is nothing professional to stop me being here, although I’m clear that I wouldn’t facilitate it,” says Annie. The drugs remain in the fridge, in the kitchen where the washing machine is whirring. The moment may have passed to take them. “I have felt from the beginning,” she says, “that if it was something Jo chose to do, that would be her choice, and I wouldn’t be able to control it.”
Would she feel that she had failed her patient? “I cannot honestly give an answer as to how it would feel in the event. I have a little worry that it may feel like a failure. I would need time, but I would know that I had given it my best shot to help her in this gentler, easier way for her, her friends and her family.”
It is difficult to know whether Jo’s feelings towards the drugs have changed because she has care now that works for her in the way that the poison once worked, offering control over the unknown she fears. Or how far her physical weakness – yesterday, she had to crawl up the stairs and she avoids moving “because I don’t want to see how much weaker I’ve got” – has rendered unfeasible the exertion required to self-administer an illegal drug.
Perhaps it is only the illegality, considered in her severely weakened state, that makes the choice so hard to contemplate. Jo remains a firm advocate of the legalisation of assisted dying, alongside excellent palliative care, her experience of which has mellowed her position. The drugs no longer appear to be what she wants.
“They may not be,” she says quickly, moving to sit up. “But maybe they are. Their presence, if not their use, makes the future feel navigable… Sometimes feeling drowsy and nodding off is a relief, because that’s where I see I’m going,” Jo says. “My body is driving my thoughts now. I’m going to sleep more, drift off and die. And not really be aware. That’s OK. The beauty of what’s in the fridge is that it is there if you change your mind.”
• Jo Beecham died peacefully at home, in the company of friends, on 15 October 2014, a week after this interview took place. The drugs stayed in the fridge until her friends disposed of them safely.
[Abridged]http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/26/cancer-assisted-dying-jo-beecham
Monday, 27 October 2014
How Denmark deals with returned Islamist fighters
Anthony Faiola and Souad Mekhennet Sydney Morning Herald Oct. 22, 2014
AARHUS, Denmark: The rush of morning shoppers parted to make way for Talha, a lanky 21-year-old in desert camouflage and a long, religious beard. He strode through the local mall with a fighter's gait picked up on the battlefields of Syria. Streams of young Muslim men greeted him like a returning king. al-salam alaykum. (peace be upon you).
In other countries, Talha - one of hundreds of young jihadists from the West who has fought in Syria and Iraq - might be barred from return or thrown in jail. But in Denmark, a country that has spawned more foreign fighters per capita than almost anywhere else, not one returned fighter has been locked up. Instead, officials here are providing free psychological counselling while finding returnees jobs and spots in schools and universities. Officials credit a new effort to reach out to a radical mosque with staunching the flow of recruits.
Aarhus' answer has left the likes of Talha wandering freely on the streets. The son of Muslim immigrants from the Middle East, he fought with an Islamist brigade in Syria for nine months before returning home last October. He still dreams of one day living in a Middle Eastern caliphate. He rejects the Islamic State's beheading of foreign hostages but defends their summary executions of Iraqi and Syrian soldiers. "I know how some people think. They are afraid of us, the ones coming back," says Talha, a name he adopted to protect his identity because he never told his father he went to fight. "Look, we are really not dangerous."
Yet critics call this city's soft-handed approach just that - dangerous. And the effort here is fast becoming a pawn in the much larger debate raging across Europe over Islam and the nature of extremism. More and louder voices here are clamouring for new laws that could not only charge returnees with treason but also set curbs on immigration from Muslim countries.
Aarhus is treating its returning religious fighters like wayward youths rather than terrorism suspects because that's the way most of them started out. The majority were young men like Talha, between 16 and 28, including several former criminals and gang members who had recently found what they began to call "true Islam". Most of them came from law-abiding Muslim homes and, quite often, were the children of divorced parents.
On the day he left for Syria, in October 2012, he told his divorced parents that he and a friend were going to Turkey on vacation. Instead, his friend's cousin had arranged their passage across the border to Syria. He worked in a refugee camp for a few weeks before getting attached to an independent battalion associated with the Islamist militia Ahrar al-Sham, a group with alleged ties to al-Qaeda. During the months when he manned heavy artillery batteries near Aleppo, he said, his outfit also maintained harmonious ties with the Islamic State.
Danish authorities say the vast majority of the 30 or so Aarhus residents who went to Syria were somehow linked to one of the most polarising houses of worship in Europe - the Grimhojvej mosque. Talha began to worship there four years ago, two years before he left for Syria. But Talha wants to make one thing clear. He, like the mosque leadership, denies that Grimhojvej recruited him and other fighters.
Nevertheless, in January, Aarhus officials gave the mosque an ultimatum. It could either open itself up to a new dialogue with the community or face a public condemnation and, quite likely, stepped-up legal pressure. The mosque chose to cooperate. Since January, police and city officials have engaged in a number of unprecedented sessions hosted by the mosque. In the presence of mosque leaders, police and city officials met with returned fighters like Talha to assess their risk levels. They also met with members of the mosque's youth group to dissuade other young Muslims from traveling to the Middle East. The mosque still openly backs a caliphate in the Middle East, refuses to offer a blanket denunciation of the Islamic State and warns that Denmark's recent decision to join the US-led coalition in air strikes against the militant group may only fan the fires of terrorism.
Police officials say the statistics prove their approach is working. "In 2013, we had 30 young people go to Syria," said Jorgen Ilum, Aarhus's police commissioner. "This year, to my knowledge, we have had only one. We believe that the main reason is our contact and dialogue with the Muslim community." [Abridged]
http://www.smh.com.au/world/give-them-a-job-how-denmark-deals-with-returned-islamist-fighters-20141022-119cj0.html
AARHUS, Denmark: The rush of morning shoppers parted to make way for Talha, a lanky 21-year-old in desert camouflage and a long, religious beard. He strode through the local mall with a fighter's gait picked up on the battlefields of Syria. Streams of young Muslim men greeted him like a returning king. al-salam alaykum. (peace be upon you).
In other countries, Talha - one of hundreds of young jihadists from the West who has fought in Syria and Iraq - might be barred from return or thrown in jail. But in Denmark, a country that has spawned more foreign fighters per capita than almost anywhere else, not one returned fighter has been locked up. Instead, officials here are providing free psychological counselling while finding returnees jobs and spots in schools and universities. Officials credit a new effort to reach out to a radical mosque with staunching the flow of recruits.
Aarhus' answer has left the likes of Talha wandering freely on the streets. The son of Muslim immigrants from the Middle East, he fought with an Islamist brigade in Syria for nine months before returning home last October. He still dreams of one day living in a Middle Eastern caliphate. He rejects the Islamic State's beheading of foreign hostages but defends their summary executions of Iraqi and Syrian soldiers. "I know how some people think. They are afraid of us, the ones coming back," says Talha, a name he adopted to protect his identity because he never told his father he went to fight. "Look, we are really not dangerous."
Yet critics call this city's soft-handed approach just that - dangerous. And the effort here is fast becoming a pawn in the much larger debate raging across Europe over Islam and the nature of extremism. More and louder voices here are clamouring for new laws that could not only charge returnees with treason but also set curbs on immigration from Muslim countries.
Aarhus is treating its returning religious fighters like wayward youths rather than terrorism suspects because that's the way most of them started out. The majority were young men like Talha, between 16 and 28, including several former criminals and gang members who had recently found what they began to call "true Islam". Most of them came from law-abiding Muslim homes and, quite often, were the children of divorced parents.
On the day he left for Syria, in October 2012, he told his divorced parents that he and a friend were going to Turkey on vacation. Instead, his friend's cousin had arranged their passage across the border to Syria. He worked in a refugee camp for a few weeks before getting attached to an independent battalion associated with the Islamist militia Ahrar al-Sham, a group with alleged ties to al-Qaeda. During the months when he manned heavy artillery batteries near Aleppo, he said, his outfit also maintained harmonious ties with the Islamic State.
Danish authorities say the vast majority of the 30 or so Aarhus residents who went to Syria were somehow linked to one of the most polarising houses of worship in Europe - the Grimhojvej mosque. Talha began to worship there four years ago, two years before he left for Syria. But Talha wants to make one thing clear. He, like the mosque leadership, denies that Grimhojvej recruited him and other fighters.
Nevertheless, in January, Aarhus officials gave the mosque an ultimatum. It could either open itself up to a new dialogue with the community or face a public condemnation and, quite likely, stepped-up legal pressure. The mosque chose to cooperate. Since January, police and city officials have engaged in a number of unprecedented sessions hosted by the mosque. In the presence of mosque leaders, police and city officials met with returned fighters like Talha to assess their risk levels. They also met with members of the mosque's youth group to dissuade other young Muslims from traveling to the Middle East. The mosque still openly backs a caliphate in the Middle East, refuses to offer a blanket denunciation of the Islamic State and warns that Denmark's recent decision to join the US-led coalition in air strikes against the militant group may only fan the fires of terrorism.
Police officials say the statistics prove their approach is working. "In 2013, we had 30 young people go to Syria," said Jorgen Ilum, Aarhus's police commissioner. "This year, to my knowledge, we have had only one. We believe that the main reason is our contact and dialogue with the Muslim community." [Abridged]
http://www.smh.com.au/world/give-them-a-job-how-denmark-deals-with-returned-islamist-fighters-20141022-119cj0.html
Bombs Fall in Syria as Weapons-Makers Profits Soar in the West
By Jon Queally, staff writer Common Dreams October 20, 2014
According to The Independent's Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, there is only one clear winner in the new war that has now engulfed Syria and Iraq: the world's top weapons manufacturers. On Sunday Fisk wrote, "Share prices are soaring in America for those who produce the coalition bombs and missiles and drones and aircraft participating in this latest war … The war against Isis is breeding Isis. For every dead Isis member, we are creating three of four more. And if Isis really is the “apocalyptic”, “evil”, “end-of-the-world” institution we have been told it is... then every increase in profits for Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics is creating yet more Isis fighters."
In addition to new bombings by U.S. warplanes, the U.S. military over the last twenty-four hours has air-dropped machine guns, anti-tank weapons, ammunition, food, and medical supplies to Kurdish fighters inside the Syrian city of Kobani as they continue to fight off an assault by Islamic State (or ISIS) militants. Though Kurds in both Turkey and Iraq have been pleading for Turkey to assist those in Kobani, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been consistently opposed, repeating that it views the mostly autonomous Kurdish population in that region of Syria as members or allies of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which—despite a cease-fire agreement and ongoing peace process—it views as an enemy.
That may have changed, however, in the aftermath of the U.S. airdrops. As the New York Times reports Monday morning: “Hours after American military aircraft dropped ammunition and small arms to resupply Kurdish fighters in the embattled Syrian town of Kobani, Turkey’s foreign minister said Monday that the country would facilitate the movement of Iraqi Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, to the city to join the fighting.” The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking at a news conference in Ankara, said that his government was “helping the pesh merga cross over to Kobani,” an apparent shift from Turkey’s previous refusal to allow any military assistance to Kurdish fighters in the town.
The developments reflected escalating international pressure to help Kurdish forces push back Islamic State militants who have been attacking the Kurdish town for more than a month. The battle has become a closely watched test for the Obama administration as it embarks on a war reliant on air power against the militant group in Iraq and Syria. It has also raised tensions across the border in Turkey, where Kurds have accused the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of abandoning the city to the militants.
Critics of the overall U.S. strategy in the region have pointed out how the fight in Kobani highlights the inherent complexities of the new war in Syria and Iraq that is setting the stage for a much wider, longer and unpredictable conflict. But according to Fisk, what is really sinister about the current campaign by the U.S. and their allies is the manner in which the profits of the weapon-makers soar, as the region and its people continue to suffer.
Quoted at length, Fisk writes: “When the Americans decided to extend their bombing into Syria in September – to attack President Assad’s enemies scarcely a year after they first proposed to bomb President Assad himself – Raytheon was awarded a $251m (£156m) contract to supply the US navy with more Tomahawk cruise missiles. Agence France-Presse, which does the job that Reuters used to do when it was a real news agency, informed us that on 23 September, American warships fired 47 Tomahawk missiles. Each one costs about $1.4m. And if we spent as promiscuously on Ebola cures, believe me, there would be no more Ebola.”
Let me give you a quotation from reporter Dan De Luce’s dispatch on arms sales for the French news agency. “The war promises to generate more business not just from US government contracts but other countries in a growing coalition, including European and Arab states… Apart from fighter jets, the air campaign [sic] is expected to boost the appetite for aerial refuelling tankers, surveillance aircraft such as the U-2 and P-8 spy planes, and robotic [sic] drones… Private security contractors, which profited from the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, also are optimistic the conflict will produce new contracts to advise Iraqi troops.”
This is obviously outrageous. The same murderous bunch of gunmen we sent to Iraq are going to be let loose to teach our “allies” in Syria – “moderate” secular militias, of course – the same vicious tactics they used against civilians in Iraq. And the same missiles are going to be used – at huge profit– on the peoples of the Middle East, Isis or not. Which is why De Luce’s report is perhaps the most important of the whole war in the region.
[Abridged] http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/20/bombs-fall-syria-weapons-makers-profits-soar-west
According to The Independent's Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, there is only one clear winner in the new war that has now engulfed Syria and Iraq: the world's top weapons manufacturers. On Sunday Fisk wrote, "Share prices are soaring in America for those who produce the coalition bombs and missiles and drones and aircraft participating in this latest war … The war against Isis is breeding Isis. For every dead Isis member, we are creating three of four more. And if Isis really is the “apocalyptic”, “evil”, “end-of-the-world” institution we have been told it is... then every increase in profits for Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics is creating yet more Isis fighters."
In addition to new bombings by U.S. warplanes, the U.S. military over the last twenty-four hours has air-dropped machine guns, anti-tank weapons, ammunition, food, and medical supplies to Kurdish fighters inside the Syrian city of Kobani as they continue to fight off an assault by Islamic State (or ISIS) militants. Though Kurds in both Turkey and Iraq have been pleading for Turkey to assist those in Kobani, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been consistently opposed, repeating that it views the mostly autonomous Kurdish population in that region of Syria as members or allies of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which—despite a cease-fire agreement and ongoing peace process—it views as an enemy.
That may have changed, however, in the aftermath of the U.S. airdrops. As the New York Times reports Monday morning: “Hours after American military aircraft dropped ammunition and small arms to resupply Kurdish fighters in the embattled Syrian town of Kobani, Turkey’s foreign minister said Monday that the country would facilitate the movement of Iraqi Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, to the city to join the fighting.” The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking at a news conference in Ankara, said that his government was “helping the pesh merga cross over to Kobani,” an apparent shift from Turkey’s previous refusal to allow any military assistance to Kurdish fighters in the town.
The developments reflected escalating international pressure to help Kurdish forces push back Islamic State militants who have been attacking the Kurdish town for more than a month. The battle has become a closely watched test for the Obama administration as it embarks on a war reliant on air power against the militant group in Iraq and Syria. It has also raised tensions across the border in Turkey, where Kurds have accused the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of abandoning the city to the militants.
Critics of the overall U.S. strategy in the region have pointed out how the fight in Kobani highlights the inherent complexities of the new war in Syria and Iraq that is setting the stage for a much wider, longer and unpredictable conflict. But according to Fisk, what is really sinister about the current campaign by the U.S. and their allies is the manner in which the profits of the weapon-makers soar, as the region and its people continue to suffer.
Quoted at length, Fisk writes: “When the Americans decided to extend their bombing into Syria in September – to attack President Assad’s enemies scarcely a year after they first proposed to bomb President Assad himself – Raytheon was awarded a $251m (£156m) contract to supply the US navy with more Tomahawk cruise missiles. Agence France-Presse, which does the job that Reuters used to do when it was a real news agency, informed us that on 23 September, American warships fired 47 Tomahawk missiles. Each one costs about $1.4m. And if we spent as promiscuously on Ebola cures, believe me, there would be no more Ebola.”
Let me give you a quotation from reporter Dan De Luce’s dispatch on arms sales for the French news agency. “The war promises to generate more business not just from US government contracts but other countries in a growing coalition, including European and Arab states… Apart from fighter jets, the air campaign [sic] is expected to boost the appetite for aerial refuelling tankers, surveillance aircraft such as the U-2 and P-8 spy planes, and robotic [sic] drones… Private security contractors, which profited from the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, also are optimistic the conflict will produce new contracts to advise Iraqi troops.”
This is obviously outrageous. The same murderous bunch of gunmen we sent to Iraq are going to be let loose to teach our “allies” in Syria – “moderate” secular militias, of course – the same vicious tactics they used against civilians in Iraq. And the same missiles are going to be used – at huge profit– on the peoples of the Middle East, Isis or not. Which is why De Luce’s report is perhaps the most important of the whole war in the region.
[Abridged] http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/20/bombs-fall-syria-weapons-makers-profits-soar-west
Monday, 20 October 2014
This Pope is full of questions.
For the first time in its history, the Church is starting to slightly relax its attitude to homosexuality
Andreas Whittam Smith Independent/UK 15 October 2014
Anybody interested in leadership should watch Pope Francis carefully. The first lesson he teaches is not to postpone confronting the toughest questions. He has been in office for only a year and a half, yet he has already called a synod of bishops (182-strong) to study the “family” – in other words, sexual relationships. For the Roman Catholic Church, as indeed for the Church of England, nothing could be more difficult.
Then in designing the synod, Pope Francis rejected the usual top-down method of decision-making. The synods convened by his predecessors – Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI – were stage-managed affairs in which the opinions of the bishops in attendance were never really sought. But the new Pope told the cardinals and bishops attending the synod that they were to say what was on their minds. This is important because the bishops have come to the synod in Rome from very different situations. In some places, polygamy is the norm; in others the practice of “arranged marriages” persists. In yet others, Christianity is a minority religion so that “mixed” marriages are common.
In his planning of the synod, the Pope also paid attention to the classical adage festina lente, “make haste slowly” – or, as we might say, more haste, less speed. Don’t rush to a decision. Let time play its role. Allow for what is called “God’s patience”. So the meeting that finished this week is described as preliminary. It only starts a process that is meant to continue until another synod of bishops scheduled for 2015.
More dramatic though has been the Pope’s decision to open the windows of the Vatican and let in fresh air by facilitating the participation of ordinary members of the Church. Thus before the synod had begun, Church members were asked to respond to a survey. The Pope wanted his bishops to have a clearer idea of why Rome’s teachings are increasingly being rejected or ignored. One question was, “How does your parish community welcome same-sex couples and gay persons? How are they included in the life of the parish? Are they given sufficient space to be full and active members of the Church?"
But that was not all. Every day during the synod, at the beginning of each session, lay people were asked to testify. As one observer remarked, hundreds of celibate men from the Roman Catholic Church have spent the last week hearing people who actually have sex actually talk about it.
As far as gay people are concerned, the preliminary report observes that they have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community. It asks: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? “Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?” And it adds: “Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions, it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners.” In other words, love.
In the same way, adds the document, the situation of the divorced who have remarried demands discernment and an “accompaniment” full of respect, avoiding any language or behaviour that might make them feel discriminated against. The point about choice of language is important. Even this report, when referring to the separated and divorced, refers to them all as “damaged families”. “Damaged” is an unfortunate description.
Taking the preliminary report as a whole, the fundamentalist tendency was unhappy, as one would expect. These people are in permanent opposition to the modern world. So the head of the Polish bishops’ conference, Cardinal Stanislaw Gadecki, was not alone in calling the preliminary report “unacceptable” and a deviation from church teaching. However, by indicating that the preliminary report is not the final word, the Pope has given himself plenty of room for manoeuvre.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, was more diplomatic. “It is not a doctrinal or decisive document,” he said. “It is, as stated in its conclusion, ‘intended to raise questions and indicate perspectives that will have to be matured and made clearer on reflection’.” The Pope will be happy with that. He has achieved movement and brought new voices into the debate. That is a good start. [Abridged]
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/this-pope-is-full-of-questions-especially-about-the-churchs-treatment-of-gay-men-and-women-9796983.html
Andreas Whittam Smith Independent/UK 15 October 2014
Anybody interested in leadership should watch Pope Francis carefully. The first lesson he teaches is not to postpone confronting the toughest questions. He has been in office for only a year and a half, yet he has already called a synod of bishops (182-strong) to study the “family” – in other words, sexual relationships. For the Roman Catholic Church, as indeed for the Church of England, nothing could be more difficult.
Then in designing the synod, Pope Francis rejected the usual top-down method of decision-making. The synods convened by his predecessors – Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI – were stage-managed affairs in which the opinions of the bishops in attendance were never really sought. But the new Pope told the cardinals and bishops attending the synod that they were to say what was on their minds. This is important because the bishops have come to the synod in Rome from very different situations. In some places, polygamy is the norm; in others the practice of “arranged marriages” persists. In yet others, Christianity is a minority religion so that “mixed” marriages are common.
In his planning of the synod, the Pope also paid attention to the classical adage festina lente, “make haste slowly” – or, as we might say, more haste, less speed. Don’t rush to a decision. Let time play its role. Allow for what is called “God’s patience”. So the meeting that finished this week is described as preliminary. It only starts a process that is meant to continue until another synod of bishops scheduled for 2015.
More dramatic though has been the Pope’s decision to open the windows of the Vatican and let in fresh air by facilitating the participation of ordinary members of the Church. Thus before the synod had begun, Church members were asked to respond to a survey. The Pope wanted his bishops to have a clearer idea of why Rome’s teachings are increasingly being rejected or ignored. One question was, “How does your parish community welcome same-sex couples and gay persons? How are they included in the life of the parish? Are they given sufficient space to be full and active members of the Church?"
But that was not all. Every day during the synod, at the beginning of each session, lay people were asked to testify. As one observer remarked, hundreds of celibate men from the Roman Catholic Church have spent the last week hearing people who actually have sex actually talk about it.
As far as gay people are concerned, the preliminary report observes that they have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community. It asks: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? “Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?” And it adds: “Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions, it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners.” In other words, love.
In the same way, adds the document, the situation of the divorced who have remarried demands discernment and an “accompaniment” full of respect, avoiding any language or behaviour that might make them feel discriminated against. The point about choice of language is important. Even this report, when referring to the separated and divorced, refers to them all as “damaged families”. “Damaged” is an unfortunate description.
Taking the preliminary report as a whole, the fundamentalist tendency was unhappy, as one would expect. These people are in permanent opposition to the modern world. So the head of the Polish bishops’ conference, Cardinal Stanislaw Gadecki, was not alone in calling the preliminary report “unacceptable” and a deviation from church teaching. However, by indicating that the preliminary report is not the final word, the Pope has given himself plenty of room for manoeuvre.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, was more diplomatic. “It is not a doctrinal or decisive document,” he said. “It is, as stated in its conclusion, ‘intended to raise questions and indicate perspectives that will have to be matured and made clearer on reflection’.” The Pope will be happy with that. He has achieved movement and brought new voices into the debate. That is a good start. [Abridged]
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/this-pope-is-full-of-questions-especially-about-the-churchs-treatment-of-gay-men-and-women-9796983.html
Sanders: Real Fear Not ISIS, But 'Perpetual Warfare Year After Year After Year'
Jon Queally Common Dreams October 12, 2014
US strategy against militant group in Syria and Iraq described as "in tatters," but US officials say American public should prepare for "long-term effort.
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday was among those calling out the Obama administration for pursuing a failed and misguided policy towards the group and the region overall. "The question we have got to ask," said Sanders on CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley, "Is why are the countries in the region not more actively involved? Why don't they see this as a crisis situation? Here's the danger [...] if the Middle East people see this as the United States vs. ISIS, the West vs. East, Christianity vs. Islam—we're going to lose that war."
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that even the so-called "moderate rebels" in Syria have become disillusioned with U.S. military intervention. On CNN, Sanders said “We have been at war for 12 years. We have spent trillions of dollars," he said. “What I do not want, and I fear very much, is the United States getting sucked into a quagmire and being involved in perpetual warfare year after year after year. That is my fear.”
Offering analysis for The Independent on Sunday, journalist Patrick Cockburn said the U.S. strategy against ISIS was "in tatters," as he mentioned how over the weekend ISIS forces had continued their assault on the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, which sits on the border of Turkey, while also gaining new ground in Iraq, both in Anbar Province and on the outskirts of Bagdad.
Unfortunately for the US, Kobani isn't the only place air strikes are failing to stop Isis. In an offensive in Iraq launched on 2 October but little reported in the outside world, Isis has captured almost all the cities and towns it did not already hold in Anbar province, a vast area in western Iraq that makes up a quarter of the country. It has captured Hit, Kubaisa and Ramadi, the provincial capital, which it had long fought for. Other cities, towns and bases on or close to the Euphrates River west of Baghdad fell in a few days, often after little resistance by the Iraqi Army which showed itself to be as dysfunctional as in the past, even when backed by US air strikes.
The US's failure to save Kobani, if it falls, will be a political as well as military disaster. Indeed, the circumstances surrounding the loss of the beleaguered town are even more significant than the inability so far of air strikes to stop Isis taking 40 per cent of it. At the start of the bombing in Syria, President Obama boasted of putting together a coalition of Sunni powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to oppose Isis, but these all have different agendas to the US in which destroying ISIS is not the first priority. The Sunni Arab monarchies may not like Isis, which threatens the political status quo, but, as one Iraqi observer put it, "they like the fact that Isis creates more problems for the Shia than it does for them".
On Saturday, the United Nations warned of a massacre of Kurdish civilians if Kobani was to fall to ISIS, but reports on Sunday made it hard to determine how likely that scenario continues to be. Though many discussed an ISIS victory as a foregone conclusion after Turkey refused to intervene on behalf of the mostly Kurdish population there, the Washington Post on Sunday reported that the Kurdish fighters who remain in the city have been able to push back the attack. According to the Post:
Kurds have appealed for international pressure on Turkey to permit arms and reinforcements across the border to the fighters defending the town. But Turkey has a long history of enmity with Turkish Kurds and has thrown up a wall of steel along the border. Tanks, armored vehicles and troops are fanned out across the hills overlooking Kobane, and soldiers at checkpoints refuse to permit either people or goods to cross into the Syrian town.
Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan expressed his frustration Saturday with the mounting international pressure on Turkey to do more to help the Kurds.
“What does Kobane have to do with Turkey? With İstanbul, with Ankara?” he asked at a ceremony inaugurating a school in the town of Rize, according to Turkish media.
[Abridged]http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/12/sanders-real-fear-not-isis-perpetual-warfare-year-after-year-after-year
US strategy against militant group in Syria and Iraq described as "in tatters," but US officials say American public should prepare for "long-term effort.
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday was among those calling out the Obama administration for pursuing a failed and misguided policy towards the group and the region overall. "The question we have got to ask," said Sanders on CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley, "Is why are the countries in the region not more actively involved? Why don't they see this as a crisis situation? Here's the danger [...] if the Middle East people see this as the United States vs. ISIS, the West vs. East, Christianity vs. Islam—we're going to lose that war."
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that even the so-called "moderate rebels" in Syria have become disillusioned with U.S. military intervention. On CNN, Sanders said “We have been at war for 12 years. We have spent trillions of dollars," he said. “What I do not want, and I fear very much, is the United States getting sucked into a quagmire and being involved in perpetual warfare year after year after year. That is my fear.”
Offering analysis for The Independent on Sunday, journalist Patrick Cockburn said the U.S. strategy against ISIS was "in tatters," as he mentioned how over the weekend ISIS forces had continued their assault on the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, which sits on the border of Turkey, while also gaining new ground in Iraq, both in Anbar Province and on the outskirts of Bagdad.
Unfortunately for the US, Kobani isn't the only place air strikes are failing to stop Isis. In an offensive in Iraq launched on 2 October but little reported in the outside world, Isis has captured almost all the cities and towns it did not already hold in Anbar province, a vast area in western Iraq that makes up a quarter of the country. It has captured Hit, Kubaisa and Ramadi, the provincial capital, which it had long fought for. Other cities, towns and bases on or close to the Euphrates River west of Baghdad fell in a few days, often after little resistance by the Iraqi Army which showed itself to be as dysfunctional as in the past, even when backed by US air strikes.
The US's failure to save Kobani, if it falls, will be a political as well as military disaster. Indeed, the circumstances surrounding the loss of the beleaguered town are even more significant than the inability so far of air strikes to stop Isis taking 40 per cent of it. At the start of the bombing in Syria, President Obama boasted of putting together a coalition of Sunni powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to oppose Isis, but these all have different agendas to the US in which destroying ISIS is not the first priority. The Sunni Arab monarchies may not like Isis, which threatens the political status quo, but, as one Iraqi observer put it, "they like the fact that Isis creates more problems for the Shia than it does for them".
On Saturday, the United Nations warned of a massacre of Kurdish civilians if Kobani was to fall to ISIS, but reports on Sunday made it hard to determine how likely that scenario continues to be. Though many discussed an ISIS victory as a foregone conclusion after Turkey refused to intervene on behalf of the mostly Kurdish population there, the Washington Post on Sunday reported that the Kurdish fighters who remain in the city have been able to push back the attack. According to the Post:
Kurds have appealed for international pressure on Turkey to permit arms and reinforcements across the border to the fighters defending the town. But Turkey has a long history of enmity with Turkish Kurds and has thrown up a wall of steel along the border. Tanks, armored vehicles and troops are fanned out across the hills overlooking Kobane, and soldiers at checkpoints refuse to permit either people or goods to cross into the Syrian town.
Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan expressed his frustration Saturday with the mounting international pressure on Turkey to do more to help the Kurds.
“What does Kobane have to do with Turkey? With İstanbul, with Ankara?” he asked at a ceremony inaugurating a school in the town of Rize, according to Turkish media.
[Abridged]http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/12/sanders-real-fear-not-isis-perpetual-warfare-year-after-year-after-year
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