Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

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   “The curriculum had already drawn tensions among the county’s religious parents, with some worrying about appropriateness and arguing the material…

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   As someone who produced dozens of nativity plays as a teacher and a Sunday School leader, that title ‘A Gay…

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   The defence of a Christian view never seems to be settled by debate: exchange of facts, reference to historical events.…

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   But …… Rwanda is a safe place: Parliament says so.https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/8/contentsSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 S 2 Safety…

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   Religion can survive only on the most unquestionable assumptions. The statements made on Sundays on the BBC as if they…

ARCHBISHOP Mario Antonio Cargnello’s alleged cruelty over a number of years towards members of an order of Argentinian nuns has erupted into a fresh scandal for the Catholic Church after a judge ordered that he and three other priests undergo training to better treat church members, particularly women, in the future.

According to Spanish news outlet El Tribuno, the”Barefoot Carmelites” from the reclusive order of Discalced Carmelites at San Bernardo Monastery in Salta, had denounced Cargnello, pictured above, of physical, psychological and economic violence dating back more than two decades.

Religion News Service adds that Judge Carolina Cáceres said in her ruling.

I conclude and affirm that the nuns have suffered acts of gender violence religiously, physically, psychologically and economically for more than 20 years.

The 20 nuns—dedicated to solitude, silence and daily contemplative prayer—brought their case forward in 2022, sending shockwaves through conservative Salta.

Their complaints cited a range of mistreatment including verbal insults, threats, humiliation and physical—although not sexual—assault.

The nuns calimed Cargnello grabbed, slapped and shaken women. At one point, they said, Cargnello squeezed the lips of a nun to silence her.

In another incident he was `allegedly one of twomen in frockd who pounced on a nun, striking her as they struggled to snatch a camera from her hands.

Details of that unseemly incident are elaborated upon by El Tribuno, which reported that the unseemly struggle occurred on September 25, 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. That day a nun died.

The nuns stated that Cargnello accused them of carrying out maintenance work in the convent with the risk of infecting the workers. They claimed that he insulted them with words like “liar, demonic, traitor.”

The prioress asked a sister to film a meeting with the archbishop so that the Carmelite community could hear what he was going to communicate to them. When a priest, Lucio Ajaya, saw her filming he immediately made a grab for the camera with the intention of erasing the recording,

In a struggle that ensued the nun was hit by Cargnello and Ajaya on both her arms and the camera was seized.

The nuns also accused Cargello of borrowing nuns’ money without paying them back.

Judge Moreno, of the Family and Gender Violence Court, odered that her findings be sent to the Vatican. What it will do with the document is anyone’s guess.

RNS reports that in recent years, several prominent cases have emerged involving nuns, laywomen or consecrated women denouncing spiritual, psychological, physical or sexual abuse by once-exalted priests.

But complaints have largely fallen on deaf ears at the Vatican and in the rigid all-male hierarchy at the local level in Argentina, apparently prompting the nuns in Salta to seek remedy in the secular justice system. A similar dynamic played out when the clergy abuse of minors scandal first erupted decades ago and victims turned to the courts because of inaction by church authorities.

Not surprisingly, the four accused clergy members have denied all the allegations. The archbishop’s lawyer, Eduardo Romani, dismissed last Friday’s ruling as baseless and vowed to appeal. Still, he said, the archbishop would abide by the order to receive treatment and anti-discrimination training through a local NGO “whether or not he agrees with its basis.”

New Vatican document condemns gender theory, surrogacy

Meanwhile, RNS reports that in a new document on human dignity issued yeesterday (Monday), the Vatican’s department that guides Catholic doctrine reinforced the church’s opposition to abortion, surrogacy, gender theory and any attempt to change one’s sex.

The document states:

Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God.

Gender theory, the document adds:

intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.

It also stated that:

All attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected.

The declaration, titled Dignitas Infinita, or “Infinite Dignity,” has been in the works at the Vatican for five years and went through several drafts and iterations before the final document was accepted by the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith and by Pope Francis, whose approval gives it the weight of official doctrine.

Hat tip: BarrieJohn (new Vatican document.)

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