Theodore's World

Based on real events, Kler has broken box office records and divided Catholic country
A film depicting Polish clerics as corrupt, drunken fornicators and paedophiles is smashing box office records in Poland, sparking controversy and encouraging hundreds of people to come forward with allegations of recent and historical abuse.
The film broke Polish box officer records on its opening weekend , and has been seen by almost 3 million people since its release at the end of September.
Movie About Church Sexual Abuse Is a Contentious Hit in Poland
New York Times
“Clergy”a new movie by the director Wojciech Smarzowski…is a smash hit in Poland. It opened on Sept. 28, and more than 1.7 million people saw it during its first week. That is a huge figure for a country of 38 million.
A cinema in Zabrze, a city in the south of the country, showed the movie up to 24 times a day to meet demand…On Sept. 21, it was shown at the Gdynia Film Festival, and received an 11-minute ovation.
It starts with three priests drinking vodka until they can barely speak. One then drives drunk to a parishioner’s apartment and mumbles his way through the giving of last rites.
The picture of Poland’s priesthood only goes downhill from there. The priests steal money from their congregations, spy on each other, and exploit their connections with politicians, journalists and the police.
But much of “Clergy” focuses on one issue: Clerical child abuse, which the movie says the church covered up. In one scene, it incorporates accounts from real people who say they were abused.
This may not sound like the plot for a blockbuster movie — let alone one that features a heavy dose of comedy — but “Clergy” is a smash hit in Poland. It opened on Sept. 28, and more than 1.7 million people saw it during its first week, according to Kino Swiat, the movie’s distributor. That is a huge figure for a country of 38 million.
A cinema in Zabrze, a city in the south of the country, showed the movie up to 24 times a day to meet demand, the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported.
The film’s popularity is something of a surprise, given that Poland is a predominantly Roman Catholic country, with nearly 40 percent of the population attending a weekly Mass. The governing right-wing Law and Justice party promotes an image of Poland based on Christian values, and some of its members have attacked the film.
Jacek Kurski, a former member of Parliament for the Law and Justice party who is now the chairman of the state television company Telewizja Polska, called “Clergy” a “provocative, trashy movie” in an interview with the broadcaster. He added that it was “just another attack on the Catholic Church, brutal and untrue.”
A spokesman for the Polish Bishops’ Conference, the central organ of the church in the country, declined to comment.
“Clergy” stirred controversy in Poland even before it opened. On Sept. 21, it was shown at the Gdynia Film Festival, and received an 11-minute ovation. That made it a front-runner for one of the festival’s prizes, awarded to the movie that receives the longest applause. But the award was canceled soon afterward, leading newspapers to speculate that organizers had panicked about potentially having to give “Clergy” victory. The organizers denied that suggestion in a statement, saying the applause for other films in the festival had been interrupted, making it impossible to decide the prize fairly.
Mr. Smarzowski, the director, said in an email that he decided to make “Clergy” after being overwhelmed by the church’s power in Poland. “The church is present in our offices, on the street, and pushes us home and to bed,” he said. The church’s failure to deal with child abuse — “hiding pedophiles in their cassocks and transferring them from parish to parish” — also needed discussion, he said.

“This movie is addressed to Catholics,” he added. “I hope that after leaving the cinema, they will realize they are co-responsible for what they see on screen.”

The success of “Clergy” is even more unexpected given the reactions to recent productions at Polish theaters. In 2017, Catholics and right-wing groups protested regularly outside the Powszechny Theater in Warsaw, where “The Curse,” directed by the Croatian director Oliver Frljic, was being performed. In one of the iconoclastic play’s scenes, a woman performs fellatio on a sex toy attached to a statue of Pope John Paul II, who is an idol in Poland.
Actors in “The Curse” said they received threats. Foul-smelling butyric acid, sometimes used in stink bombs, was poured inside the theater, forcing it to shut for a month. Days after its premiere, prosecutors opened an investigation into whether anyone had committed blasphemy. (No one has been charged.) After the Polish theater festival Dialog tried to stage the play last October, promised funding was withdrawn.
Problems have continued for the Powszechny Theater. On Sept. 23, it was due to perform “The Curse” on tour in Slupsk, in northern Poland, but the venue was subjected to another butyric acid attack. The play had to be moved to a basketball court.
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Pawel Lysak, the Powszechny’s co-director, said in a telephone interview that cultural censorship was a growing problem in Poland, but, he added, “Clergy” showed that the church’s history of child abuse could at least be discussed. “Now is a completely different time from when we did ‘The Curse,’ ” he said. “A year ago, the bishops did not talk at all about pedophilia. Now they do every week. It’s a very good time for ‘Clergy.’ ”
Pope Francis’ recent moves on clerical sexual abuse, including meeting victims during a trip to Ireland, focused many in Poland on the issue, Mr. Lysak added. Events in Poland may also have helped. On Oct. 2, an appeals court in the western city of Poznan ruled that a Roman Catholic order should pay damages to a woman who was sexually abused when she was 13. And next month, the Polish church will publish a long-anticipated report on child abuse.

Happy birthday Ivanka!
Born: October 30, 1981 (age 37 years)

Hanne Boel – Standing On The Edge

Halloween at the White House 2018
On Sunday, October 28, 2018, the South Lawn will fill with little ghosts and goblins, witches, dragons, and other imaginative costumes as the Trump Administration celebrates this year’s Halloween at the White House.
Gates will be open to military families, and local schoolchildren with their parents from 4:30 to 7:30 PM (tickets were distributed by the Department of Education and the White House Military Office).
Cornstalks as tall as the Truman balcony will hang from the White House columns, while colorful fall foliage drapes the South Portico staircases. A sprawling harvest of decorative pumpkins, gourds, and hay bales will be on display for the trick-or-treaters.
The President and First Lady will hand out commemorative candy in front of the South Portico, and several departments and agencies will be in attendance along with a variety of fun items and activities for the children to participate in. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will have a moon carpet set up on the South Lawn, and robotics displays will be set up by First Lego Robotics League from the Department of Education. The Department of Transportation will hand out paper airplanes, the Department of Agriculture will feature a tractor for the kiddos to explore, and the Department of Health and Human Services will have emergency vehicles on display. Children will also be able to see the Presidential Limo known as “The Beast,” which is being brought in by the United States Secret Service.

Before departing the grounds, children will be invited to explore a hay bale maze.
Adding to the festive holiday atmosphere, the Rolling Strings – the United States Air Force Band – will play traditional Halloween songs and modern tunes.

President Trump and The First Lady Host Halloween at the White House

Vatican News Styles Pope as “Successor of Christ”
VaticanNews slightly confused: Is Pope Francis the successor of Peter and the representative of Christ on earth or even the “successor of Christ”?
(Rome) The Vatican’s news portal, active since December 2017, VaticanNews, has repeatedly described Pope Francis as the “successor of Christ”.
VaticanNews spokespersons can make a “Freudian” slip. Is such a lapse underlying that which VaticanNews has repeatedly undermined?
The fact is that Vatican News, the Holy See’s news agency, falsely referred to Pope Francis not as the successor to Peter or vicar of Christ on earth, but as the “successor of Christ,” a name previously unknown to the Church and theologically meaning hyperpapism.
The article published on Tuesday about the papal celebrations in the coming three months of November-January ended in its first version with the note:
“[…] on Sunday, January 13, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord, the successor of Christ will celebrate Holy Mass and the baptism for children in the Sistine Chapel at 9:30.”
After some Catholic media were amazed at the titulation, the passage in “Successor of Peter (see Lumen Gentium, 23)” was corrected.
However, this was not the first incident of its kind. Last August 29, VaticanNews published an article about Pope Francis’ journey to Ireland. The headline read: “Catechesis of the Pope: The families, joy for the world, radiate the love of Christ”. It read:
“In the Procathedral of Dublin, the successor of Christ declared …”

Chrissie aka Wild Thing’s comment……..
When a king has a successor, that king is no longer king; his successor is. To declare that Christ has a successor is to worship the anti-Christ. Any Pope who calls himself the “successor” (not “vicar”, but “successor) of Christ is anti-Christ.
This is outright heresy.

Federal Government Tells Catholic Bishops Not to Destroy Sex Abuse Documents
New York Times
The Department of Justice has sent a sweeping request to every Roman Catholic diocese in the United States not to destroy documents related to the handling of child sexual abuse, a sign that the federal investigation into the church could grow far more extensive.
Catholic bishops have been asked by the federal government to retain their files on a broad array of internal matters, including sexual abuse investigations, and the transfer of priests across state or international borders, or to treatment centers. The request includes documents contained in “secret archives” — the confidential files that are kept by each diocese.
News reports last week revealed that the Justice Department had opened an investigation into all eight Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania, and the diocese of Buffalo in New York. This marked the first time the federal government had undertaken an investigation of the church’s handling of abusive priests, a scandal that surfaced in the United States in the mid-1980s.
But this request to preserve files, first disclosed by Whispers in the Loggia, a site that closely follows the Catholic hierarchy, suggests that federal investigators are throwing a very wide net. The abuse scandal, long fueled by the shocking details in the church’s own personnel documents, may now grow like an uncontrolled wildfire.
“Every diocese should assume that it is potentially under investigation,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor and founder of CHILD USA, a think tank at the University of Pennsylvania that studies child sexual abuse and prevention. “Given the crisscrossing paths of priests sent from one diocese to another across the United States, I can understand why someone in Washington would say, ‘O.K., everybody needs to hold onto their evidence right now because we’re just starting to sketch out where the pedophiles have been sent by the hierarchy.’”
Abuse victims have despaired for years that the church in the United States would never be called to fully account for the perpetrators and the people they violated. There have been government-run inquiries in countries like Australia and Ireland, but the federal government in the United States has been reluctant to intervene, until now. The letter from the United States attorney suggested only the potential of a broader investigation, but abuse victims greeted it as a turning point nevertheless.

“It’s going to bring tears to my eyes just thinking about it,” said Tim Lennon, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “It’s hopefully the beginning of a process of long-awaited justice. For survivors, it’s been a long road to bring those who have harmed children and the vulnerable to justice.”

The request to the bishops was contained in a seven-page letter and set of instructions from United States Attorney William M. McSwain, of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and sent to the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. The letter, dated Oct. 9, asked that Cardinal DiNardo “immediately transmit copies” to all dioceses in the United States. The bishops conference then sent it to the dioceses on Oct. 23.
Mr. McSwain said in his letter that at this point there was “no need” for the bishops to produce any documents “solely on account of this letter.” He said that the letter was only a request that the church entities “not destroy, discard, dispose of, delete, or alter any of the described documents.” But he started his letter by saying that his office was “investigating possible violations of federal law.”
The general counsel of the bishops’ conference, Anthony R. Picarello Jr., warned in a cover letter to the bishops that the request was “very broad.” Mr. Picarello wrote that the bishops conference had taken steps to preserve its documents, and advised the dioceses to do the same. But he said he had told the United States attorney that the bishops’ conference “lacks the authority” to make sure that the dioceses retain their documents.
In a statement on Friday, Mr. Picarello said, “We have transmitted the U.S. Attorney’s letter at his request and in the spirit of cooperation with law enforcement.” His office said he was unavailable for a telephone interview.

Mr. Lennon said that two groups advocating for survivors first asked the federal government for an investigation in 2003. He said that survivors asked again in 2014 and in August of this year, after a Pennsylvania grand jury released a report that found more than 300 priests had abused over 1,000 children in a 70-year period.

Since then, attorneys general in at least a dozen states have opened investigations into whether their local dioceses engaged in cover-ups of priests and other church employees who sexually abused minors. The District of Columbia and Virginia announced investigations this past week.
Many dioceses have already said they will cooperate with local prosecutors, and they are likely to take the same stance in relation to the request to preserve their documents.
“We’re doing that anyway,” said Penny Wiegert, director of communications and publications for the Diocese of Rockford, in Illinois, “because we’re cooperating with our own Illinois state attorney, and we have our own documentation retention protocol anyway.”
But in the past, several dioceses have been accused of destroying files on abusive priests, according to BishopAccountability.org, a research and advocacy group. Some church employees, including priests, nuns and lay people, have been responsible for blowing the whistle when documents were discarded or shredded, noted David Clohessy, a founder of the survivors network.
He said on Friday, “We applaud this move and hope it prevents the destruction of incriminating records that could lead to the prosecution of clerics who commit or conceal horrific child sex crimes.”

Pope Decries ‘Persecution’ of Catholic Church Through Accusations
Remarks, at the end of a gathering of bishops, are unlikely to mollify critics in wake of sex-abuse scandals
The Wall Street Journal
ROME—Pope Francis told a gathering of bishops from around the world that the Catholic Church is being persecuted through accusations—an apparent allusion to clerical sex-abuse scandals that have undermined the credibility of the papacy and church hierarchy over the course of this year.
Addressing the closing session of a synod of bishops at the Vatican on Saturday, the pope repeated warnings he has made in recent weeks against the “Great Accuser,” or the devil, who “in this moment is accusing us strongly, and this accusation becomes persecution,” and who seeks to “soil the church.”

“This is the moment to defend our mother” the church, said the pope, in remarks unlikely to mollify critics who say he has failed to recognize the hierarchy’s responsibility for the abuse crisis. “The accuser is attacking our mother through us, and no one touches our mother.”

The gathering of more than 250 bishops was dedicated to the topic of youth, exploring how the church can better engage young Catholics and help them find roles in the church, whether as priests, nuns or lay members.
A published agenda for the meeting made only passing reference to sex abuse, but after months of scandals in the U.S., Latin America and Australia—and the claim by a former Vatican diplomat that Pope Francis himself had ignored sexual misconduct by a U.S. cardinal—the subject inevitably loomed over the proceedings.
Bishops frequently addressed clerical sex abuse during the first week of the monthlong synod, Archbishop Eamon Martin of Ireland told reporters on Friday.
The 60-page final document, released late Saturday, devoted two paragraphs to the subject of abuse, calling for “rigorous measures of prevention,” starting with the selection and education of clergy and other church employees. Quoting Pope Francis, the document lays much of the blame for sex abuse on “clericalism,” or an excessive deference to the church’s hierarchy.
The final document is “frankly inadequate and disappointing on the abuse matter,” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, a member of the council that organized the synod, said in an email. “There’s very little sense of heartfelt apology in the text.”
The archbishop, who had previously called on the pope to cancel the gathering because of the sex-abuse crisis, said Saturday that “church leaders outside the United States and a few other countries dealing with the problem clearly don’t understand its scope and gravity.”
Some bishops from the developing world objected that their peers from western countries were overemphasizing sex abuse at the synod, according to Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, who helped draft the final document, which touches on topics ranging from migration to the internet and their impact on the lives of young Catholics.

“To be fair to the synod, you can’t say (sex abuse is) the number-one thing,” Cardinal Gracias, who is also a top adviser to Pope Francis, told the Catholic website Crux. “The statement should answer the needs of the United States, Ireland, Australia, but not just them.”

The pope has called another international meeting of bishops to discuss clerical sex abuse for four days in February.

Chrissie aka Wild Thing’s comment……….
I hope somebody is keeping score of all the abusers Francis has been and is still protecting, and even promoting to high positions. It’s a long list. God certainly is.
For the Pope and their church to be saying these things against the accusers is pure evil of them. Disgusting. This Pope should be ashamed of himself.

Candace Owens – discusses Kanye West and the unstoppable black conservative movement
Candace Owens: Kanye understands exactly what he’s doing
Turning Point USA communications director and friend of the rapper blasts the ‘racist’ media backlash after Kanye West’s meeting with President Trump and says now is the time for black conservatives.

Young Black Conservatives meet at the White House
Sources:
#YBLS
Leo Dunson – @leodunson
David J. Harris Jr – @DavidJHarrisJr
Candace Owens – @RealCandaceO
Rob Smith – @robsmithonline
Adrian Norman – @madriannorman
Jermain Botsio – @Jermainbotsio
Diamond and Silk – @diamondandsilk
Terence Williams – @w_terrence
Ben Carson – @secretarycarson
Black Conservative Patriot – #blackconservativepatriot

Chrissie aka Wild Thing’s comment…….
More on the red wave among American blacks. This is so exciting and it really makes my heart smile.
They are encouraging prayer for our nation and our President.