A woman jumped the barriers in St. Peter's Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday.
The 82-year-old pope quickly got up and was unhurt, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini. Footage aired on Italy's RAI state TV showed a woman dressed in a red jumper vaulting over the wooden barriers and rushing the pope before being swarmed by bodyguards.
The commotion occurred as the pope's procession was making its way toward the main altar and shocked gasps rang out through the public that packed the basilica. The procession came to a halt and security rushed to the trouble spot.
Benedettini said the woman who pushed the pope appeared to be mentally unstable and had been arrested by Vatican police. He said she also knocked down Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who was taken to hospital for a check up.
"During the procession an unstable person jumped a barrier and knocked down the Holy Father," Benedettini told The Associated Press by telephone. "(The pope) quickly got up and continued the procession."
After the incident, Benedict, flanked by tense bodyguards, resumed his walk to the basilica's main altar to start the Mass. He did appear somewhat shaken and leaned heavily on aides and an armrest as he sat down in his chair.
Benedict made no reference to the incident as the service started. As a choir sang, he sprinkled incense on the altar before opening the Mass with the traditional wish for peace in Latin: "Pax vobis" ("Peace be with you"). The faithful responded: "Et cum spiritu tuo" ("And also with you").
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2009 00:00 ||
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One of Hollywood's most enduring couples has separated.
Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, partners for 23 years and parents of two sons, split up over the summer, publicist Teal Cannady said in a statement Wednesday. She did not elaborate.
Sarandon, 63, and Robbins, 51, met while shooting the 1988 film "Bull Durham." He played a hotshot pitcher, she was the passionate fan who simultaneously seduced him and prepared him for the big leagues.
Sarandon and Robbins never married. Instead, they have been compared to other longtime Hollywood pairs who remain committed despite never officially tying the knot, such as Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.
Sarandon stars in "The Lovely Bones," opening worldwide next month. Robbins last appeared in 2008's "City of Ember."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
boo frikkin' hoo. Couldn't care less.
More kabuki to avert our eyes from the real crime being committed by Obama Inc.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
12/25/2009 2:32 Comments ||
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#2
Time for Tim to trade in that vintage VW bus for a nice new Prius!
#3
Nice to see this nws took six months to get out. Neither side did a self serving press conference or was shot out with their younger replacement lover. I'm not a fan of either but this shows a lot more class than the usual Hollywood split.
Decorated Christmas trees fill many shop windows here. At some clothing stores, the mannequins wear plastic Santa masks and black-tasseled red fezzes. Young street hawkers thread their way through the city's manic traffic wearing Santa hats strung with blinking lights. In the capital of the world's most populous Arab nation, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, more and more every year.
The holiday's gift-giving and decorating traditions have spread around the globe, even to many non-Christian nations - and an ever-growing number of Egyptians, Christian and Muslim alike, are enthusiastically adopting it as well.
Outside florist shops, you can find several types of Christmas trees for sale; native cypress, Holland fir and artificial trees made in China line the sidewalks. Specialty shops sell handmade colored-glass ornaments and small hand-painted statues of an Egyptian "Baba Noel" (Father Noel) carrying a sack of gifts. Greeting cards with hand-stitched designs of the Holy Family increasingly are popular; the cards are created by Christian families of the Zabaleen, the city's garbage collectors.
Although Egypt is overwhelmingly Muslim, 10 percent to 15 percent of its 80 million people are Coptic Christians. They take pride in Egypt's place in the biblical narrative as the refuge to which the Holy Family fled, to escape the pogrom of King Herod of Judea. While Coptic and Orthodox Christians here celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, based on the Julian calendar, many come out early to buy holiday trees and decorations.
Many Egyptian Muslims buy Christmas trees, and some celebrate the holiday as many do in Europe and the Americas. "We always celebrate Christmas," says Dolly Degwy, 40, a Muslim artist and writer with big, brown eyes and long, curly brown hair. "It's a time of the year when we are happy. We make a point that it is the birth of Jesus."
Degwy hosts a Christmas Eve dinner for Muslim and Christian friends, although she "dropped the turkey meal years ago," and she attends a Christmas Day dinner at a Muslim friend's home. "We don't have the equivalent of an Islamic holiday where you give gifts and decorate the house," she says. "We do it for the kids, as well." She has two Christmas trees in her home; one is in the bedroom of her 9-year-old daughter, who "gets to gussy it up the way she likes to," says Degwy, speaking with a slight British accent. "We have loads of gifts under the tree."
On the sidewalk outside the Gardenia florist shop, a wide selection of Christmas trees is mixed with cypress-leaf advent wreaths, Chinese-made ornaments and rice lights, and poinsettias imported from Holland. Ala Rady, the shop's manager for 30 years, says tree sales were down this year. "We used to get the big trees from Holland. Now we don't get too many, because they cost too much, and people aren't buying them." The trees can cost 1,000 Egyptian pounds, or $181.
More Egyptians than foreigners buy his trees, he says, explaining that "Muslims also like the tree for a new year's celebration. Everyone likes to celebrate Christmas, just like Christians celebrate our holidays." The best-selling trees this year? Artificial trees made in China, because they are cheaper and can be reused next year, he says. "Everything is coming from China. There is a joke that one day we will come home and find out that our spouses are Chinese."
An abundance of Christmas decorations spills from the Gift and Toys shop on the packed main thoroughfare of Zemalek, an upscale island neighborhood. A red-and-gold "Merry Christmas" sign hangs above the shop's door next to a Santa in a sleigh; reindeer are strung along a wire line into the top of a nearby tree. A near-life-sized wooden nativity crèche fills one front window. Three more nativity scenes, all imported from Italy, are inside, along with Chinese-made decorations. "What Child is This?" and "O, Little Town of Bethlehem" play from the store's loudspeakers. "Muslims will buy everything except the nativity scenes and religious icons but the Santas, trees and ornaments they buy," says salesman Hussein Salah.
Dagwy, who says she doesn't have a typical Muslim outlook, explained that Muslims who celebrate Christmas may have spent time in the West or married Christians. "We went to church schools and grew up among Christians," she said. "Most Muslims don't look at Christmas that way but we are very eclectic, religiously."
#1
There is certainly a place for Christmas in Islam, but not in jihadi Islam. Vatican's top cleric in Arabia walks a thin line From his base in the emirate of Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf, Archbishop Paul Hinder travels the Arabian Peninsula, even slipping in and out of Saudi Arabia - the birthplace of Islam, where restrictions on Christians are the toughest. He spoke wearing the traditional hooded robe of his Capuchin order. The white garb blends in just fine with the Arab robes worn by men in the region, so he wears it in public - but without a cross around his neck or the belt of three knots that also mark the order.
"People here know who I am, although I never wear a cross when I go outside out of respect for local conditions," said Hinter, a Swiss citizen. The biggest congregation - about 1.4 million Christians - live and work in Saudi Arabia, which is home of Islam's holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, and is ruled under the strict version of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. Hard-core Wahhabis vehemently resist any practice of Christianity or other religions in what they see as the heartland of Islam.
Hinder travels there several times a year, but only as a private citizen, not as an archbishop.
Bibles and crucifixes - and all non-Muslim religious symbols - are illegal and are confiscated at the border. The low-key Christian services that do take place cannot be led by ordained priests, so Catholics cannot attend a Mass or confess their sins.
Still, Hinter said conditions improved somewhat after Saudi King Abdullah visited the Vatican in 2007 and met with Pope Benedict XVI.
Christians now can gather in private houses in small groups for prayer, led by an unordained "community leader," he said.
"The climate is changing, but that does not mean there will be churches in Saudi Arabia tomorrow," he said.
The Vatican's top cleric in the heart of Muslim Arabia tends to a flock of 2 million Christians spread around six desert nations. But he has to do it quietly: Most of them must still pray in secret and are forbidden to display crosses and other symbols of their faith. From his base in the emirate of Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf, Archbishop Paul Hinder travels the Arabian Peninsula, even slipping in and out of Saudi Arabia - the birthplace of Islam, where restrictions on Christians are the toughest.
"We are tolerated, but not popular here," Hinder said in an interview in the archbishop's living quarters inside a Christian compound in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. He spoke wearing the traditional hooded robe of his Capuchin order. The white garb blends in just fine with the Arab robes worn by men in the region, so he wears it in public - but without a cross around his neck or the belt of three knots that also mark the order. "People here know who I am, although I never wear a cross when I go outside out of respect for local conditions," said Hinter, a Swiss citizen.
Still, he says, there are signs of slow change, even in Saudi Arabia, where small groups who in the past would have been punished or deported if caught practicing the Christian services are now left in peace to pray privately. The UAE and the neighboring Gulf nations of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman have taken greater steps. They have allowed churches to be built on land donated by the countries' rulers, though there are no outward signs that the buildings are houses of worship.
On Thursday night, Hinder led a midnight Christmas Eve Mass for several thousand the faithful at St. Joseph's Cathedral in Abu Dhabi. Reflecting the diversity of the community, more than a dozen Christmas Day services will be held for 10,000 worshippers in at least eight different languages. The cathedral is in a downtown compound that's also home to Anglican, Greek Orthodox and Egyptian Coptic churches. Crucifixes, icons, rosaries and other religious symbols are allowed within the walled compound. But the buildings' exteriors are spare and flat-roofed, avoiding any church-like architecture.
Besides Saudi Arabia, Hinder also oversees the needs of Catholics in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen, and Qatar. The vast majority of the region's Christians are migrants from the Philippines, India and other Asian nations, many of whom work as maids, civil servants or in lower management positions at banks and businesses.
Yemen is the only country under his purview that had indigenous Christians. Except for two priests, however, all of Yemen's 10,000 Christians, most of whom lived around the southern port city of Aden, were driven out during communist rule in South Yemen in the 1960s. Four old churches are slowly being restored there, though it is not clear how many indigenous Christians have returned, if any.
With no indigenous Christians, Gulf nations have long been the toughest in the Middle East in restricting Christian and other non-Muslim religious practices, though they rarely cross the line into outright persecution. In other Arab nations, Christians practice openly - though in Egypt, with the largest Christian minority, they often complain of discrimination at the hands of the Muslim majority. Hinter said he is careful not to do anything that could be construed as proselytizing or seeking conversions - a major taboo in Islam.
Hinter, who has been in his post for seven years, says members of his flock are tested in areas beyond religion, particularly exploitation by their employers and fear of losing their jobs in the recession. Some are not allowed to attend a church service at all by their employers, who often strictly control the lives of their maids, gardeners, cooks, drivers and nannies. "Their struggles are enormous," Hinder said. "They are often exploited and sometimes treated as human beings of second class."
The biggest congregation - about 1.4 million Christians - live and work in Saudi Arabia, which is home of Islam's holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, and is ruled under the strict version of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. Hard-core Wahhabis vehemently resist any practice of Christianity or other religions in what they see as the heartland of Islam.
Hinder travels there several times a year, but only as a private citizen, not as an archbishop. Bibles and crucifixes - and all non-Muslim religious symbols - are illegal and are confiscated at the border. The low-key Christian services that do take place cannot be led by ordained priests, so Catholics cannot attend a Mass or confess their sins.
Still, Hinter said conditions improved somewhat after Saudi King Abdullah visited the Vatican in 2007 and met with Pope Benedict XVI. Christians now can gather in private houses in small groups for prayer, led by an unordained "community leader," he said. "The climate is changing, but that does not mean there will be churches in Saudi Arabia tomorrow," he said.
A dispute is rumbling between Israel and the US Consulate in Jerusalem after a US diplomatic car allegedly tried running over a Defense Ministry security guard recently at an IDF checkpoint in the West Bank. The car had been stopped after the occupants refused to present identification papers. Israel is also furious that one of the consulate cars was found to have transported a Palestinian without permits between Jerusalem and the West Bank.
According to a detailed official Israel Police description of the incident obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post, the drivers refused to identify themselves or open a window or door. The drivers, according to the report, purposely blocked the crossing, tried running over one of the Israeli security guards stationed there and made indecent gestures at female guards.
The entire incident was documented by cameras at the crossing.
Following the incident, the head of the police's Security Department, Lt.-Cmdr. Meir Ben-Yishai, convened a meeting on November 18 at police headquarters in Jerusalem with the regional security officer at the consulate, Tim Laas. Also present were officials from the Defense Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, and the regional security officer at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, Dan Power.
According to a protocol of the meeting, obtained by the Post, Ben-Yishai described additional violations by consulate workers, and referred to at least one case in which a female Palestinian without appropriate documentation was found in a diplomatic car. Defense officials told the Post that there had been other similar cases in the past.
"We view this as an attempt to illegally transfer someone," Ben-Yishai said, according to the official police protocol.
Ben-Yishai also said the drivers of the cars, from east Jerusalem, hid their Israeli identity cards and put stickers over their names on their consulate-issued identity cards, since, as they claimed, "they are in a diplomatic vehicle and cannot be touched."
While Power apologized for the incident and tried
smoothing things over, Laas angered Ben-Yishai, according to the protocol, when he said it was unacceptable for "simple guards" to inspect senior diplomats.
Laas said the communication needed to be between the guard and the driver, since "we can't know who the guard is."
This was understood by those present as indicating his lack of trust in Israeli guards.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Decorated Christmas trees fill many shop windows here. At some clothing stores, the mannequins wear plastic Santa masks and black-tasseled red fezzes. Young street hawkers thread their way through the city's manic traffic wearing Santa hats strung with blinking lights. In the capital of the world's most populous Arab nation, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, more and more every year.
