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Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-20/so-long-paul-ryan-you-won-t-be-missed-jpwj0sem

Pope Francis told a gathering of cardinals Friday that clergy who break their vows by sexually abusing children are similar to Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ.

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Pope Francis told a gathering of cardinals Friday that clergy who break their vows by sexually abusing children are similar to Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ.

Vatican Pool/Getty Images

Pope Francis is urging predator priests who have raped or molested children to turn themselves in “to human justice, and prepare for divine justice,” devoting part of his Christmas message to the abuse scandals that he said have undermined the Catholic Church in 2018.

As cardinals and other church luminaries listened in the Vatican’s ornate Clementine Hall on Friday, Francis also compared priests who break their vows to Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ.

Francis told them that Judas “will always be present in the church,” since he represents an element of human weakness.

From Rome, NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports that the pope “spoke of the scandals that have undermined his papacy – it started with his own mishandling of the scandal in Chile and ended with U.S. prosecutors uncovering decades of cover-ups in the American Catholic Church.”

While acknowledging that the Vatican has made serious mistakes, Francis told the gathering, “The sins and crimes of consecrated persons are further tainted by infidelity and shame; they disfigure the countenance of the church and undermine her credibility.”

The church, Francis said, “will spare no effort to do all that is necessary to bring to justice whosoever has committed such crimes.”

The pope also emphasized the importance of a meeting of bishops in February 2019 to discuss how to protect minors, saying it will bring a chance to rid the institution of the “scourge” of sexual abuse and rape.

Speaking to the Roman Curia — the cardinals and others who make up the Catholic Church’s central government — the pope also gave ” heartfelt thanks” to the media for exposing the abuse that has taken place for decades within the church, mentioning journalists “who were honest and objective and sought to unmask these predators and to make their victims’ voices heard.”

Francis also seemed to reject the opinion voiced by some in the church who say the media has unduly focused on sexual abuse by priests. “The greater scandal in this matter is that of cloaking the truth,” he said.

At the televised event, cameras panned over the cardinals as they listened to the pope connect symbols and ideas of betrayal in Christianity — Judas, along with St. Augustine’s allegory of good seeds and weeds — to the current state of the Roman Catholic Church.

“Do you perhaps believe, brethren, that weeds cannot spring up even on the thrones of bishops?” the pope asked, quoting St. Augustine.

Referring to Satan, Francis said, “the Tempter, the Great Accuser, is the one who brings division, sows discord, insinuates enmity, persuades God’s children and causes them to doubt.”

“In reality, in reality,” Francis said, looking up at his audience in a break from his prepared speech. He then added, “Behind these sowers of weeds, we always find the 30 pieces of silver.”

At another point in his speech, Francis referred to the Bible’s King David — one of “the Lord’s anointed” who the pope said committed sins of “sexual abuse, abuse of power and abuse of conscience” before finally repenting.

“Today, too, there are many Davids who, without batting an eye, enter into the web of corruption and betray God, his commandments, their own vocation, the church, the people of God and the trust of little ones and their families,” the pope said.

The church will become stronger as it emerges from the scandals, Francis promised, citing Romans 13:12: “The night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

The Christmas speech came days after the pope accepted the resignation of Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Alexander Salazar, who was accused of abusing a minor while he was a priest in Pasadena in the 1990s.

As member station KPCC reports, Salazar was the subject of a police report in 2002, but the attorney general decided not to file a charge against him.

Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez says he became aware of the accusations against Salazar in 2005 — and that soon afterward, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith decided that Salazar could remain a bishop, with certain restrictions (which the Holy See has not publicly detailed).

The Salazar case was reviewed again this year by the archdiocese’s independent Clergy Misconduct Oversight Board, which deemed the allegations to be credible. That review was part of a broader inquiry ordered by Gomez.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2018/12/21/679071242/pope-francis-tells-abusive-priests-and-bishops-to-turn-themselves-in

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A partial government shutdown looks probable as President Donald Trump digs in his heels on his demand to fund a border wall.

Congress has until midnight Friday to either pass spending bills for seven federal agencies, or approve a stopgap spending measure that would push off a potential shutdown. If those efforts fail, the closure could affect hundreds of thousands of Americans’ jobs through the holidays.

Trump wants $5 billion in funding to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and has said he would be “proud” to shut the government down if Congress doesn’t accede to his demand.

The Office of Management and Budget started notifying federal agencies Thursday that they should prepare for a shutdown. Yet since lawmakers have already funded large portions of the government through the 2019 fiscal year, the current crisis would only shut down parts of the government. The unfunded agencies make up about a quarter of the government.

This is what could happen if there is a shutdown this weekend:

Federal employees will work without pay

More than 420,000 federal employees across numerous agencies will continue to work even if the government shuts down. They just won’t get paid for it immediately.

Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee say that number will include more than 41,000 federal law enforcement and correctional officers from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and thousands of other law enforcement and correctional officers.

The vast majority of Department of Homeland Security employees will also work without a regular paycheck. The nearly 90 percent of workers in the agency affected by a shutdown would include 53,000 Transportation Security Administration employees, as well as 42,000 Coast Guard employees.

As many as 54,000 employees from Customs and Border Protection — the agents who are currently working to secure the southern U.S. border — are also projected to work without paychecks. By forcing a shutdown over border security, Trump would cause the agents he often lauds for their efforts to stop illegal immigration to temporarily go without compensation.

Up to 5,000 Forest Service firefighters and 3,600 National Weather Service forecasters will also keep working without paychecks, according to Senate Democrats.

The special counsel’s office, which is investigating potential criminal connections between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, will continue operating.

Furloughed workers

Another 380,000 federal workers or more would be placed on temporary leave without receiving pay in the event of a government shutdown, according the Democrats.

Furloughs would affect vast swathes of Department of Commerce and NASA staff. About 41,000 people, or 86 percent, would be furloughed from the Commerce Department, along with a staggering 96 percent of NASA employees.

Four-fifths of the Forest and National Park Services, totaling more than 44,000 employees, would be sidelined, as would approximately 52,000 staff from the IRS, and about 7,100 Housing and Urban Development workers — 95 percent of the total.

Thirty percent of Transportation Department employees, equaling about 18,300, would be furloughed, as well.

All of that lost work could cost taxpayers huge amounts of money. An Office of Management and Budget review of a 2013 government shutdown during the Obama administration concluded that the cost of “the lost productivity of furloughed workers” alone was $2 billion. The cost may not go that high this time with five agencies still running.

That shutdown was one of the longest in U.S. history. A failure to fund the government by midnight Friday would likely create a closure that lasts into the new year, when Democrats take majority control of the House.

Trump himself said in a tweet Friday morning that “if the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last for a very long time.”

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/what-happens-if-government-shuts-down.html

Brian Kolfage, an Air Force veteran who lives in Florida, said he felt “deeply invested” in seeing the proposed wall come to fruition. The wall, which Trump has repeatedly promised, is still unstarted as Washington braces for a government shutdown over the president’s demand for taxpayer funding.

Source Article from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gofundme-border-wall-brian-kolfage_us_5c1cd79fe4b0407e9079c61a

In the fight against the Islamic State, the Kurds have been our best and most reliable ally. In Syria, in partnership with U.S. Special Operations, the Kurdish-led militia, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, have largely been responsible for the success in taking back territory, handling captured fighters, and liberating communities. In fact, they are still leading the fight against ISIS in eastern Syria.

So naturally, to thank them for shedding blood alongside U.S. personal, Trump has decided to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. This comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told him in a phone call to “get out of the way” because Turkish forces were preparing to attack the Kurds. Or so reports Jennifer Griffin of Fox News.

Seeing no problem with throwing our allies under the proverbial bus and under Ankara’s literal guns, Trump agreed and Tweeted out his new policy declaration on Wednesday, calling for a unilateral withdrawal of troops.

And if Trump or anyone else needed confirmation of Turkey’s intentions as soon as the U.S. left, on Thursday morning Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said, referring to Kurdish forces preparing fortifications against ISIS, “whatever they dig … when the time comes they will be buried in the trenches.”

As disturbing as that threat is, it’s not surprising.

Turkey has long viewed ethnic Kurdish forces as a threat. It has been waging a decadeslong war against Kurdish militants. Ankara has also labeled the Kurdish militias as terrorist organizations and considers them part of the Turkish-Kurdish separatist group known as the PKK.

In Syria, Turkey has also supported attacks on Kurdish forces, ejecting them from Afrin, a city in northern Syria where the United Nations has already alleged that Turkey-backed forces engaged in human rights abuses against Kurds. Those fights, of course, mean that Kurdish forces are forced to abandon their ongoing fight against ISIS to protect themselves against Turkish attacks.

That history also suggests that Trump knew well that an immediate casualty of the abandoning Syria would be our Kurdish allies, and he simply didn’t care.

Perhaps what Trump did not consider in the callous calculation, however, are just what the consequences of an all-out attack by Turkish forces on the Kurds would look like.

For one thing, the U.S. would likely be dragged back into the conflict while also giving up leverage in securing a long-term peace. Turkey is a member of NATO and an important ally in countering Russia’s moves in the region. That leaves the U.S. in a pinch, should an all-out fight between the Kurds and the Turks develop. Worse, it means ISIS may well regain power and territory. In the long run, such a fight would likely further destabilize the region and prevent any peace agreement between Turkey and the Kurds.

Beyond setting the stage for another devastating conflict, a hasty withdrawal also sends a clear message to would-be allies in Washington’s seemingly perpetual fight against terrorists (or anyone else): The U.S. is fickle and not an ally to be trusted.

The repercussions of the betrayal of our Kurdish allies to Turkey will continue to echo throughout U.S. foreign policy. The serious damage to our credibility, damage compounded by false claims of victory and decisions made at the behest of authoritarian regimes like Erdogan’s Turkey, will affect U.S. efforts elsewhere and for years to come.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/in-leaving-syria-the-us-sells-out-its-kurdish-allies-to-bloodthirsty-turkey

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