Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 253, Ed. 1 Saturday, April 12, 2014 Page: 8 of 24
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8A
Saturday, April 12, 2014
INTERNATIONAL
Denton Record-Chronicle
Pope takes responsibility for ‘evil’
L’ Osservatore Romano/AP
In this picture made available by the Vatican newspaper “L’ Osservatore Romano,” Pope
Francis is confessed by a priest in St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican on Friday.
By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press
VATICAN CITY - Pope
Francis said Friday he took per-
sonal responsibility for the
“evil” of priests who raped and
molested children, asking for-
giveness from victims and say-
ing the church must be even
bolder in its efforts to protect
the young. It was the first time
a pope has taken personal re-
sponsibility for the sex crimes
of his priests and begged for-
giveness.
Francis’ off-the-cuff re-
marks were the latest sign that
he has become sensitized to the
gravity of the abuse scandal af-
ter coming under criticism
from victims’ advocacy groups
for a perceived lack of attention
to, and understanding of, the
toll it has taken on the church
and its members.
The evolution began last
month when he named four
women and an abuse survivor
to a sex abuse advisory panel
that the Vatican has suggested
will address the critical issue of
sanctioning bishops who cover
up for pedophiles.
Francis delivered the com-
ments to members of the Inter-
national Catholic Child Bu-
reau, a French Catholic net-
work of organizations that pro-
tects children’s rights. Sitting
with them in his library Friday,
Francis spoke slowly, deliber-
ately and softly in his native
Spanish, deviating from his
text.
“I feel compelled to take
personal responsibility for all
the evil that some priests, many
— many in number, [al-
though] not in comparison
with the totality — to assume
personal responsibility and to
ask forgiveness for the damage
caused by the sexual abuse of
the children,” he said.
“The church is aware of this
damage,” he continued. “We
don’t want to take a step back
in dealing with this problem
and the sanctions that must be
imposed. On the contrary, I
think we must be even stron-
ger! You don’t play around
with the lives of children.”
No pope has ever taken per-
sonal responsibility for the tens
of thousands of children who
were molested by priests over
decades as bishops moved
them from parish to parish
rather than reporting them to
police.
Pope John Paul II de-
nounced priests who abused
children, saying there was no
place for them in the priest-
hood.
Pope Benedict XVI ex-
pressed sorrow and regret to
victims, met with them and
even wept with them. But nei-
ther ever took personal respon-
sibility for the crimes or begged
forgiveness as Francis did.
Last month, Francis named
the initial members of a com-
mission to advise him on best
practices to combat sexual
abuse in the church. Half of the
eight members are women and
one, Marie Collins, was as-
saulted by a priest as a child.
Collins, who became a well-
known activist in the fight for
victims’justice, had previously
called on Benedict to ask per-
sonal forgiveness for the scan-
dal and those church leaders
who put loyalty to the church
ahead of the safety of children.
The Vatican has said Collins
and the other members will
now draft the statutes of the
commission and would look
into the legal “duties and re-
sponsibilities” of church per-
sonnel, a suggestion that they
might take up the critical ques-
tion of disciplining complicit
bishops. Church law provides
for sanctions if a bishop is neg-
ligent in carrying out his du-
ties, but to date no bishop has
been disciplined for protecting
an abuser.
Though unclear, Francis’
comments about the “sanc-
tions that must be imposed”
could be a reference to the need
to hold bishops accountable.
Francis named the commis-
sion members in March after
coming under fire for taking no
action since the commission it-
self was announced in Decem-
ber. Victims groups also have
been irked that he hasn’t met
with survivors and recently
told a newspaper that the
church had been unfairly at-
tacked for its abuse record. His
defensive tone, coupled with
the perceived languishing of
the commission, led survivors
and church commentators to
question whether he “got it” on
sex abuse.
The main U.S. victim’s
group, SNAP, said it was wait-
ing for more.
“We beg the world’s Catho-
lics: Be impressed by deeds,
not words,” said SNAP’s out-
reach director Barbara Dorris
in a statement. “Until the pope
takes decisive action that pro-
tects kids, be skeptical and vigi-
lant.”
Francis’ comments during
the closed audience were re-
ported in part by Vatican Ra-
dio, and Vatican Television ex-
cluded them entirely in its ini-
tial edit of the audience.
Leader confident
signals are from
Flight 370 plane
By Rob Griffith
and Kristen Gelineau
Associated Press
PERTH, Australia - With
the Malaysian jetliner mystery
now five weeks old, officials have
narrowed the search zone for the
missing plane and are “very con-
fident” the underwater signals
they have heard are from its
black box, Australia’s prime
minister said Friday.
At the same time, however,
those electronic signals are fad-
ing, Tony Abbott added.
On a visit to China, Abbott
briefed President Xi Jinping on
the search for Flight 370, which
vanished March 8 while flying
from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
to Beijing, carrying 239 people,
most of them Chinese. Based on
an analysis of satellite data, offi-
cials believe the Boeing 777 flew
off-course for an unknown rea-
son and went down in the south-
ern Indian Ocean off the west
coast of Australia.
Crews involved in the hunt
have in recent days focused on a
more-targeted area in the ocean
for the source of the electronic
signals, Abbott said.
‘We have very much narrow-
ed down the search area and we
are very confident that the sig-
nals that we are detecting are
from the black box on MH370,”
he told reporters in Shanghai,
referring to the plane’s flight da-
ta and cockpit recorders.
Search crews are racing
against time because the batter-
ies powering the recorders’ loca-
tor beacons last only about a
month — and more than a
month has passed since the
plane disappeared. Finding the
devices after the batteries fail
will be extremely difficult be-
cause the water in the area is
15,000 feet deep.
‘We’re getting into the stage
where the signal from what we
are very confident is the black
box is starting to fade,” he added.
‘We are hoping to get as much
information as we can before the
signal finally expires.”
The Australian ship Ocean
Shield is towing a U.S. Navy de-
vice that detects signals from the
flight recorders. Two sounds
heard last Saturday were deter-
mined to be consistent with the
signals emitted from the black
boxes. Two more sounds were
detected in the same general ar-
ea Tuesday.
“We are confident that we
know the position of the black
box flight recorder to within
some kilometers,” Abbott said.
“But confidence in the approxi-
mate position of the black box is
not the same as recovering
wreckage from almost 41/2 kilo-
meters beneath the sea or finally
determining all that happened
on that flight.”
Abbott told the Chinese lead-
er that the next steps will be a
“very long, slow and painstaking
process.”
An Australian air force P-3
Orion, which has been dropping
sonar buoys into the water near
where the Ocean Shield picked
up the sounds, detected another
possible signal Thursday, but
Angus Houston, who is coordi-
nating the search, said in a state-
ment that an initial assessment
had determined it was not relat-
ed to an aircraft black box.
The Ocean Shield towed its
ping locator to try to find addi-
tional signals Friday, and the
Orions were continuing their
hunt, Houston said. The under-
water search zone is currently a
500-square-mile patch of the
seabed.
“It is vital to glean as much
information as possible while
the batteries on the underwater
locator beacons may still be ac-
tive,” Houston said.
Ukrainian leader
brings out charm
By Peter Leonard
Associated Press
DONETSK, Ukraine -
Ukraine’s prime minister went
on a charm offensive Friday as
he visited the country’s south-
east, pledging to give regions
more powers and to defend the
rights of Russian speakers.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk met with
regional officials who once op-
posed his new government in
Kiev, but not with protesters oc-
cupying government buildings
in the cities of Donetsk or Lu-
hansk. Still, he left it unclear
how his ideas differed from the
demands of the protesters or
from Russia’s advocacy of feder-
alization for Ukraine.
“There are no separatists
among us,” said Gennady
Kernes, mayor of Kharkiv,
Ukraine’s second-largest city,
where the government recap-
tured a building taken over by
protesters earlier in the week.
Kernes and other officials asked
Yatsenyuk to allow votes on au-
tonomy for their regions but not
on secession.
Ukraine’s government has
resisted federalization, saying
that would lay the groundwork
for the country’s breakup.
Ukraine’s eastern industrial
heartland was the support base
for Kremlin-friendly president
Viktor Yanukovych, who was
ousted in February after months
of protests. Last month, the Cri-
mea region voted to secede and
was annexed by Russia — but
only after Russia took over the
peninsula by force.
Russia has ratcheted up the
pressure on Ukraine, with Presi-
dent Vladimir Putin warning
European leaders of a risk to the
gas supplies going to them
through Ukraine. He has threat-
ened that Russia could shut off
energy shipments to Ukraine if
it fails to pay its debts. Those
debts are a source of contention
between the two nations, with
the Russian estimate rising from
$L7 billion earlier this month to
more than $35 billion on Thurs-
day.
Before leaving Donetsk for
another eastern city, Yatsenyuk
told reporters he favors a peace-
ful solution to the standoff.
However, he left the door open
to storming the buildings occu-
pied by armed men.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry
warned the Ukrainian govern-
ment against using force against
protesters, saying that such ac-
tion would derail the talks on
settling the crisis between the
United States, the European
Union, Russia and Ukraine set
for next week, as well as any oth-
er diplomatic efforts. It lashed
out at the U.S. warning to slap
more sanctions on Russia in
case of an escalation of the con-
flict, saying that “an escalation is
only and exclusively possible if
Kiev dares to do so, relying on
massive support of the U.S. and
the EU.”
The protesters in Donetsk,
who have held the regional ad-
ministration building since Sun-
day, initially called for a referen-
dum on secession but later re-
duced the demand to a vote on
autonomy, with the possibility of
holding another later on wheth-
er to join Russia.
Eastern Ukraine has a high
proportion of Russian-speakers
and many of them fear being re-
pressed by the acting govern-
ment in Kiev that took over
when Yanukovych fled
Yatsenyuk sought to assuage
these fears in alive TV interview.
“I will be the first to guaran-
tee the right of every Ukrainian
to speak any language they
want,” he said, speaking in Rus-
sian. “I have never met any Rus-
sian-speaking Ukrainian who
would say he wants protection
because he is not allowed to
speak Russian.”
Kiev and Western officials
say Russia is whipping up ten-
sions in eastern Ukraine to es-
tablish a pretext for sending in
troops.
Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov, however, denied
any Russian involvement in the
events in the east.
in the Denton Record-Chro
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Cobb, Dawn. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 253, Ed. 1 Saturday, April 12, 2014, newspaper, April 12, 2014; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1124372/m1/8/?q=waco+tornado: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .