Um cão que nasceu sem as patas dianteiras ganhou uma "cadeira de rodas" para conseguir se locomover.

A ideia partiu do dono do cachorro, Avi Kozi, que adotou o animal quando soube que ele seria sacrificado pelos proprietários originais.

Kozi, que é diretor da Sociedade Protetora dos Animais de Israel, disse que esperou o primeiro ano para ver se o cão, Hoopa, aprenderia a andar usando apenas as patas traseiras, o que não ocorreu.

Por isso, encomendou a "cadeira de rodas".

Agora, ele aguarda a fabricação de uma prótese que deve ajudar Hoopa a se sentar e a se levantar sozinho.

Fonte: BBC Brasil

In the early 20th century, the Roman Catholic Church had its own secret police. A zealous Vatican functionary, Monsignor Umberto Benigni, set up a group of trusted clerical informers, called the Sodalitium Pianum, to spy on priests and even bishops suspected of heresy. Benigni's ecclesiastical smersh even had its secret code and pseudonyms: then-reigning Pope Pius X was "Lady Micheline," and the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Merry del Val, was "Miss Romey."

The target of Benigni's agents was the heresy of modernism—a broad term encompassing the efforts of certain scholarly priests and laymen to bring Catholic teaching into line with contemporary scientific and philosophic thought. In 1921, long after the leading modernists had been excommunicated, Pope Benedict XV sensibly suppressed Benigni's spy ring. The memory of modernism has been kept alive, however, by a solemn oath against the heresy* that every Catholic priest since 1910 has had to take before receiving holy orders. (…) Pope Paul VI decided to abolish the oath-taking requirement, which a generation of seminarians has viewed with bemusement if not contempt; in the future, priests will simply be required to make a general statement of support for the teachings of the church.

History's Backwater

Modernism flowered at a time when Catholicism seemed to be a backwater of intellectual history and the Pope was the intransigent "prisoner of the Vatican." By far the most famous modernist was Abbe Alfred Loisy(1857-1940), a Frenchman, whose book The Gospel and the Church (1902) used the critical tools of modern Scriptural scholarship to justify the dogmatic development from primitive Christianity to the complex Catholicism of his time. In so doing, he conceded that the doctrines of the 20th century church were different from the simple faith of Jesus' first disciples—a judgment that Rome denounced as heretical. In his 1907 encyclical, Pascendi, Pius X issued a formal condemnation of modernism as "the compendium of all heresies," making several allusions to Loisy's work; one year later, Loisy was excommunicated.

In England, the modernist movement found a voice in Irish-born Jesuit George Tyrrell. A convert from Protestantism, Tyrrell proposed that the church restate its beliefs in the light of discoveries made by science and philosophy—a view that Rome found no more palatable than the novelties of Loisy. Expelled from the Jesuits, Tyrrell was excommunicated in 1907; he refused to confess his errors, died two years later. Yet even Pius X was moved by Tyrrell's death. "Unlike most arch-heretics, he died a good Christian," the Pontiff was said to have told a friend.

At its peak of influence, modernism was an intellectual movement involving at most a few thousand avant-garde Catholics in France, Germany, England and Italy. The church nonetheless moved to suppress it as if a phalanx of Luthers were in its midst. Pius' encyclical Pascendi ordered that all seminary teachers who were tainted by the heresy be fired, required bishops to take other stern measures to eradicate the spiritual disease. Loyal Catholics suspected of involvement with the movement were forced to issue humiliating public denunciations of modernism.

Stunted Development

Some church historians now contend that the repressive measures of Pius X (who was proclaimed a saint in 1954) stunted Catholic intellectual development for a generation. Biblical experts were particularly suspect. For years Catholic exegetes were required to abide by the conservative judgments of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, set up at the beginning of the century; among its dicta was the ruling that Moses authored the Pentateuch—even though it contains an account of his death clearly penned centuries later. Not until Pius XII's 1943 encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, were Catholic Biblicists able to study Scripture with the same freedom enjoyed by their Protestant counterparts.

Shortly before his death, Tyrrell wrote to a friend that "my failure and many another may pave the way for eventual success." Today, Loisy's argument that the Bible must be scrutinized in the light of scholarship is an accepted premise of Scripture experts; Tyrrell's proclamation that the church needs to restate its faith in the language and terms of modern man is a common place on the lips of Popes. Whatever their specific errors—and most of their writings look terribly dated today—the modernists have a fair claim to be regarded as genuine precursors of the Second Vatican Council.

* Among other things, the 600-word oath requires seminarians to state that they believe in miracles and also in rational proofs of God's existence, and that they "totally reject the heretical notion of the evolution of dogmas."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,837117-2,00.html#ixzz0fUw6FYx5

O jesuíta egípcio mais destacado nos âmbitos eclesial e intelectual, Henri Boulad, lança um SOS para a Igreja de hoje em uma carta dirigida a Bento XVI. A carta foi transmitida através da Nunciatura no Cairo. O texto circula em meios eclesiais de todo o mundo.

Santo Padre:

Atrevo-me a dirigir-me directamente a Vós, pois meu coração sangra ao ver o abismo em que a nossa Igreja está se precipitando. Saberá desculpar a minha franqueza filial, inspirada simultaneamente pela “liberdade dos filhos de Deus” a que São Paulo nos convida e pelo amor apaixonado à Igreja.

Agradecer-lhe-ei também que saiba desculpar o tom alarmista desta carta, pois creio que “são menos cinco” e que a situação não pode esperar mais.

Permite-me, em primeiro lugar, apresentar-me. Sou jesuíta egípcio-libanês do rito melquita e logo farei 78 anos. Há três anos sou reitor do Colégio dos jesuítas no Cairo, após ter desempenhado os seguintes cargos: superior dos jesuítas em Alexandria, superior regional dos jesuítas do Egito, professor de Teologia no Cairo, director da Cáritas – Egipto e vice-presidente da Cáritas Internacional para o Oriente Médio e a África do Norte.

Conheço muito bem a hierarquia católica do Egipto por ter participado durante muitos anos de suas reuniões como Presidente dos Superiores Religiosos de Institutos no Egipto. Tenho relações muito próximas com cada um deles, alguns dos quais são ex-alunos meus. Por outro lado, conheço pessoalmente o Papa Chenouda III, que via com frequência. Quanto à hierarquia católica da Europa, tive a ocasião de me encontrar pessoalmente muitas vezes com alguns de seus membros, como o cardeal Koening, o cardeal Schönborn, o cardeal Martini, o cardeal Daneels, o arcebispo Kothgasser, os bispos diocesanos Kapellari e Küng, os demais bispos austríacos e outros bispos de outros países europeus. Estes encontros se produzem por ocasião das minhas viagens anuais para dar conferências pela Europa: Áustria, Alemanha, Suíça, Hungria, França, Bélgica… Nestas ocasiões me dirijo a auditórios muito diversos e à media (jornais, rádios, televisões…). Faço o mesmo no Egipto e no Oriente Próximo.

Visitei cerca de 50 países nos quatro continentes e publiquei cerca de 30 livros em aproximadamente 15 línguas, sobretudo em francês, árabe, húngaro e alemão. Dos 13 livros nesta língua, talvez Vós tenhais lido Gottessöhne, Gottestöchter (Filhos, filhas de Deus), que o seu amigo o Pe. Erich Fink, da Baviera, lhe fez chegar a suas mãos.

Não digo isto para me vangloriar, mas para lhe dizer simplesmente que as minhas intenções se fundam em um conhecimento real da Igreja universal e de sua situação atual, em 2009. More...

Serving as the basis for the latter charge was one brief, enigmatic document found in the British Foreign Office archive. In a ciphered dispatch dated 26 January 1944, the British minister to the Vatican, Sir Francis Godolphin d’Arcy Osborne, later the twelfth and last Duke of Leeds, reported that he had been summoned by Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione that very day. Maglione, who held doctorate, in canon low and theology, had been the papal nuncio in Switzerland and since 1939, had served as the Secretary of State. On 26 January, Maglione had sent for Osborne to say that "the Pope hoped that no Allied coloured troops, would be among the small number that might be garrisoned at Rome after the occupation."

Fonte : A Question of Race: Pope Pius XII and the "Coloured Troops" in Italy, Robert G. Weisbord & Michael W. Honhart, University of Rhode Island

Full article: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118941395/abstract

A propósito dos equívocos do ateísmo contemporâneo, eis o que escreveu uma comissão de prelados, num relatório enviado ao Papa em 1553:

“É preciso fazer qualquer esforço para permitir o menos possível a leitura do Evangelho... Que chegue o pouco que se costuma ler na missa, que não se permita a ninguém mais do que isso. Enquanto os homens se contentavam com aquele pouco, os interesses de Sua Santidade prosperaram, mas quando se quis ler mais, começaram a decair. Aquele livro, de facto (o Evangelho), foi o que, mais do que qualquer outro, suscitou contra nós aqueles turbilhões e aquelas tempestades pelas quais, por pouco, não ficávamos inteiramente perdidos. E, na verdade, se alguém o examinar inteira e cuidadosamente e depois comparar as instruções da Bíblia com aquilo que se faz nas nossas igrejas, reparará logo nas divergências e verá que a nossa doutrina, muitas vezes, é diferente e, ainda mais, contrária ao texto: se o povo entendesse isto, não pararia de reclamar contra nós, até que tudo fosse divulgado, e então nos tornaríamos objecto de desprezo e ódio em todo o mundo. Por isso, é preciso fazer com que o povo afaste os olhos da Bíblia, mas com muita cautela, para não suscitar tumultos.” Avvisi sopra i mezzi più opportuni per sostenere la Chiesa romana. Bologna 20 ottobre 1553. Biblioteca Nazionale di Parigi, foglio B, n.1088, vol.II, pp. 641/650.

Três séculos mais tarde diria Pio VII a propósito das traduções da Bíblia:

“As sociedades formadas em grande parte da de Europa, com o objectivo de a traduzir (a Bíblia) em línguas vulgares e divulgar a Palavra de Deus, fazem-me pavor. Temos que acabar com esta praga com todos os meios ao nosso alcance.” Bolla del 28 giugno 1816.

Eis como, durante dois mil anos, a Igreja confiou nos cristãos para usarem da sua razão e pensarem livre e inteligentemente.

More pictures coming soon… :)

    
The Tiger Temple, or Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, is a Buddhist temple in Western Thailand which keeps numerous animals, among them several tigers that can be petted by visitors.

The Theravada Buddhist temple is located in the Saiyok district of Thailand's Kanchanaburi province, not far from the border with Myanmar, some 38 km north-west of Kanchanaburi along the 323 highway. It was founded in 1994 as a forest temple and sanctuary for numerous wild animals.

According to the abbot and others associated with the temple, in 1999, the temple received the first tiger cub, it had been found by villagers and died soon after. The story goes that several tiger cubs were later given to the temple over time, typically when the mothers had been killed by poachers, others who wanted to get rid of their tiger "pets" or those were under pressure to do so as laws and policies surrounding the keeping of protected species became more strict.

Still defensive about the sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in myriad diocese in multiple countries, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, read a ridiculously juvenile and bigoted statement following a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva during which Keith Porteous Wood, representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, asserted that the church had breached several articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by continuing to cover up sexual abuse of children.

Read more at Shakesville

Statement submitted to UN Human Rights Council by the International Humanist and Ethical Union:

Bigoted statement by Silvano Tomasi:

The statement claimed that only 1.5 to 5 percent of Catholic Clergy were involved in child sex abuse. Reality check: that's still 22,500 sex predators.

If you like cute puppies, you will love this video! So-U.TV was at the launch of ‘Sunday Puppy’, the latest puppy homing event from the Hong Kong Dog Rescue. A great opportunity for dog lovers to meet and play with puppies, and maybe find their future pet-to-be.

http://www.so-u.tv/playVideo.php?lang=en&contestid=&id=1890

Considerando que a igreja acha que já estão perimé todos os cardeais com mais de 80 anos e impedidos assim de participar na eleição papal, como podemos adjectivar este papa que já vai nos 82?

Foto-cortesia do Coiso