A Pope’s Beatification Stirs Excitement and Dissension

 VATICAN CITY — On a sunny afternoon this week, St. Peter’s Square was abuzz with life. Crowds lined up at the metal detectors. Tourists snapped photos. A workman was spraying down the travertine steps to the basilica. And inside, red cloth screens cordoned off a side chapel that will soon draw as many visitors as Michelangelo’s Pietà nearby. 

Starting Sunday, that chapel is where the entombed remains of Pope John Paul II will be on view for public veneration — after Pope Benedict XVI presides over the biggest spectacle since his own installation in 2005: a beatification Mass that will move his adored predecessor a step closer to sainthood. 

The beatification is widely seen as a way not just to honor John Paul but to energize the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, like John Paul’s 26-year papacy itself, it has become intensely polarizing.

For one thing, Benedict waived the traditional five-year wait and began the process weeks after John Paul’s death, and critics across the Catholic spectrum have questioned the alacrity. Others say that the sex abuse crisis that emerged under John Paul is grounds against sainthood. On Saturday, at least one victims’ group plans a worldwide protest. 

Defenders, however, say beatification is simply the formal seal of approval for a wildly popular pope who helped bring down Communism and whom many Catholics, especially in his native Poland, already consider a saint. Hundreds of thousands are expected in Rome, the biggest crowds since 2005, when cries of “Santo subito!” or “Sainthood now,” erupted at his funeral Mass. 

“This beatification is different because this pope is different. He’s a man with a role in history, not just in church history,” said Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a liberal Catholic group and a biographer of John Paul who testified in his favor in the beatification process. “The seal of sainthood doesn’t close the debate on history,” he added. “In a certain sense, for many Catholics he’s already a saint, even without beatification and, let’s be honest, even without a miracle.” 

Saint-making is intensely political. The impulse must arise from the faithful, but ultimately most saints’ causes are championed by religious groups with the organizational skills, and fund-raising, to keep their causes alive. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and head of the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, Pope Benedict in 1989 criticized this tendency, saying there had been too many beatifications of marginal figures. 

But John Paul was an avid saint-maker who loosened the rules to make the process easier. He beatified more than 1,300 people and canonized 482 saints. Since 2005, Benedict has beatified 790 people and canonized 34 saints.For John Paul to be beatified, a Vatican committee had to rule that he had performed a miracle. (To advance to sainthood, he needs an additional miracle.) In the proceedings, doctors and experts testified that a French nun had been miraculously cured from Parkinson’s disease after praying to John Paul. Their testimony was then notarized, and the committee certified the miracle. 

To Vatican watchers, John Paul’s beatification is a snapshot of the Catholic Church in 2011 — mingling deep faith and dense bureaucracy, grass-roots devotion and top-down power politics, the medieval and the contemporary. 

Those who cannot make the journey to Rome can follow the beatification on Twitter, become fans of John Paul on Facebook or watch the proceedings on the Vatican’s own YouTube channel. (This is, after all, the institution that quickly embraced the printing press and mass communications and whose own office of evangelization gave rise to the term propaganda.) A vial of John Paul’s blood, saved by a Rome hospital in case he needed a transfusion, will now be used as a holy relic. 

In many ways, the beatification underscores how Benedict, a bookish yet never predictable pope whose papacy has been racked by crises and is intellectually focused on Europe, still derives much of his light and heat from his telegenic, globe-trotting predecessor.But it also shows how dark clouds still hang over John Paul’s papacy, not least the sex abuse crisis and his close ties to the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the Mexican founder of the wealthy and powerful religious order Legionaries of Christ. Father Maciel, a charismatic leader hailed by John Paul as a model of dynamic priesthood, was later found to have fathered several children and abused seminarians. Last year, Benedict took the step of placing the entire order under Vatican receivership. 

But during John Paul’s papacy, Vatican officials blocked an investigation of Father Maciel, and the pope publicly honored him in 2004 even after seminarians had come forward with allegations of abuse. Father Maciel was particularly close to John Paul’s longtime personal secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, now the archbishop of Krakow, who has championed the beatification.

Critics say that in beatifying John Paul, the Vatican is trying to close the history books before they have been fully opened. In a rare example of a meeting of the minds by traditionalists and progressives, The Remnant, a conservative Catholic publication, published a long statement on why the sex abuse scandal and the pope’s hazy ties to Father Maciel were grounds against beatification. (Unlike progressives, it also criticized John Paul’s loosening of the liturgy and his desire to reach out to people of other faiths.) The Catholic scholars who signed the statement also questioned the French nun’s cure. “The nexus between the purported cure of the nun and a ‘night of prayers to John Paul II’ seems dubious,” they wrote. “Did the prayers for this nun exclude the invocation of any and all recognized saints?” Asked recently in Rome whether the sex abuse crisis had become an issue in the beatification process, Cardinal Angelo Amato, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said that John Paul’s Christian virtues were on trial, not his papacy. “Sin exists. Our sins exist. But this doesn’t impede the holiness of others,” he added. 

But even he acknowledged the unusual speed of the beatification. John Paul “didn’t have to wait in the supermarket line,” he said, adding that the beatification proceedings were carried out with “the utmost attentiveness.” 

Yet the congregation is normally far more slow and cautious, and the beatifications of Pius XII, who reigned during World War II; Pope Paul VI, who presided over the Second Vatican Council; and John Paul I, the immediate predecessor of John Paul II, are still in progress. (Pope John XXIII, who opened the Second Vatican Council, has already been beatified.) 

For many who have come to Rome, however, John Paul’s beatification is simply an occasion to celebrate.

As she stood near St. Peter’s Square with a smile on her face and a yellow bandanna around her neck, Carla Fachini, from Paraná, Brazil, could barely contain her excitement. “We’re really happy,” she said. “It’s a big party.” 

Link: The Beatification of John Paul II

As Standoff Continues, a Bleaker Outlook for Ivory Coast

ACCRA, Ghana — Surrounded, outnumbered and under repeated attacks, the Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo has held out against all odds — and continued to do so on Friday — refusing to budge from the presidential residence in a last stand that has both befuddled and infuriated the international powers that are demanding his surrender.

“This stubbornness is absurd,” Foreign Minister Alain Juppé of France told French radio on Wednesday, after negotiations failed. “Gbagbo no longer has any options. Everyone has dropped him.”

But in his seemingly futile resistance, Mr. Gbagbo is doing what he knows best, playing for time and living up to his nickname: “le boulanger,” or the baker, who confounds his opponents by rolling them in flour and putting them in a nearly inescapable bind.

Every day that he remains in the presidential residence in Abidjan — guarded by about 200 loyal fighters, protected in a luxurious basement redoubt that, according to one visitor, includes a grand ministerial meeting room and a well-stocked library — Mr. Gbagbo makes the country increasingly ungovernable for his rival, Alassane Ouattara, who said late Thursday that he would now blockade his enemy in his residence.

In the latest sign of the violence gripping the country, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva said on Friday that more than 100 bodies had been found in Ivory Coast in the past 24 hours, some of them burned alive, others tossed down a well. Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the agency, told reporters that some of the killings appeared to have been carried out by Liberian mercenaries in three areas of western Ivory Coast.

Around 60 bodies were found in the town of Guiglo, 40 in Bloéquin and 15 in Duékoué, a town where earlier bloodletting had left hundreds of civilians dead last week.

“All the incidents appear at least partly ethnically motivated,” Mr. Colville said.

Mr. Ouattara’s victory in the presidential election last yearhas been recognized by the African Union, the United Nations and other international bodies. But if and when Mr. Ouattara comes to power, it will not have been solely through the ballot box. It will have come through the use of force that could undermine his legitimacy, at home and abroad.

After French and United Nations airstrikes to destroy heavy weapons at Mr. Gbagbo’s residence, offices and military bases this week, the many Ivorians who share his anti-Western and xenophobic fervor will be even more likely to see Mr. Ouattara as a foreign implant, foisted on them by outside forces.

Mr. Ouattara has also relied on an assortment of rebels to storm across the country, again at a price. Fighters allied with him have been accused of killing hundreds of people in western Ivory Coast. Now they are suspected of going door to door in Abidjan’s Angré neighborhood, searching for members of Mr. Gbagbo’s ethnic group in an ominous cycle of vengeance and retribution, said Richard Banegas, an Ivory Coast expert at the Sorbonne.

If proved true, such abuses could severely weaken Mr. Ouattara’s position internationally, where he has been championed as the country’s legitimate president.

In other words, Mr. Gbagbo’s protracted defiance, despite its hopeless appearance, has created a nightmare for his opponent, analysts said.

“It’s the goal that he’s seeking, to make the country absolutely ungovernable,” Mr. Banegas said. “He will not have won, but neither will his opponent.”

Mr. Ouattara seemed to acknowledge the predicament in a televised address on Thursday, expressing sadness for the victims of violence and urging his forces “to be exemplary and abstain” from looting or abusing civilians.

“All those involved in such acts will be punished,” he said. He pledged to blockade Mr. Gbagbo in his residence, protect the besieged civilians of Abidjan and quickly restore a sense of normalcy to the battered city.

Mr. Gbagbo certainly did not sound like a defeated man in the pugnacious interviews he gave by telephone to French broadcasters this week. While admitting that he was “tired,” he at times sounded almost upbeat.

“Contrary to many others who went and dropped off their children, their brothers, their sisters outside of Ivory Coast, I’m here with my whole family,” he said. “Us, we are not fleeing.”

Pressed by one interviewer about recognizing Mr. Ouattara as president, he sounded strident as he replied: “But he did not win the elections, sir, good friend. How do you want me to say that?”

Mr. Gbagbo lives well off the main road in the leafy district of Cocody, in a sprawling house designed by the country’s founder, Félix Houphouet-Boigny, who jailed Mr. Gbagbo during his days in the opposition. Mr. Ouattara’s officials say Mr. Gbagbo is huddled there, in a bunker underground, clustered with a few close relatives and influential advisers.

Guy Labertit, who has known Mr. Gbagbo for almost 30 years and once coordinated Africa policy for the French Socialist Party, scoffed at that picture.

“The residence, I know it well,” he said. The first basement carries the trappings of what power brings; Mr. Labertit described it as a place of culture and comfort, with a large meeting room and a library with the books, in their original Latin, befitting a former professor like Mr. Gbagbo.

Under the first basement, he said, is another level with the building’s plumbing and an underground passage leading to the French ambassador’s residence. It was a creation that symbolized Ivory Coast’s colonial ties, Mr. Labertit said, but it also provided an escape route in case of a coup d’état. The passage has long since been blocked off, he added.

“He’s not living in the middle of the pipe work,” said Mr. Labertit, who said he last spoke to Mr. Gbagbo a week ago.

How long he can remain in the residence remained unclear. Speaking to senators in Paris on Thursday, the French defense minister, Gérard Longuet, said Mr. Gbagbo still commanded almost 1,000 troops in Abidjan, including 200 at his residence. That compared with Mr. Ouattara’s force of about 2,000 fighters inside the city, 1,700 French military personnel and about 2,250 United Nations troops in Abidjan, out of a total of 10,000 internationalpeacekeepers, he said.

Mr. Juppé told the senators that Mr. Gbagbo’s departure appeared “inevitable,” but he declined to speculate about when it might happen. “I’m not going to say the next few hours or days; I’m being prudent,” he said.

It was a stance markedly less confident than the one French officials had adopted just a day earlier, when Adm. Édouard Guillaud, chief of staff of the French armed forces, said that Mr. Gbagbo’s surrender was likely a “question of hours.”

In Abidjan, chaotic conditions prevailed, prompting Mr. Ouattara’s pledge to safeguard the city, restore basic services and resuscitate the economy.

Armed men pillaged and occupied the residence of the Japanese ambassador, Yoshifumi Okamura, forcing him and several members of his staff to take refuge in a safe room before their nighttime helicopter rescue by French Special Forces. The French troops exchanged heavy machine-gun fire with unidentified armed forces on the ground, officials said. Other diplomats had also asked to be rescued.

Abidjan’s residents described a harsh environment in which food stores were systematically looted and young men from the countryside patrolled the streets with weapons.

“At 3 o’clock this morning we heard youths shouting, ‘Lay down your arms,’ ” said Alatise Mumini, a resident of the Adjamé neighborhood.

Mr. Ouattara’s army is a ragtag collection of former rebels from the 2002 uprising that split the country, fighters from independent militias and defectors from Mr. Gbagbo’s forces. Northern Ivory Coast has been a virtual independent state since the civil war, under the sway of 10 rebel commanders who have run the region as a quasi-racketeering enterprise that “resembles a warlord economy,” a United Nations group of experts concluded in 2009.

The men under those commanders “have spent years doing exactly what they wanted in the north. They are going to continue,” Mr. Banegas said.

Mr. Ouattara’s prospects are cloudy at best if he takes office, Mr. Banegas added. “One must not be naïve and think that when he arrives, everything will be O.K.,” he said. “Unfortunately, he’s come to power by force, in spite of himself.”

copied from its original source: As Standoff Continues, a Bleaker Outlook for Ivory Coast

Alan Cowell and Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Paris.

Kasak-Kusuk Seputar Malinda, Sang Pembobol Dana Nasabah Citibank

Lihat Berita Lain:
Seluruh Fraksi Harus Bertanggung Jawab 
BI: Nasabah Jangan Percaya Berlebihan

Tersangka dugaan pembobolan dana nasabah Citibank, Malinda Dee (47 thn),yang bekerja sebagai Senior Relationship Manager Citibank, dikenal gemar mengoleksi mobil-mobil mewah. Salah satu karyawan Citibank yang tidak ingin disebutkan namanya mengatakan, Malinda selalu ke kantor dengan Ferrari merahnya, baik yang Ferrari seri F430 Scuderia nomor polisi B 481 SAA maupun Ferrari seri California dengan nomor polisi B 125 DEE. Pada 31 Maret lalu, mobil Ferari merah itu disita polisi karena diduga dibeli dengan menggunakan uang hasil penggelapan dana nasabah Citibank. Kuasa hukum Malinda,Halapancas Simanjuntak, membantah jika mobil Ferari merah tersebut didapatkan dari tindakan kejahatan perbankan yang dilakukannya. Dikatakan mobil itu dihasilkan dari kerja kerasnya bersama suaminya, Agus Ali, yang ternyata memiliki showroom.

Kuasa hukum Malinda mempertanyakan penyidikan kasus Malinda,  apakah itu aduan dari Citibank atau dari para korbannya. Kuasa hukum Malinda mengatakan bahwa para korban tidak pernah melaporkan Malinda kepada kepolisian. Lagipula jumlah korbannya adalah dua orang, bukan tiga orang sebagaimana yang dinyatakan oleh kepolisian. Sebelumnya, pihak Citibank memanggil kedua nasabah yang  mengalami kehilangan dana di dalam simpanannya. Yang satunya lagi merasa kehilangan dana, tetapi tidak melaporkannya ke bank. Pihak Citibank menyatakan bahwa tidak ada nasabah yang dirugikan. Ini berarti Citibank-lah yang mengalami kerugian sebesar Rp17 milliar dari aksi penipuan tersebut, karena kuasa hukum yang mewakili Citibank-lah yang melaporkan Malinda kepada polisi.

Direktur II tindak pidana ekonomi khusus Mabes Polri, Brigjen Pol Arief Sulistyo, mengungkapkan bahwa gabungan kerugian dari hasil audit sementara rekening tiga nasabah tersebut yaitu Rp 16.063.881.400. Perincian rekening ketiganya yakni nasabah pertama memiliki dana rekening sebesar Rp 6,3 miliar dan 514, 5 ribu dollar AS dengan waktu penarikan uang 6 Januari 2011 sampai 23 Desember 2010. Total keseluruhan Rp 10 miliar.

Nasabah kedua dari transaksi tanggal 13 Agustus 2009 sampai 30 Desember 2010 total nominal yang ditarik Rp 4,7 miliar dan 10.100 dollar AS. Total Rp 4,8 miliar.

Sementara itu, nasabah ketiga lanjut Arif, terjadi penarikan dana mulai dari 9 Juni 2010 sebesar Rp 311.200 juta. Uang dari nasabah yang ketiga ini diduga digunakan Malinda untuk membayar cicilan awal satu unit Hummer yang dibelikan secara leasing atas nama suaminya AG. Sementara, dana dari nasabah lainnya diduga dijadikan uang muka untuk membeli dua Ferrari merah dan satu mobil Mercedes Benz. Selain itu diduga, uang hasil penipuan terhadap nasabah Citibank juga dialirkan pada perusahaan yang disinyalir milik Malinda, tapi dengan menggunakan nama fiktif. Kepolisian masih mencari aliran dana tersebut dengan memblokir 30 rekening dari bank yang berbeda, yang diduga milik Malinda.

Di tengah kasak-kusuk soal Malinda, mencuat pula sosok yang dikenal dengan nama Andika  Gumilang. Ia diduga merupakan suami dari Malinda karena salah satu mobil Malinda, Hummer, status kepemilikannya atas nama Andika Gumilang. Kuasa hukum Malinda mengatakan bahwa Andika adalah anak angkat Malinda. Malinda dan suaminya, tengah dalam proses perceraian.

Bareskrim Mabes Polri saat ini sedang berusaha membongkar transaksi keuangan tersangka. Hasil penelitian, saat ini polisi telah memblokir 30 rekening yang diduga milik Malinda di beberapa bank. Di antara 30 rekening tersebut, satu rekening berisi Rp 11 miliar. Malinda diduga kuat menjalankan modus dengan memberikan slip kosong kepada nasabahnya. Malinda kemungkinan juga telah memalsukan tanda tangan nasabah korbannya untuk melakukan transaksi. 

Link:Malinda Sang Pembobol - Harian KOMPAS.

Pimpinan DPR Disomasi Terkait Pembangunan Gedung Baru

Metrotvnews.com, Jakarta: Pimpinan DPR disomasi Koalisi LSM untuk APBN Kesejahteraan, terkait pembangunan gedung baru yang memakan biaya sebesar Rp1,1 triliun.

Tim koalisi menilai, persetujuan pembangunan gedung baru oleh pimpinan DPR RI dan Badan Urusan Rumah Tangga DPR merupakan perbuatan melanggar hukum, sebagaimana diatur dalam pasal 1365 KUHP.

Pembangunan gedung baru DPR dianggap melanggar hak subyektif rakyat, yaitu hak kedaulatan rakyat atas anggaran. Pembangunan gedung juga dianggap mengabaikan kesejahteraan rakyat dengan menghambur-hamburkan keuangan negara.

Gugatan secara citizen suit dan legal standing akan dilempatkan ke Pengadilan Negeri Jakarta Pusat, bila Pimpinan DPR dengan memberi jawaban selama kurun waktu tujuh hari. (**)

Link: Pimpinan DPR disomasi-MetroTV

Sejarah Gereja: Reformasi Katolik dan Kontra Reformasi

Reformasi katolik dan kontra reformasi adalah gerakan-gerakan keagamaan yang terjadi di dalam Gereja Katolik yang dipicu oleh adanya Reformasi Protestantisme abad XVI yang dipicu oleh Martin Luther. Kendatipun demikian, antara reformasi Katolik dan kontra reformasi terdapat perbedaan, sebagai berikut.

1. Reformasi Katolik

Yang dimaksudkan dengan reformasi katolik dalam tulisan ini adalah segala usaha yang ditempuh oleh Gereja Katolik untuk memperbaharui diri, terutama setelah Gereja Barat mengalami skisma yang dipicu oleh Martin Luther pada tahun 1517. Pembaharuan ini memiliki beberapa karakteristik khas, antara lain bersifat personal, kharismatis, peduli terhadap karya sosial karitatif, dan bersifat misioner.

Pembaharuan itu ditandai oleh beberapa peristiwa, antara lain: pendirian ordo-ordo baru dan yang diperbaharui, seperti: SJ, OFM Cap, OSA, dan OCD. Di Spanyol, reformasi Katolik ditandai oleh kiprah Isabela “Katolik” yang menempuh beberapa kebijakan khusus dalam rangka pembaharuan Gereja, antara lain dengan meningkatkan dunia pendidikan melalui penerbitan buku, pendirian Universitas Alcala (complutensian Polyglot), dan mendorong studi mendalam terhadap Kitab Suci. Pembaharuan yang dilakukan Isabela bukannya tidak memiliki akibat negatif. Ada beberapa sisi negatif yang dihasilkan dari pembaharuan Gereja Katolik di Spanyol, antara lain terjadinya intoleransi agama, dan dihidupkannya lembaga inkuisisi yang bertugas mengecek dan kemudian mengadili orang-orang yang berseberangan dengan ajaran Gereja.

2. Kontra Reformasi

 

Kontra reformasi adalah segala bentuk usaha Gereja Katolik untuk membendung, menandingi, dan melawan gerakan keagamaan yang dipelopori oleh Martin Luther. Ciri-corak kontra reformasi, antara lain: pendekatannya bersifat institusional, doktrinal, “dari atas”, otoritatif, dan bekerja sama dengan lembaga negara. Institusi Gereja Katolik merasa cemas dengan semakin meluasnya pengaruh Luther dan ajarannya. Teologi Protestan yang berkembang dinilai tidak seimbang, “pesimis”, menyesatkan dan perlu disehatkan.  

Kontra reformasi ditandai dengan diadakannya Konsili Trento (1545-1563). Di dalam konsili ini dibicarakan dan diputuskanlah hal-hal yang berkaitan dengan ajaran iman dan disiplin Gereja yang secara inheren merupakan doktrin-doktrin Katolik yang persis berseberangan dengan doktrin protestantisme. Di dalam konsili ini, Gereja menyatakan menerima pembangunan wilayah berdasarkan agama (cuius regio, eius religio). Gereja pun menegaskan kembali doktrin mengenai keselamatan yang menyatakan bahwa “extra ecclesiam nulla salus”. Doktrin ini menegaskan bahwa di luar Gereja Katolik yang dipimpin oleh Paus, tidak ada keselamatan. Perang fisik antara Katolik dan Protestan pun dimulailah.