Article:

Cover story

 Reports of abuse

 AIDS exacerbates sexual exploitation of nuns, reports allege By JOHN L. ALLEN JR. and PAMELA SCHAEFFER

 NCR Staff, Rome and Kansas City, Mo. S everal reports written by senior members of womens religious orders and by an American priest assert that sexual abuse of nuns by priests, including rape, is a serious problem, especially in Africa and other parts of the developing world. The reports allege that some Catholic clergy exploit their financial and spiritual authority to gain sexual favors from religious women, many of whom, in developing countries, are culturally conditioned to be subservient to men. The reports obtained by NCR -- some recent, some in circulation at least seven years -- say priests at times demand sex in exchange for favors, such as permission or certification to work in a given diocese. The reports, five in all, indicate that in Africa particularly, a continent ravaged by HIV and AIDS, young nuns are sometimes seen as safe targets of sexual activity. In a few extreme instances, according to the documentation, priests have impregnated nuns and then encouraged them to have abortions. In some cases, according to one of the reports, nuns, through naiveté or social conditioning to obey authority figures, may readily comply with sexual demands. Although the problem has not been aired in public, the reports have been discussed in councils of religious women and men and in the Vatican. In November 1998, a four-page paper titled The Problem of the Sexual Abuse of African Religious in Africa and Rome was presented by Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa Sr. Marie McDonald, the reports author, to the Council of 16, a group that meets three times a year. The council is made up of delegates from three bodies: the Union of Superiors General, an association of mens religious communities based in Rome, the International Union of Superiors General, a comparable group for women, and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Vatican office that oversees religious life. Last September, Benedictine Sr. Esther Fangman, a psychological counselor and president of the Federation of St. Scholastica, raised the issue in an address at a Rome congress of 250 Benedictine abbots. The federation is an organization of 22 monasteries in the United States and two in Mexico. Five years earlier, on Feb. 18, 1995, Cardinal Eduardo Martínez, prefect of the Vatican congregation for religious life, along with members of his staff, were briefed on the problem by Medical Missionary of Mary Sr. Maura ODonohue, a physician. ODonohue is responsible for a 1994 report that constitutes one of the more comprehensive accounts. At the time of its writing, she had spent six years as AIDS coordinator for the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development based in London. Though statistics related to sexual abuse of religious women are unavailable, most religious leaders interviewed by NCR say the frequency and consistency of the reports of sexual abuse point to a problem that needs to be addressed. I dont believe these are simply exceptional cases, Benedictine Fr. Nokter Wolf, abbot primate of the Benedictine order, told NCR. I think the abuse described is happening. How much it happens, what the numbers are, I have no way of knowing. But it is a serious matter, and we need to discuss it. Wolf has made several trips to Africa to visit Benedictine institutions and is in contact with members of the order there. In her reports, ODonohue links the sexual abuse to the prevalence of AIDS in Africa and concerns about contracting the disease. Sadly, the sisters also report that priests have sexually exploited them because they too had come to fear contamination with HIV by sexual contact with prostitutes and other at risk women, she wrote in 1994. ODonohue declined requests for interviews with NCR. In some cultures, ODonohue wrote, men who traditionally would have sought out prostitutes instead are turning to secondary school girls, who, because of their younger age, were considered safe from HIV. Similarly, religious sisters constitute another group which has been identified as safe targets for sexual activity, ODonohue wrote. For example, ODonohue wrote, a superior of a community of sisters in one country was approached by priests requesting that sisters would be made available to them for sexual favors. When the superior refused, the priests explained that they would otherwise be obliged to go to the village to find women, and might thus get AIDS. ODonohue wrote that at first she reacted with shock and disbelief at the magnitude of the problem she was encountering through her contacts with a great number of sisters during the course of my visits in a number of countries. Different view of celibacy The AIDS pandemic has drawn attention to issues which may not previously have been considered significant, she wrote. The enormous challenges which AIDS poses for members of religious orders and the clergy is only now becoming evident. In a report on her 1995 meeting with Cardinal Martínez in the Vatican, ODonohue noted that celibacy may have different meanings in different cultures. For instance, she wrote in her report, a vicar general in one African diocese had talked quite openly about the view of celibacy in Africa, saying that celibacy in the African context means a priest does not get married but does not mean he does not have children. Of the worlds 1 billion Catholics, 116.6 million -- about 12 percent -- live in Africa. According to the 2001 Catholic Almanac, 561 are bishops and archbishops, 26,026 are priests and 51,304 are nuns. In addition to such general overviews, Martínezs office has also received documentation on specific cases. In one such incident, dating from 1988 in Malawi and cited in ODonohues 1994 report, the leadership team of a diocesan womens congregation was dismissed by the local bishop after it complained that 29 sisters had been impregnated by diocesan priests. Western missionaries helped the leadership team compile a dossier that was eventually submitted to Rome. One of those missionaries, a veteran of more than two decades in Africa, said the Malawi case was complex and the issue of sexual liaisons was not the only factor involved. She described the incident in a not-for-attribution interview with NCR. The missionary said the leadership team had adopted rules preventing sisters from spending the night in a rectory, banning priests from staying overnight in convents and prohibiting sisters from being alone with priests. The rules were intended to reduce the possibility of sexual contact. Several sources told NCR that religious communities as well as church officials have taken steps to correct the problem, though they were reluctant to cite specific examples. Others say the climate of secrecy that still surrounds the issue indicates more needs to be done. The secrecy is due in part to efforts by religious orders to work within the system to address the problems and in part to the cultural context in which they occur. In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, where the problems are reportedly the most severe, sexual behavior and AIDS are rarely discussed openly. Among many people in that region of Central and Southern Africa, sexual topics are virtually taboo, according to many who have worked there. Expressing frustration at unsuccessful efforts to get church officials to address the problem, ODonohue wrote in 1994, Groups of sisters from local congregations have made passionate appeals for help to members of international congregations and explain that, when they themselves try to make representations to church authorities about harassment by priests, they simply are not heard.  The Vatican press office did not respond to NCR requests for comment on this story. ODonohue wrote that, although she was aware of incidents in some 23 countries, including the United States, on five continents, the majority happened in Africa. Ironically, given the reticence of many Africans to talk about sex, casual sex is common in parts of Africa, and sexual abstinence is rare. Its a culture in which AIDS thrives. Experts say the view derives from a deeply rooted cultural association between maleness and progeny -- a view that makes the churchs insistence on celibacy difficult not only in practice but also in concept for some African priests. AIDS rampant in Africa Some 25.3 million of the worlds 36.1 million HIV-positive persons live in sub-Saharan Africa. Since the epidemic began in the late 1970s, 17 million Africans have died of AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. Of the 5.3 million new cases of HIV infection in 2000, 3.8 million occurred in Africa. According to a graphic article on AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa in the Feb. 12 issue of Time magazine, Casual sex of every kind is commonplace. Everywhere theres premarital sex, sex as recreation. Obligatory sex and its abusive counterpart, coercive sex. Transactional sex: sex as a gift, sugar-daddy sex. Extramarital sex, second families, multiple partners. Further, Time reported, women, taught from birth to obey men, feel powerless to protect themselves from mens sexual desires. Even accounting for promiscuity -- which in fact, some experts have argued, is no less a problem in Western nations -- the religious men and women raising the issue of sexual exploitation of religious women say the situations they report on are clearly intolerable and, in some cases, approach the unspeakable. In one instance, according to ODonohue, a priest took a nun for an abortion, and she died during the procedure. He later officiated at her requiem Mass. Harassment common In McDonalds report, she states that sexual harassment and even rape of sisters by priests and bishops is allegedly common, and that sometimes when a sister becomes pregnant, the priest insists that she have an abortion. She said her report referred mainly to Africa and to African sisters, priests and bishops -- not because the problem is exclusively an African one, but because the group preparing the report drew mainly on their own experience in Africa and the knowledge they have obtained from the members of their own congregations or from other congregations -- especially diocesan congregations in Africa. We know that the problem exists elsewhere too, she wrote. It is precisely because of our love for the church and for Africa that we feel so distressed about the problem, McDonald wrote. McDonalds was the report presented in 1998 to the Council of 16. She declined to be interviewed by NCR. When a sister becomes pregnant, McDonald wrote, she is usually punished by dismissal from the congregation, while the priest is often only moved to another parish -- or sent for studies. In her report, McDonald wrote that priests sometimes exploit the financial dependency of young sisters or take advantage of spiritual direction and the sacrament of reconciliation to extort sexual favors. McDonald cites eight factors she believes give rise to the problem: The fact that celibacy and/or chastity are not values in some countries.

 The inferior position of women in society and the church. In some circumstances a sister has been educated to regard herself as an inferior, to be subservient and to obey. It is understandable then, that a sister finds it impossible to refuse a cleric who asks for sexual favours. These men are seen as authority figures who must be obeyed. Moreover, they are usually more highly educated and they have received a much more advanced theological formation than the sisters. They may use false theological arguments to justify their requests and behaviour. The sisters are easily impressed by these arguments. One of these goes as follows:  We are both consecrated celibates. That means that we have promised not to marry. However, we can have sex together without breaking our vows.  The AIDS pandemic, which means sisters are more likely to be seen as safe.

 Financial dependence created by low stipends for sisters laboring in their home countries or inadequate support for sisters sent abroad for studies. The problem of sexual abuse in Africa is most common, according to many observers, among members of diocesan religious congregations with little money and no network of international support.

 A poor understanding of consecrated life, both by the sisters and also by bishops, priests, and lay people.

 Recruitment of candidates by congregations that lack adequate knowledge of the culture.

 Sisters sent abroad to Rome and other countries for studies are often too young and/or immature, lack language skills, preparation and other kinds of support, and frequently turn to seminarians and priests for help, creating the potential for exploitation. I do not wish to imply that only priests and bishops are to blame and that the sisters are simply their victims, McDonald wrote. No, sisters can sometimes be only too willing and can also be naïve. Silence. Perhaps another contributing factor is the conspiracy of silence surrounding this issue, McDonald wrote. Only if we can look at it honestly will we be able to find solutions. The American priest who gave a similar account of sexual abuse of women religious is Fr. Robert J. Vitillo, then of Caritas and now executive director of the U.S. bishops Campaign for Human Development. In March 1994, a month after ODonohue wrote her report, Vitillo spoke about the problem to a theological study group at Boston College. Vitillo has extensive knowledge of Africa based on regular visits for his work. His talk, which focused on several moral and ethical issues related to AIDS, was titled, Theological Challenges Posed by the Global Pandemic of HIV/AIDS. Necessary to mention Vitillo, a priest of the Paterson, N.J., diocese, declined requests from NCR for an interview on the content of his talk. He told the gathering at Boston College that nuns had been targeted by men, particularly clergy, who may have previously frequented prostitutes. The last ethical issue which I find especially delicate but necessary to mention, he said, involves the need to denounce sexual abuse which has arisen as a specific result of HIV/AIDS. In many parts of the world, men have decreased their reliance on commercial sex workers because of their fear of contracting HIV. As a result of this widespread fear, many men (and some women) have turned to young (and therefore presumably uninfected) girls (and boys) for sexual favors. Religious women have also been targeted by such men, and especially by clergy who may have previously frequented prostitutes. I myself have heard the tragic stories of religious women who were forced to have sex with the local priest or with a spiritual counselor who insisted that this activity was good for the both of them. Frequently, attempts to raise these issues with local and international church authorities have met with deaf ears, said Vitillo. In North America and in some parts of Europe, our church is already reeling under the pedophilia scandals. How long will it take for this same institutional church to become sensitive to these new abuse issues which are resulting from the pandemic? The specific circumstances outlined in the ODonohue report are as follows: In some instances, candidates to religious life had to provide sexual favors to priests in order to acquire the necessary certificates and/or recommendations to work in a diocese.

 In several countries, sisters are troubled by policies that require them to leave the congregation if they become pregnant, while the priest involved is able to continue his ministry. Beyond fairness is the question of social justice, since the sister is left to raise the child as a single parent, often with a great deal of stigmatization and frequently in very poor socioeconomic circumstances. I was given examples in several countries where such women were forced into becoming a second or third wife in a family because of lost status in the local culture. The alternative, as a matter of survival, is to go on the streets as prostitutes and thereby expose themselves to the risk of HIV, if not already infected.

 Superior generals I have met were extremely concerned about the harassment sisters were experiencing from priests in some areas. One superior of a diocesan congregation, where several sisters became pregnant by priests, has been at a complete loss to find an appropriate solution. Another diocesan congregation has had to dismiss over 20 sisters because of pregnancy, again in many cases by priests.

 Some priests are recommending that sisters take a contraceptive, misleading them that the pill will prevent transmission of HIV. Others have actually encouraged abortion for sisters with whom they have been involved. Some Catholic medical professionals employed in Catholic hospitals have reported pressure being exerted on them by priests to procure abortions in those hospitals for religious sisters.

 In a number of countries, members of parish councils and of small Christian communities are challenging their pastors because of their relationships with women and young girls generally. Some of these women are wives of the parishioners. In such circumstances, husbands are angry about what is happening, but are embarrassed to challenge their parish priest. Some priests are known to have relations with several women, and also to have children from more than one liaison. Laypeople spoke with me about the concerns in this context stating that they are waiting for the day when they will have dialogue homilies. This, they volunteered, will afford them an opportunity to challenge certain priests on the sincerity of their preaching and their apparent double standards. In one country visited, I was informed that the presbytery in a particular parish was attacked by parishioners armed with guns because they were angry with the priests because of their abuse of power and the betrayal of trust which their actions and lifestyles reflected.

 In another country a recent convert from Islam (one of two daughters who became Christians) was accepted as a candidate to a local religious congregation. When she went to her parish priest for the required certificates, she was subjected to rape by the priest before being given the certificates. Having been disowned by her family because of becoming a Christian, she did not feel free to return home. She joined the congregation and soon afterwards found she was pregnant. To her mind, the only option for her was to leave the congregation, without giving the reason. She spent 10 days roaming the forest, agonizing over what to do. Then she decided to go and talk to the bishop, who called in the priest. The priest accepted the accusation as true and was told by the bishop to go on a two-week retreat.

 Since the 1980s in a number of countries sisters are refusing to travel alone with a priest in a car because of fear of harassment or even rape. Priests have also on occasion abused their position in their role as pastors and spiritual directors and utilized their spiritual authority to gain sexual favors from sisters. In one country, women superiors have had to request the bishop or men superiors to remove chaplains, spiritual directors or retreat directors after they abused sisters. Those most directly affected are the women abused, wrote ODonohue. The effects extend, however, to the wider community and include disillusionment and cynicism. The abused and others in the community find the foundation of their faith is suddenly shattered. Many whose faith has been shattered are from families that look unfavorably on religious vocations and who question why celibacy should be so strongly proclaimed by the same people who are seemingly involved in sexually exploiting others. This is seen as hypocrisy or at least as promoting double standards, ODonohue wrote. Some observers say that in the wake of such reports, steps have been taken to address the problem. New guidelines Wolf, the Benedictine leader in Rome, said, Several monasteries already have guidelines in case a monk is accused of sexual misconduct, taking care of the individuals concerned, the victim included. I pushed this question in our congregation. We need sincerity and justice. A Vatican official told NCR that there are initiatives at multiple levels to raise awareness about the potential for sexual abuse in religious life. The official cited efforts within conferences of religious superiors, within bishops conferences, and within particular communities and dioceses. Most of these, the official said, were steps the Vatican is aware of and supporting rather than organizing or initiating. The Vatican official was willing to speak anonymously about the problem with NCR. The official noted two signs that the culture in the church is changing. In specific cases, the official said, the response from church leaders is more aggressive and swift; and in general, there is a climate within religious life that these things have to be discussed. Talking about it is the first step towards a solution, the official said. Church officials have not always, however, been open to such exchanges. McDonald wrote in her 1998 report that in March of that year she had spoken to the standing committee of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, the consortium of African bishops conferences, on the problem of sexual abuse of sisters. Since most of what I gave was based on reports coming from diocesan congregations and Conferences of Major Superiors in Africa, I felt very convinced of the authenticity of what I was saying, McDonald wrote. Yet, the bishops present felt that it was disloyal of the sisters to have sent such reports outside their dioceses, McDonald wrote. They said that the sisters in question should go to their diocesan bishop with these problems. Of course, she wrote, this would be the ideal. However, the sisters claim that they have done so time and time again. Sometimes they are not well received. In some instances they are blamed for what has happened. Even when they are listened to sympathetically, nothing much seems to be done. Worth talking about Whatever positive steps have been taken, the problem remains a live concern for religious women. In an interview at her home in Kansas City, Mo., Fangman, the nun who raised the issue last September at a gathering of Benedictine abbots in Rome, told NCR that she had heard the stories about sisters being sexually abused by priests during informal discussions at meetings of abbesses and prioresses worldwide. The sisters who brought it up were deeply hurt by it and found it very painful -- and very painful to talk about, she said. Because of the pain that she and others were hearing, we decided that it was worth also beginning to talk about in a more open way, and we had the opportunity at our regular meeting with the Congress of Abbots, she said. Fangman said her report to the Benedictine abbots was based on the conversations with sisters and on the material in ODonohues reports. Fangmans talk was published in a recent issue of the Alliance for International Monasticism Bulletin, a mission magazine of the order. ODonohues report was prepared in a similar spirit: in hope of promoting change. She wrote in her report that she had prepared it after much profound reflection and with a deep sense of urgency since the subjects involved touch the very core of the churchs mission and ministry. The information on abuse of nuns by priests comes from missionaries (men and women); from priests, doctors and other members of our loyal ecclesial family, she wrote. I have been assured that case records exist for several of the incidents described in the report, she said, and that the information is not just based on hearsay. The 23 countries listed in her report are: Botswana, Burundi, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, India, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Tonga, Uganda, United States, Zambia, Zaire, Zimbabwe. Her hope, she wrote, is that the report will consequently motivate appropriate action especially on the part of those in positions of church leadership and those responsible for formation. John Allens e-mail address is jallen@natcath.org. Pamela Schaeffers e-mail address is pschaeffer@natcath.org Documents related to the above story will be available on the NCR Web site at www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/documents/index.htm National Catholic Reporter, March 16, 2001 Top of page ||||| FILE - In this Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009 file photo, a nun is silhouetted in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. Some nuns are now finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement and the growing recognition... (Associated Press)

 FILE - In this Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009 file photo, a nun is silhouetted in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. Some nuns are now finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement and the growing recognition that adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship.... (Associated Press)

 VATICAN CITY (AP) — The nun no longer goes to confession regularly, after an Italian priest forced himself on her while she was at her most vulnerable: recounting her sins to him in a university classroom nearly 20 years ago.

 At the time, the sister only told her provincial superior and her spiritual director, silenced by the Catholic Church's culture of secrecy, her vows of obedience and her own fear, repulsion and shame.

 "It opened a great wound inside of me," she told the Associated Press. "I pretended it didn't happen."

 After decades of silence, the nun is one of a handful worldwide to come forward recently on an issue that the Catholic Church has yet to come to terms with: The sexual abuse of religious sisters by priests and bishops. An AP examination has found that cases have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, demonstrating that the problem is global and pervasive, thanks to the universal tradition of sisters' second-class status in the Catholic Church and their ingrained subservience to the men who run it.

 Some nuns are now finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement and the growing recognition that adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. The sisters are going public in part because of years of inaction by church leaders, even after major studies on the problem in Africa were reported to the Vatican in the 1990s.

 The issue has flared in the wake of scandals over the sexual abuse of children, and recently of adults, including revelations that one of the most prominent American cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused and harassed his seminarians.

 The extent of the abuse of nuns is unclear, at least outside the Vatican. Victims are reluctant to report the abuse because of well-founded fears they won't be believed, experts told the AP. Church leaders are reluctant to acknowledge that some priests and bishops simply ignore their vows of celibacy, knowing that their secrets will be kept.

 However, this week, about half a dozen sisters in a small religious congregation in Chile went public on national television with their stories of abuse by priests and other nuns — and how their superiors did nothing to stop it. A nun in India recently filed a formal police complaint accusing a bishop of rape, something that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

 Cases in Africa have come up periodically; in 2013, for example, a well-known priest in Uganda wrote a letter to his superiors that mentioned "priests romantically involved with religious sisters" — for which he was promptly suspended from the church until he apologized in May. And the sister in Europe spoke to the AP to help bring the issue to light.

 "I am so sad that it took so long for this to come into the open, because there were reports long ago," Karlijn Demasure, one of the church's leading experts on clergy sexual abuse and abuse of power, told the AP in an interview. "I hope that now actions will be taken to take care of the victims and put an end to this kind of abuse."

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 TAKING VICTIMS SERIOUSLY

 The Vatican declined to comment on what measures, if any, it has taken to assess the scope of the problem globally, what it has done to punish offenders and care for the victims. A Vatican official said it is up to local church leaders to sanction priests who sexually abuse sisters, but that often such crimes go unpunished both in civil and canonical courts.

 The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the issue, said only some cases arrive at the Holy See for investigation. It was a reference to the fact that the Catholic Church has no clear measures in place to investigate and punish bishops who themselves abuse or allow abusers to remain in their ranks — a legal loophole that has recently been highlighted by the McCarrick case.

 The official said the church has focused much of its attention recently on protecting children, but that vulnerable adults "deserve the same protection."

 "Consecrated women have to be encouraged to speak up when they are molested," the official told the AP. "Bishops have to be encouraged to take them seriously, and make sure the priests are punished if guilty."

 But being taken seriously is often the toughest obstacle for sisters who are sexually abused, said Demasure, until recently executive director of the church's Center for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University, the church's leading think tank on the issue.

 "They (the priests) can always say 'she wanted it,'" Demasure said. "It is also difficult to get rid of the opinion that it is always the woman who seduces the man, and not vice versa."

 Demasure said many priests in Africa, for example, struggle with celibacy because of traditional and cultural beliefs in the importance of having children. Novices, who are just entering religious life, are particularly vulnerable because they often need a letter from their parish priest to be accepted into certain religious congregations. "And sometimes they have to pay for that," she said.

 And when these women become pregnant?

 "Mainly she has an abortion. Even more than once. And he pays for that. A religious sister has no money. A priest, yes," she said.

 There can also be a price for blowing the whistle on the problem.

 In 2013, the Rev. Anthony Musaala in Kampala, Uganda wrote what he called an open letter to members of the local Catholic establishment about "numerous cases" of alleged sex liaisons of priests, including with nuns. He charged that it was "an open secret that many Catholic priests and some bishops, in Uganda and elsewhere, no longer live celibate chastity."

 He was sanctioned, even though Ugandan newspapers regularly report cases of priests caught in sex escapades. The topic is even the subject of a popular novel taught in high schools.

 In 2012, a priest sued a bishop in western Uganda who had suspended him and ordered him to stop interacting with at least four nuns. The priest, who denied the allegations, lost the suit, and the sisters later withdrew their own suit against the bishop.

 Archbishop John Baptist Odama, leader of the local Ugandan conference of bishops, told the AP that unverified or verified allegations against individual priests should not be used to smear the whole church.

 "Individual cases may happen, if they are there," he said Thursday. "Individual cases must be treated as individual cases."

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 PRIESTLY ABUSE OF NUNS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM

 Long before the most recent incidents, confidential reports into the problem focused on Africa and AIDS were prepared in the 1990s by members of religious orders for top church officials. In 1994, the late Sr. Maura O'Donohue wrote the most comprehensive study about a six-year, 23-nation survey, in which she learned of 29 nuns who had been impregnated in a single congregation.

 Nuns, she reported, were considered "safe" sexual partners for priests who feared they might be infected with HIV if they went to prostitutes or women in the general population.

 Four years later, in a report to top religious superiors and Vatican officials, Sr. Marie McDonald said harassment and rape of African sisters by priests is "allegedly common." Sometimes, when a nun becomes pregnant, the priest insists on an abortion, the report said.

 The problem travelled when the sisters were sent to Rome for studies. They "frequently turn to seminarians and priests for help in writing essays. Sexual favors are sometimes the payment they have to make for such help," the report said.

 The reports were never meant to be made public. The U.S. National Catholic Reporter put them online in 2001, exposing the depths of a scandal the church had long sought to keep under wraps. To date, the Vatican hasn't said what, if anything, it ever did with the information.

 Sister Paola Moggi, a member of the Missionary Combonian Sisters — a religious congregation with a significant presence in 16 African countries — said in her experience the African church "had made great strides" since the 1990s, when she did missionary work in Kenya, but the problem has not been eliminated.

 "I have found in Africa sisters who are absolutely emancipated and who say what they think to a priest they meet who might ask to have sex with them," she told the AP.

 "I have also found sisters who said 'Well, you have to understand their needs, and that while we only have a monthly cycle a man has a continuous cycle of sperm' — verbatim words from the '90s," she said.

 But the fact that in just a few weeks scandals of priests allegedly molesting sisters have erupted publicly on two other continents — Asia and Latin America — suggests that the problem is not confined to Africa, and that some women are now willing to break the taboo to denounce it publicly.

 In India, a sister of the Missionaries of Jesus filed a police report last month alleging a bishop raped her in May 2014 during a visit to the heavily Christian state of Kerala, and that he subsequently sexually abused her around a dozen more times over the following two years, Indian media have reported. The bishop denied the accusation and said the woman was retaliating against him for having taken disciplinary action against her for her own sexual misdeeds.

 In Chile, the scandal of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, an order dedicated to health care in the diocese of Talca, erupted at the same time the country's entire Catholic hierarchy has been under fire for decades of sex abuse and cover-ups. The scandal got so bad that in May, Francis summoned all Chilean bishops to Rome, where they all offered to resign en masse.

 The case, exposed by the Chilean state broadcaster, involves accusations of priests fondling and kissing nuns, including while naked, and some religious sisters sexually abusing younger ones. The victims said they told their mother superior, but that she did nothing. Talca's new temporary bishop has vowed to find justice.

 The Vatican is well aware that religious sisters have long been particularly vulnerable to abuse. Perhaps the most sensational account was detailed in the 2013 book "The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio," based on the archives of the Vatican's 1860s Inquisition trial of abuse, embezzlement, murder and "false holiness" inside a Roman convent. Once word got out, the Vatican poured the full force of its Inquisition to investigate and punish.

 It remains to be seen what the Vatican will do now that more sisters are speaking out.

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 ONE SISTER'S STORY — AND YEARS OF HURT

 The sister who spoke to the AP about her assault in 2000 during confession at a Bologna university clasped her rosary as she recounted the details.

 She recalled exactly how she and the priest were seated in two armchairs face-to-face in the university classroom, her eyes cast to the floor. At a certain point, she said, the priest got up from his chair and forced himself on her. Petite but not frail, she was so shocked, she said, that she grabbed him by the shoulders and with all her strength, stood up and pushed him back into his chair.

 The nun continued with her confession that day. But the assault — and a subsequent advance by a different priest a year later — eventually led her to stop going to confession with any priest other than her spiritual father, who lives in a different country.

 "The place of confession should be a place of salvation, freedom and mercy," she said. "Because of this experience, confession became a place of sin and abuse of power."

 She recalled at one point a priest in whom she had confided had apologized "on behalf of the church." But nobody ever took any action against the offender, who was a prominent university professor.

 The woman recounted her story to the AP without knowing that at that very moment, a funeral service was being held for the priest who had assaulted her 18 years earlier.

 She later said the combination of his death and her decision to speak out lifted a great weight.

 "I see it as two freedoms: freedom of the weight for a victim, and freedom of a lie and a violation by the priest," she said. "I hope this helps other sisters free themselves of this weight."

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 Muhumuza reported from Kampala, Uganda.

 Have a confidential tip? Contact Amy Forliti at The Associated Press at 612-332-2727 or aforliti@ap.org ||||| – Former nuns of the Congregation of the Good Samaritan in Chile reported a series of sexual abuses committed by priests visiting the community, which belongs to the Diocese of Talca and is dedicated to caring for the sick.

 The new accusations come amid a growing sexual abuse scandal rocking the Church in Chile that led Pope Francis to summon the bishops to the Vatican in May to address the crisis, offer their resignation en masse, and the pope accepting some of the resignations.

 Currently this diocese in Southern Chile has as apostolic administrator Bishop Galo Fernandez Villaseca, after Francis accepted the resignation of the local bishop, Horacio Valenzuela.

 In a report broadcast July 24 by Televisión Nacional de Chile, five former nuns said that there was sexual abuse and the abuse of authority inside the congregation. They added that they were mistreated when they reported the incidents to the superior.

 “My silence stings my conscience. We have more than 23 sisters who in one year were expelled from the congregation because they were sexually abused, there was abuse of authority,” said Yolanda Tondreaux, who in the report charged that she was harassed by a priest.

 Without mentioning names, the women charged that at least three priests sexually abused the nuns. They were able to deliver their testimonies to Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Msgr. Jordi Bertomeu when they came to Chile the second time to gather information on abuse cases.

 Another of the complainants, Eliana Macías, said she was abused by a priest who during the night “would go into the nuns’ rooms.”

 Consuelo Gómez charged that she was the victim of sexual abuse by nuns of the same community:

 The former nuns said that when they related the incidents to the superior, Patricia Ibarra Gómez, she mistreated them until they were expelled from the community.

 The complainants maintained that the then-local bishop Horacio Valenzuela was aware of these events but did nothing.

 Tondreaux, who also served in the Apostolic Nunciature of Chile, said in addition that Valenzuela and the priest Fernando Karadima – found guilty of sexual abuse by the Vatican in 2011 – received checks with huge amounts of money, without specifying from whom.

 On May 29 the diocesan congregation issued a statement acknowledging one case of abuse, that of Consuelo Gómez, and asked forgiveness. However, when the journalist doing the television interview consulted them regarding the new complaints they provided no comment.

 Bishop Galo Fernández responded in the report, saying: “You see the pain there, where there’s a lot of pain and situations that merit being investigated with an openness to find the truth and to listen.”

 He also added that the former religious need to be listened to “not only in the framework of a criminal investigation in order to verify or not, but to listen so that the situations and pain they have experienced can hit home.”

 The Apostolic Administrator stressed that the congregation of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan “have a beautiful history, but that does not necessarily mean that there could not have been situations that were clearly out of line.”

 Regarding the total lack of support the women were left in after they were expelled from the community, Galo said, “a congregation clearly has a duty to care for the people that leave as well as examining the conditions under which they left. It’s a duty.”

 Finally, concerning the poor reception given to the victims by the Church authorities, the bishop said that “there’s a new sensitivity today in the culture and also by the Church.”

 “There are things that are not normal, that aren’t right, and it’s our responsibility to face them, correct them and where there has been a crime there certainly ought to be sanctions.”

 This article was originally published by the Spanish language ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA. |||||
What is a summary?

– "It opened a great wound inside of me. I pretended it didn't happen." So says a nun who claims an Italian priest sexually assaulted her while she was confessing to him about 20 years ago in Bologna. A new AP investigation finds she's not alone: Religious sisters are apparently being abused by bishops and priests in Asia, South America, Africa, and Europe, and usually keeping quiet about the assaults. That changed this week when five nuns appeared on national TV in Chile and told their stories of sexual abuse by priests and other nuns, Crux reports. It's an older story in Africa, where reports have emerged of priests abusing nuns and pressuring them into abortions; a six-year study and follow-up report for the Vatican found 29 nuns impregnated at one congregation. The National Catholic Reporter revealed that study in 2001, but what the Church did is unclear. Meanwhile, the Vatican remains quiet on the issue and lacks rules to probe and punish abusers, leaving it to local church leaders to take action. "Consecrated women have to be encouraged to speak up when they are molested," says a Vatican official on the condition of anonymity. "Bishops have to be encouraged to take them seriously, and make sure the priests are punished if guilty." But amid #MeToo and an ever-widening Catholic Church abuse scandal, more nuns may be speaking up for themselves. "I see it as two freedoms: freedom of the weight for a victim, and freedom of a lie and a violation by the priest," says the nun allegedly assaulted in Bologna. "I hope this helps other sisters free themselves of this weight."


Write an article based on this summary:

– Tuesday was "Make America Work Again" day at the Republican National Convention, though there was easily as much talk about Hillary Clinton as there was about the US economy. Still, the convention seemed to run far more smoothly than on Monday—it was as if they "had brought in an entirely new team of organizers," according to Politico—and the GOP was unified enough to deal with the matter of choosing its nominee. Among the winners in another eventful day at the Quicken Loans Arena: Donald Trump. New York state's delegation put Trump over the top, making him the official GOP nominee 13 months after he launched what was seen as a long-shot bid. He "did the unthinkable on Tuesday night. And, whether you like him or hate him, he deserves a massive amount of credit for that," writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. Donald Trump Jr. He "brought down the house" with a speech that put him on the national stage and added a personal touch to his father's business successes, the Hill reports. It briefly looked like there might be a repeat of the Melania plagiarism controversy, but it quickly emerged that a Francis Buckley line in the speech had been put there by Buckley himself, a friend of Trump Jr.'s who worked on the speech with him. Chris Christie. The New Jersey governor may still be smarting from VP rejection, but the crowd loved how he denounced Clinton from the point of view of a former federal prosecutor. They chanted "Guilty!" and "Lock her up!" as Christie made the case against Clinton. Avocado growers. Discussion of jobs largely fell by the wayside, but soap opera actress Kimberlin Brown, who has an avocado farm in California, managed to deliver both an in-depth discussion of jobs and a passionate call to help US growers by restricting avocado imports, Politico reports. Among the losers: Party unity. Trump won the nomination, but some 721 delegates voted against him in the evening roll call, making it the most divided vote of its kind since the contested convention of 1976, the New York Times notes. Never Trump. The movement "succumbed to multiple causes of death" on Tuesday, with many rebels deciding they had no choice but to support the nominee, the AP reports. The Utah delegation announced that all its 40 votes were going to Ted Cruz, but they ended up going to Trump because Utah GOP rules require ballots to be cast for active candidates only. Paul Ryan. The House speaker has been trying to signal to party elites that he's uncomfortable with Trump and is "still the smart conservative they've come to love," but the balancing act fell apart on Tuesday, according to Dylan Matthews at Vox. "When the chips are down, when the nomination was being decided, Ryan was out there in front, pushing Trump forward," he writes. Ben Carson. He "quickly went off script—and not in a good way," writes Cillizza at the Post. His linking of Clinton to Lucifer via Saul Alinsky was a strange moment, writes Tina Nguyen at Vanity Fair, though since Carson has "accidentally" insulted Trump numerous times over the last few months, the campaign must have been relieved "that Carson's meandering thoughts went straight to hell, and not somewhere closer to home."

Members of the New York delegation cheer for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during the roll call at the Republican National Convention, Tuesday, July 19, 2016, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Evan... (Associated Press)

 Members of the New York delegation cheer for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during the roll call at the Republican National Convention, Tuesday, July 19, 2016, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press)

 Members of the New York delegation cheer for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during the roll call at the Republican National Convention, Tuesday, July 19, 2016, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) Members of the New York delegation cheer for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during the roll call at the Republican National Convention, Tuesday, July 19, 2016, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Evan... (Associated Press)

 CLEVELAND (AP) — After weeks of planning and one ferocious outburst that upstaged nearly everything on the Republican National Convention's first day, conservatives' feisty but always improbable effort to deny Donald Trump the GOP presidential nomination succumbed to multiple causes of death.

 The lack of vital signs grew daily, culminating during Tuesday's roll call of the states that formally put Trump over the top. That vote saw a fizzling of what conservatives hoped would be an effort by some delegates to brazenly ignore state party rules and back the candidate of their choice, not Trump.

 "Whatever may or may not have been planned, apparently it didn't happen," said Colorado delegate Kevin Grantham. He said party leaders wanted to "make sure that Donald Trump is the nominee, regardless of what the states said, regardless of what the delegates say."

 The anti-Trump conservatives unified with another faction trying to alter party rules to shift power from the establishment Republican National Committee to grassroots activists, including many supporters of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a defeated presidential hopeful. But they were badly outnumbered by Trump delegates and party regulars who believed, like him or not, he'd won this year's GOP primaries.

 Also weighing against them — the rebels' lack of an alternative candidate, vigorous lobbying by an alliance between the Trump campaign and the RNC and a growing sense that it was time to unite against presumptive Democratic pick Hillary Clinton.

 "You can stand your ground until the point comes when you would be compromising the country or the state," said Steve House, chairman of the Colorado GOP, whose delegation was loaded with dissidents and Cruz supporters. "The team said, 'Let's stand up and support the nominee.' "

 On the other side of the arena, the Utah delegation gamely announced that it was casting its 40 votes for Cruz. But the presiding officer awarded all those delegates to Trump because of a quirk in Utah GOP rules that allow votes only for active candidates at the convention — and Trump was the only one.

 "There's been a lot of effort to make sure we have a smooth convention, that Donald Trump is the nominee and that we unite," said Phil Wright, chairman of the Utah delegation. He said awarding all the votes to Trump was the GOP's way "of trying to squash any dissent."

 Since it became clear last spring that Trump was the likely nominee, conservative delegates around the country plotted ways to use the party's rules to derail him at the convention. They organized using social media, conference calls and seemingly endless emails.

 But they were soundly thrashed last week when the convention's rules committee approved guidelines for this week's gathering. That carried over to the convention itself, which is run by party leaders who wield the gavel and make final rulings on disputes.

 On Monday, conservatives demanded a final shot at rewriting party rules but were blocked. Their roars of outrage drew widespread coverage and distracted from party leaders' efforts to show unity, but still they lost.

 During Tuesday's roll call, the Alaska delegation split its 28 votes among Trump, Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Convention officials counted all 28 Alaskan delegates for Trump, citing a discrepancy in state party rules, and overruled the delegation when it demanded a fresh count.

 Underscoring the futility in challenging party leaders, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus explained the ruling against Alaska to the entire convention and said, "In any event, have a great night." He then quickly left the stage as music began to play, leaving the Alaska delegates unhappy and vanquished.

 ___

 AP congressional correspondent Erica Werner contributed to this report. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| So it’s official: Donald J. Trump is the Republican nominee for president in 2016. There’s no "presumptive" about it anymore; the delegates have voted and made it official.

 That was probably the biggest news of the Republican National Convention’s second night, but once the actual business of the event was out of the way, the focus was on jobs and family.

 The night’s official theme was "Make America Work Again," and the political speakers, notably Trump’s former rivals and current sycophants Chris Christie and Ben Carson, tried to focused their rhetoric on jobs, touting Trump’s business experience and repeating tried-and-true Republican attack lines on President Obama’s economic record.

 But the show occasionally deviated from that theme with speeches from two of Trump’s children: Tiffany, his 22-year-old daughter with second wife Marla Maples; and Donald Trump Jr., Donald’s firstborn and a key lieutenant in the Trump Organization.

 This being Trump, the proceedings were not exactly stage-managed to perfection, and there were definite winners and losers at the end of the night. Here’s who ended Tuesday behind — and ahead.

 Winner: Criminalization of politics

 Chris Christie delivered easily the most chilling speech of the evening, referring back to his time as US attorney for New Jersey and leading the crowd in a mock prosecution of Hillary Clinton.

 His charges were numerous, and went beyond even the most extreme of Trump’s talking points in some places. They included:

 "Ruining Libya and creating a nest for terrorist activity"

 "An apologist for an al-Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria resulting in the capture of innocent young women"

 "Putting big government spending financed by the Chinese ahead of good-paying jobs for middle-class Americans"

 "She called Assad a different kind of leader. There are now 400,000 dead. Think about that: 400,000 dead. At the hands of the man that Hillary defended."

 "An inept negotiator of the worst nuclear arms deal in American history"

 "A failed strategist who has permitted Russia back in as a major player in the Middle East"

 "A coddler of the brutal Castro brothers and betrayer of the family of fallen Trooper Werner Foerster"

 "Lying to the American people about her selfish, awful judgment"

 After each of these accusations, Christie would ask the crowd: "Guilty or not guilty?" And the crowd would roar back, "GUILTY!" occasionally adding in a chant of, "Lock her up!"

 There were two genuinely unusual and somewhat shocking dimensions to Christie’s speech. One was the sheer severity of the charges he leveled against Clinton. He didn’t merely accuse her of mishandling Boko Haram. He directly accused her of responsibility for Boko Haram’s schoolgirl kidnappings, calling her an "apologist" for one of the most brutal terrorist groups on the planet. He didn’t merely accuse her of mishandling Syria but implied she was responsible for every death in the Syrian civil war.

 These are truly grave charges for which there is no evidence, yet Christie leveled them casually, like they were any other campaign talking point. That’s a remarkable escalation of rhetoric even for this bananas election.

 The second shocking element of the speech was the ease with which Christie essentially called for the criminalization of political disagreement. You can like or dislike the Iranian nuclear deal. But helping negotiate it, and supporting it, is not a crime. Doing that is participating in statecraft. Christie suggested that bad policy should put you before a jury ready and eager to condemn you for anything they deem mistakes.

 The whole feel of the speech — a prosecutor inviting a mob to condemn the accused on count after count — resembled a show trial more than anything else, free of any and all protections for the defendant. Obviously it wasn’t a real trial of any kind. But the implication was nonetheless clear: Clinton deserves to be dragged to court for what she’s done when what she’s done is pursue policy options that Chris Christie doesn’t like.

 It was a performative case for criminalizing disagreement, a perverse and authoritarian pageant that preyed on the worst, darkest tendencies of the Trump movement.

 Winner: Donald Trump

 Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. Officially.

 The votes are tallied. There can be no last-minute coup. The delegates aren’t going to be unbound and rebel to some consensus candidate like Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. A #NeverTrump revolt isn’t going to happen. It’s too late for NeverTrumpers to mount a realistic third-party campaign.

 The convention went like every convention in recent memory: The delegates came and voted based on how they were bound, nominating the person everyone thought would be nominated.

 And yet unlike other recent conventions, the specter of a last-minute revolt hung over the 2016 RNC up until the last moment. As late in the game as Tuesday afternoon, there were still reported efforts to disrupt Trump’s inevitable nomination:

 Some drama/suspense behind scenes at RNC: Cruz backers debate entering his name into nomination a few hours from now. Party leaders nervous. — Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) July 19, 2016

 Yet despite all the scheming and the angst and the extreme unease of Republican elites in a position to attempt a putsch, Trump survived. He made it through. He got nominated. Whatever else happens this week, that’s a significant victory — more significant, given the context, than it was for Mitt Romney or John McCain or other recent GOP nominees.

 Winner: Benghazi, the issue

 Monday night of the Republican convention was very heavy on Benghazi, featuring two veterans of the Annex Security Team and the mother of slain diplomat Sean Smith, and references from numerous other speakers on the "Make America Safe Again" national security theme night of the convention.

 That makes sense: Monday was supposed to be about foreign affairs and defense, so attacking the Democratic presumptive nominee’s most famous foreign policy failing, particularly when the hardcore party activists at the convention are still deeply upset by that failing and what they perceive as its trivialization by the mainstream media, was a no-brainer.

 But Tuesday wasn’t about national security. It was about jobs. And yet it was still about Benghazi.

 "Hillary Clinton's bad judgment, as you heard last night, left us four dead Americans in Benghazi," Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson declared in a speech that really should have been about the Clintons’ history in his home state. "She lied about her emails, about her server, about Benghazi," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attacked. "She even lied to the family members of America's fallen heroes," Sen. Ron Johnson said, in an allusion to Patricia Smith's claim that Clinton lied to her about the cause of the Benghazi attacks.

 It was startling, especially coming after a first night already overloaded with Benghazi content, and a further sign that Donald Trump’s RNC is not designed to persuade undecided voters. It’s meant to excite his base by appealing to issues that enrage and energize them — even though those issues are not especially important to the people Trump needs to win over if he’s to have any hope come November.

 This was Trump and fellow party members playing into a longstanding Republican tendency of extreme overreach when it comes to Clinton scandals — and doing it in a very high-profile way, using time they could be using for persuasion.

 Winner: The Trump kids

 Tuesday night was Donald Trump Jr. and Tiffany Trump’s time to shine, another opportunity for members of the Trump family to humanize the candidate and present him as a real person with whom the American people can empathize and whom they can trust in the wake of their stepmother Melania’s botched, plagiarist mess of a headliner speech.

 And they did a pretty great job! Tiffany offered an almost entirely apolitical speech that was polished, confident, and human. She clearly understood that her father has a reputation as a brutal, abrasive figure whom one might expect to be a domineering parent with impossible expectations, and immediately set about trying to disabuse viewers of that notion.

 "As a recent college graduate, many of my accomplishments are still to come, but my dad takes such pride in all [I've] done so far no matter how big or small," she told the crowd. "I still keep all my report cards because I like to look back and see the sweet notes he wrote on each and every one of them." Translation: My dad is a real person. He reacts to his kids’ ups and downs the way any other parent would. He’s not this asshole you think he is.

 Better still, she bolstered this kinder, gentler image of Donald Trump while tying it into components of his existing reputation. "My dad is a natural-born encourager, the last person that will ever tell you to give up your dreams," she said. "I always look forward to introducing him to my friends, especially the ones with preconceived notions, because they meet a man with natural charm and no facade. In person, my father is so friendly, considerate, funny, real."

 Here she’s blended the counterintuitive vision of her dad she’s trying to forward — as kind, generous, sweet — with the vision most already have, that he’s relentless and persistent, for good or ill. Those qualities, she’s arguing, didn’t make him a merciless steamroller but a wonderful cheerleader and supportive figure. You don’t need to buy the narrative she’s pushing to respect the skill with which she pushed it.

 Donald Trump Jr. honestly seemed like a better candidate than his father, with a fluent grasp of the issues that Republican policy folks care about. He tried to defuse his and his siblings’ reputations as rich brats by acknowledging their privileged upbringing upfront and then pivoting seamlessly into a call for school vouchers.

 "My siblings and I growing up were truly fortunate to have choices and options that others don't. We want all Americans to have those same opportunities," he told the crowd. "Our schools used to be an elevator to the middle class. Now they are stalled on the ground floor. They’re run for the teachers and the administrators and not the students. You know what other countries do better on K-12 — they let parents choose where to send their children to school."

 Within a paragraph, he’d turned his own privilege into a chance to portray himself and his father as compassionate and concerned with the plight of the poor — and as a chance to reassure conservatives of his father’s ideological bona fides.

 The Trump progeny are not politicians, and there was no reason to expect their speeches to be especially great. But Donald Jr. and Tiffany acquitted themselves very well, delivering two of the best speeches of the night.

 Loser: Paul Ryan

 Most Americans weren’t watching the convention as early as 8 pm; the major broadcast networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox) start coverage at 10. So relatively few people saw Paul Ryan oversee the roll call vote procedure that saw Donald Trump finally, and officially, nominated as the Republican presidential nominee in 2016.

 Still, this was clearly a loss for Ryan, who had to oversee the nomination of a man he once called a "textbook" racist, whom he for weeks pointedly refused to endorse, even after it became clear that man had won the primaries.

 Ryan has tried to put a brave face on Trump’s nomination, arguing that he has little choice but to support the nominee. "It is either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton," he said on CNN. "You don't get a third option. It's one or the other." In essence, he’s been trying to signal to elites that his grudging support for Trump was a matter of protocol and that he was still the smart conservative they’ve come to love.

 But that balancing act went to hell the minute he stood before America and stated, "Pursuant to rule 40d of the rules of the Republican Party, I formally declare Donald J. Trump and Michael R. Pence the Republican nominees for president and vice president of these United States..."

 It’s hard to imagine a better way to make Ryan’s protestations that he was uncomfortable with Trump seem phony and worthless. When the chips are down, when the nomination was being decided, Ryan was out there in front, pushing Trump forward. He’s not Trump-agnostic. He’s Trump-boosting, the same as everyone else at this convention.

 Loser: States’ delegate announcers

 During the seemingly interminable roll call vote for president, each state and district/territory participating in the convention picked someone to represent the delegation and formally cast its votes for the nomination.

 In some states, this was a fairly anonymous figure. But in others, it was a major politician, or at least a rising star. In Kentucky, it was Gov. Matt Bevin. In Iowa, it was former Secretary of State Matt Schultz, a likely future gubernatorial/senatorial candidate. In New Mexico, Gov. Susana Martinez introduced a junior delegate who did the honors, as she stood by smiling.

 The result was that a slew of promising Republicans, all with bright futures ahead of them, are on tape enthusiastically praising Donald Trump as the "next president of the United States," or at the very least standing by happily as someone else does that.

 In deep red states like Kentucky, maybe that’s not that damaging. But in swing states like Iowa and New Mexico, it’s ideal attack ad fodder. One can all too easily imagining a Senate race in Iowa where Schultz’s Democratic opponent plays footage of Shultz at this convention on loop to associate him with Donald Trump, who’ll either be a hugely divisive incumbent president or a discredited, failed former candidate who lost Iowa.

 In normal years, like 2012, exercises like this don’t really matter. Obviously everyone in the Republican Party backed Mitt Romney. But Trump is different, and everyone knows at some level that Trump is less acceptable.

 Loser: Michael Mukasey

 Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey is not exactly a moral paragon. Recruited from a district judgeship late in George W. Bush’s second term as a more professional-seeming replacement for Alberto Gonzales, he is now best known for his participation in and defenses of the Bush administration’s torture regime.

 He pointedly refused to say whether he considered waterboarding torture during his confirmation hearings, nearly derailing his nomination — only coming forward to suggest he thought it could be legal in some cases once in office. He would later gush of the CIA’s torture program: "Brave and serious men and women, faced with the most terrifying attack in American history, and — along with the rest of us — fearful of more, devised and executed a program to get intelligence from captured terrorists who refused to cooperate." He also falsely claimed that torture led to the capture of Osama bin Laden.

 So it was rather rich to see him take the stage at the Republican National Convention and complain about Hillary Clinton’s systems administration practices, assailing them as indicative of Clinton’s disrespect for the rule of law. It’s a hard argument to take coming from someone who helped undermine the rule of law in the US by torturing people, which many would argue is worse than setting up a private email server.

 It was worse than rich, though. It was hypocritical. Mere months ago, Mukasey participated in a forum at National Review attacking Trump as unacceptable, and declared, "A Donald Trump presidency would imperil our national security."

 Here's Michael Mukasey a few months ago explaining why Trump should never be president pic.twitter.com/HmPjW8WNE6 — Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) July 20, 2016

 And yet here Mukasey was, at Trump’s convention, attacking his opponent. One could be forgiven for thinking he’s willing to abandon principles he claimed to hold mere months earlier for a chance to raise his profile within the party. ||||| CLEVELAND — Donald Trump Donald TrumpOhio GOP chairman will vote Trump: report Report: Trump made ‘Apprentice’ staff work through Superstorm Sandy aftermath Obama in Nevada: 'Heck no' to Trump, Joe Heck MORE’s children are going to bat for their dad, taking the stage at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday to make a public push for the official GOP White House nominee.

 “Donald Trump has never done anything halfway, least of all, as a parent,” Tiffany Trump, Trump’s 22-year-old daughter with ex-wife Marla Maples, told the crowd.

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 “The measure of a parent is based on how they support and bolster you when they’re down,” said Tiffany Trump, who has rarely stepped into the spotlight since her father launched his White House bid last June. “He motivates me to work my hardest and to always stay true to who I am and what I do.”

 “Never let fear of failure get in the way,” the recent University of Pennsylvania grad added with a grin, “then you’ve pretty much figured out the Trump formula."

 Trump’s oldest child, Donald Trump Jr., brought down the house with a speech that lauded his father’s business successes from a personal perspective.

 “For too long, our country has ignored its problems, punting them down the road for future generations to deal with,” he said as he recalled a childhood growing up on construction sites and in conference rooms. “We need to elect a man who has a track record of accomplishing the impossible.”

 “I’ve seen it time and time again — that look in his eyes when someone says it can’t be done,” the 38-year-old businessman and son of Trump ex-wife Ivana continued. “I saw that look a little over a year ago when he was told he couldn’t possible succeed in politics.”

 “His unwilling determination is why he’s going to become the next president,” Donald Trump Jr. declared. “And why I know when my father says he’s going to fix the country, he means it."

 The speeches came the night after another Trump family member, the real estate mogul’s wife, Melania, faced intense scrutiny over her convention remarks. Portions of the Monday night address closely mirrored parts of a speech Michelle Obama Michelle ObamaClinton, Michelle Obama to hold first joint rally Thursday Obama congratulates Cubs for making it to World Series 56 memorable moments from a wild presidential race MORE gave at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The Trump camp denied that Melania Trump or any speechwriting team had plagiarized the address.

 Two other of Trump’s five children are expected to address the convention this week. Eric Trump is scheduled to deliver a speech on Wednesday, while eldest daughter Ivanka has been tapped for a speaking role on the final night on Thursday.

 Youngest son Barron might have struggled to reach the top of the podium: the child of Melania and Donald Trump is 10. |||||


Here is a news article: OSLO, Global warming will cut Antarctica's 600,000-strong emperor penguin population by at least a fifth by 2100 as the sea ice on which the birds breed becomes less secure, a study said on Sunday.

 The report urged governments to list the birds as endangered, even though populations in 45 known colonies were likely to rise slightly by 2050 before declining. Such a listing could impose restrictions on tourism and fishing companies.

 The study is the first to project the long-term outlook for Antarctica's largest penguins, which can grow 1.2 meters (four ft) tall, seeking to fill a gap in understanding climate change and wildlife in one of the remotest parts of the planet.

 Overall, numbers were set to fall by at least 19 percent from current levels by 2100 as sea ice melts. And two-thirds of colonies of the birds, which have distinctive golden head patches, would decline by more than half, it said.

 "It's not happy news for the emperor penguin," said Hal Castellan of the U.S. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a co-author of the study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

 Populations of most of 18 types of penguins are decreasing, according to a Red List run by conservation experts. Emperors are one of three species rated stable, with around 600,000 birds. Only king, adelie and chinstrap penguins are increasing.

 The impact of climate change on penguins gets less attention than the effect on polar bears, which are often portrayed by scientists as victims of man-made warming and shrinking ice at the other end of the planet.

 Despite rising global temperatures, sea ice around Antarctica has expanded in recent winters.

 More sea ice around a continent the size of the United States and Mexico combined tends to mean more shrimp-like krill, on which penguins feed. Krill eat algae that grow under ice.

 FROZEN HUDDLE

 But emperor penguins, which breed on sea ice with the males huddling together to keep eggs warm in winter darkness and temperatures down to minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 Fahrenheit), are vulnerable to shifting sea ice.

 "There is a goldilocks point for ice and emperor penguins," said Phil Trathan, an expert at the British Antarctic Survey.

 Too much ice means the females, which can travel 100 kms (60 miles) to the sea to catch fish, must waddle ever further. Too little ice means waves could break up colonies in spring.

 Trathan said it was unclear if the ungainly birds could adapt by climbing onto land or higher ice. Four emperor penguin colonies had recently been found on ice shelves, above sea level where glaciers spill off the land.

 Environmentalists urged governments to agree proposed marine reserves in the Ross Sea and off East Antarctica - so far opposed by Russia - to safeguard wildlife.

 "Marine reserves are one of the best ways to protect penguins," said Andrea Kavanagh, of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

 Satellite images have made it easier to estimate emperor populations, especially a discovery in 2009 that droppings from their colonies leave stains visible from space.

 "We have an excellent baseline for emperor penguins," said Ron Naveen, a penguin expert at U.S.-based non-profit group Oceanites. He said other penguins, which breed on land, are far harder to spot by satellite amid rocks and shifting snows.

 For the study, click: here ||||| The study was conducted by lead author Stephanie Jenouvrier, a biologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and colleagues at the Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé (French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and the University of Amsterdam. Credit: Stephanie Jenouvrier An international team of scientists studying Emperor penguin populations across Antarctica finds the iconic animals in danger of dramatic declines by the end of the century due to climate change. Their study, published today in Nature Climate Change, finds the Emperor penguin "fully deserving of endangered status due to climate change."

 The Emperor penguin is currently under consideration for inclusion under the US Endangered Species Act. Criteria to classify species by their extinction risk are based on the global population dynamics.

 The study was conducted by lead author Stephanie Jenouvrier, a biologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and colleagues at the Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé (French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and the University of Amsterdam.

 Emperor penguins are heavily dependent on sea ice for their livelihoods, and, therefore, are sensitive to changes in sea ice concentration (SIC). The researchers' analysis of the global, continent-wide Emperor penguin population incorporates current and projected future SIC declines, and determined that all of the colonies would be in decline – many by more than 50 percent – by the end of the century, due to future climate change.

 "If sea ice declines at the rates projected by the IPCC climate models, and continues to influence Emperor penguins as it did in the second half of the 20th century in Terre Adélie, at least two-thirds of the colonies are projected to have declined by greater than 50 percent from their current size by 2100," said Jenouvrier. "None of the colonies, even the southern-most locations in the Ross Sea, will provide a viable refuge by the end of 21st century."

 The foundation for the research is a 50-year intensive study of the Emperor penguin colony in Terre Adélie, in eastern Antarctica, supported by the French Polar Institute (IPEV) and Zone Atelier Antarctique (LTER France). Researchers have been returning to Terre Adélie every year to collect biological measurements of the penguins there, charting the population's growth (and decline), and observing their mating, foraging, chick-rearing patterns, and following marked individuals from year to year.

 "Long-term studies like this are invaluable for measuring the response of survival and breeding to changes in sea ice. They provide our understanding of the role sea ice plays in the emperor penguin's life cycle," said Hal Caswell, a scientist emeritus at WHOI and professor at the University of Amsterdam.

 "The role of sea ice is complicated," added Jenouvrier. "Too much ice requires longer trips for penguin parents to travel to the ocean to hunt and bring back food for their chicks. But too little ice reduces the habitat for krill, a critical food source for emperor penguins. Our models take into account both the effects of too much and too little sea ice in the colony area."

 The data from Terre Adélie were an essential component of two earlier studies by Jenouvrier, Caswell, and their team: a 2009 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science and a more detailed 2012 study in Global Change Biology that showed the Terre Adélie population was likely to decline by 80 percent by the end of the century.

 The new study expands on that work, by using the previous population models to project how all of Antarctica's 45 known colonies will respond to future climate change. Those projections are based on the current SIC at each location and on changes in SIC at each location, projected by the best available climate models. Those models, part of the IPCC effort, incorporate the physical processes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and land surfaces.

 The researchers found that, while some colonies will increase for a while, this growth is short-lived. By the end of the century at least two-thirds of them will have declined by more than half. Of even more concern, all of the colonies are projected to be declining by that time. Although current climate models do not look further into the future than that, a dramatic change would be required to reverse these declines.

 Based on their research, the study's authors state: "We propose that the Emperor penguin is fully deserving of endangered status due to climate change, and can act as an iconic example of a new global conservation paradigm for species threatened by future climate change."

 The team's study acknowledges the special problems of defining conservation criteria for species endangered by future climate change, because the negative effects of climate change may build up over time.

 "Listing the Emperor penguin as an endangered species would reflect the scientific assessment of the threats facing an important part of the Antarctic ecosystem under climate change," said Caswell. "When a species is at risk due to one factor – in this case, climate change – it can be helped, sometimes greatly, by amelioration of other factors. That's why the Endangered Species Act is written to protect an endangered species in a number of ways – exploitation, habitat, disturbance, etc. – even if those factors are not the cause of its current predicament."

 "Listing the emperor penguin will provide some tools to improve fishing practices of US vessels in the Southern Ocean, and gives a potential tool to help reduce CO2 emissions in the US under the Clear Air and Clean Water Acts," Jenouvrier said.

 The authors offer recommendations and considerations for new international conservation paradigms, including the identification of potential refuges for preserving populations. They point out that Ross Sea will be the last place impacted by climate change, and that conservation management strategies should focus there.

 Explore further: Emperor penguins march toward extinction?

 More information: Nature Climate Change, dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2280

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A summary of this is?

– The iconic Emperor penguin is now marching toward its own demise thanks to climate change, according to the first study to assess the creature's long-term chances. An international team of scientists studying Antarctica's Emperor penguin population is calling for the birds to be reclassified as "endangered" after finding that, if sea ice continues to melt at its current rate, all of the continent's penguin populations will be in decline by 2100, with the total population down 19% from today's numbers; the researchers project two-thirds of the 45 known colonies will drop to less than half their current size. They're calling for the establishment of marine reserves to help protect the penguins. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, the researchers say there will at first be an increase in the current total of 600,000 penguins due to a recent increase in sea ice, Phys.org reports—algae grows under the ice, which sustains the krill that the penguins eat. But one expert explains that too much ice elongates the females' march to the sea to obtain food; not enough ice, and waves could fracture colonies come spring. Most of the planet's 18 types of penguins are dropping in population size, reports Reuters, with only king, adelie, and chinstrap thought to be increasing. (Climate change is taking its toll on penguins in Argentina, too.)


Summarize this article:

The office of Sen. David Perdue insisted he was not praying for the death of President Obama today, as some critics have said, when he recited a particular Biblical passage during a speech.

 The Georgia Republican was speaking at the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” event when he said, “I think we're called to pray for our country, for our leaders and, yes, even our president. Now in his role as president, I think we should pray for Barack Obama.

 “But I think we need to be very specific about how we pray. We should pray like Psalms 109:8 says. It says, 'Let his days be few, let another have his office,’” Perdue added.

 After some laughter, he went on to say, "In all seriousness, I believe that America is at a moment of crisis."

 The next verse, which he did not recite, reads “may his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.”

 Democrats accused Perdue of wishing for Obama’s death.

 “If Republicans are still wondering why Donald Trump is their nominee, look no further than today’s Faith and Freedom conference where a sitting Republican senator left the impression he was praying for the death of President Obama,” Kristen Orthman, a spokeswoman for Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada wrote in an email.

 In response to questions about the phrase, a spokeswoman for Perdue accused the media of “pushing a narrative to create controversy.”

 "Senator Perdue said we are called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and for our president. He in no way wishes harm towards our president and everyone in the room understood that,” spokeswoman Megan Whittemore said in a statement.

 The passage is one of the Bible’s “imprecatory psalms,” which as Harvard Divinity School professor Michael Coogan explained to ABC News, is “one of the best examples of an extended series of calling upon God to punish or curse one’s enemy.”

 “About half the [imprecatory] psalms are individuals praying to God for help in various situations, and often those situations is one in which the praying individual precedes that he is being persecuted, perhaps unjustly by enemies who are often described in hyperbolic terms like ‘raging lions’ or ‘a pack of dogs’ or something like that,” Coogan said.

 When asked what he thought about the use of this psalm in a political speech, Coogan responded, “I can’t imagine that he meant this literally. I think it was tongue in cheek.”

 Graham A. Cole, the dean and vice president of education at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, also weighed in.

 "It puzzles me that this psalm was used in this way. It is technically a psalm of lament. That is to say, that it expresses anguish over the state of affairs the psalmist is in. The senator clearly feels such anguish.

 “However, the line quoted does not make much sense in the present context. President Obama will indeed be out of office soon and another will take his place. I do not think that the senator's use of the line necessarily means he wishes death for the president," Cole wrote in an email.

 This isn’t the first time a public official’s use of this 109th chapter of the Old Testament book has elicited some measure of controversy.

 A Florida sheriff’s deputy was suspended without pay in 2010 when he left an open Bible with the verse highlighted on a colleague’s desk with a note that said “The Obama Prayer.” ||||| Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) joked at a conservative Christian event on Friday that he prays President Barack Obama’s days will be "few."

 The first-term senator began his opening statement at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference by telling attendees to pray for Obama. With a smirk, Perdue said, “We should pray like Psalms 109:8 says. It says: 'Let his days be few and let another have his office.'”

 The large crowd laughed.

 Perdue did not continue reciting the words, but Psalm 109 is a death wish for one of David’s enemies.

 It goes on: "Let his children be fatherless; and his wife a widow. Let his children wander about and beg; and let them seek sustenance far from their ruined homes. Let the creditor seize all that he has; and let strangers plunder the product of his labor. Let there be none to extend lovingkindness to him; nor any to be gracious to his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; in a following generation let their name be blotted out."

 Caroline Vanvick, a spokeswoman for Perdue, issued the following response:

 Senator Perdue said we are called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and for our president. He in no way wishes harm towards our president and everyone in the room understood that. However, we should add the media to our prayer list because they are pushing a narrative to create controversy and that is exactly what the American people are tired of.

 The Christian Science Monitor noted that conservatives have used this verse in the past to talk about the end of Obama’s days in office. ||||| There are a few axioms to live by in American politics, even in this degraded age: All politics is local. If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. Politics stops at the water’s edge. And, uh, don’t pray for the death of the sitting president of the United States.

 At least, that last one seemed like common sense. Yet Senator David Perdue appeared to break the rule Friday morning. In his remarks at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference, Betsy Woodruff reported, the freshman Georgia Republican encouraged attendees to pray for President Obama. According to Perdue’s office, he said:

 I think we’re called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and yes, even our president. In his role as president I think we should pray for Barack Obama. But I think we need to be very specific about how we pray. We should pray like Psalms 109:8 says. It says, “Let his days be few, and let another have his office.”

 As many people quickly pointed out, the quotation is not exactly a benign plea for a new president in its original context. Here’s a chunk of the psalm:

 8. Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

 9. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

 10. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

 11. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.

 12. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.

 13. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

 That’s pretty ugly stuff. As frightening as the imprecation is in its original Old Testament version—its really masterful, bitter language—it takes on an even more chilling aspect in Christian theology. In the New Testatment book of Acts, Peter quotes the psalm as foretelling the ruin of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus.

 Perdue didn’t make this up. In fact, this verse—sometimes labeled “the Obama Prayer”—has been circulating for years among conservatives. Gawker’s John Cook noted the prevalence of the reference on internet message boards and in CafePress t-shirts and bumperstickers back in November 2009. Other cases have popped up over the years, from the Manatee County, Florida, sheriff’s office to the Kansas House, where the speaker forwarded an email involving the psalm. |||||

– A spokesperson for Sen. David Perdue insists the Georgia lawmaker wasn't praying for President Obama's death during a Faith and Freedom Coalition event on Friday, ABC News reports. While speaking at the event, Perdue said we need to pray for all leaders, even Obama. He continued: “But I think we need to be very specific about how we pray. We should pray like Psalms 109:8 says. It says, 'Let his days be few, let another have his office.’” The Huffington Post notes the line got a laugh from the audience at the conference. It didn't go over so well elsewhere. The next part of Psalm 109 reads: “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” In its Biblical context, the psalm is a "death wish," according to the Huffington Post. And a Harvard Divinity School professor tells ABC it's “one of the best examples of…calling upon God to punish or curse one’s enemy.” It's even used later in the Bible in reference to "the ruin of Judas," the Atlantic reports. It's also been used by conservatives against Obama since 2009. A Florida sheriff was suspended in 2010 when he labeled the psalm "The Obama Prayer." Amidst accusations that he was wishing a sitting president dead, a spokesperson clarifies that Perdue "in no way wishes harm towards our president.” She says the media is twisting Perdue's words.