Warned About Abuse, Vatican Failed to Defrock PriestTop Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.
The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.
The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer.
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update: 28% DWP rate increase to go to create 1600 "green doctors" position to police resident's carbon practices
The voters said no at the polls but Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa still imposed a "carbon surcharge" on monthly water bills in the name of "green" despite the fact it was a crony pay-off. Energy prices for citizens and businesses have increased 70 percent in 2 years in a city that is losing jobs, people, and businesses daily. Now another in a series rate hikes is being proposed under the threat of city-wide bankruptcy. Al Gore is giving the unpopular increases a "green" justification as other mayors look on.from Huffington Post:In a rebuke to Mayor Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously today to review his proposal to raise DWP rates. The LA Times reports:
On a 15-0 vote, the council asserted jurisdiction over the Department of Water and Power board's decision to approve the first of four increases over the next year to help pay for renewable energy and other expenditures.
Several council members said they were especially disturbed by Villaraigosa's warning, sent to them in writing the night before the vote, that a failure to let the rate hikes stand would cause the DWP to renege on its plan to provide $73 million to the city's strained general fund, which pays for basic services such as public safety and parks.
This has become a particularly contentious issue in recent days, especially as the Mayor shifts focus from the hikes a s a Green initiative, to one essential for the city's economic survival. The LA Weekly weighs in:
Funny, because Mayor V. has been saying for months that the word bankruptcy is not in his vocabulary -- that it's not going to happen under his watch. Of course, he did not tie his DWP rate increases to the city's budget problems -- which would make the hikes look like indirect taxes -- until Tuesday.
Regardless of the Mayor's change in tone, his initiative has still received the endorsement of heavy-hitter environmentalists like Al Gore and the Sierra Club. In a blog post for the HuffPost LA, Bill Corcoran of the Sierra Club writes:
By supporting the Mayor's proposed investments in clean energy now, members of the Los Angeles City Council can demonstrate the foresight to protect their constituents from drastic and avoidable rate increases in the future--especially those low-income families that could be devastated by such a hardship. This proposal addresses concerns about increasing rates in the midst of tough economic times by incentivizing energy efficiency programs, which allows families to manage the bottom line of their DWP bills as rates are marginally increased.
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