Vatican starts COVID-19 vaccinations

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican, the world's smallest state, began its COVID-19 vaccination program on Wednesday but it was not clear when Pope Francis would get his shot.

A statement said the program started in the atrium of the large hall normally used for papal audiences. It gave no details but a source said the first doses were administered to doctors and other members of the Vatican health services.

Pictures released by the Vatican showed a medical examination table and a chair, both empty. Another showed a medical refrigerator in a room with a photo of the pope on a wall.

The Vatican said last week it had bought an ultra-cold refrigerator to store doses, suggesting it will use the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which must be stored at about minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit).

The pope told a television interviewer on Sunday that he would get the vaccine this week. The Vatican said it had no comment on an Argentine report that he was among the first to get the vaccine.

In the interview, Francis said people should trust doctors and not refuse the vaccine unless they had good medical reasons because their lives and those of others depended on it.

"I really don't understand why some people say this could be a dangerous vaccine. If doctors say it can work well and you don't have special dangers, why not take it? There is a suicidal denialism that I would not know how to explain, but the vaccine must be taken," he said.

Francis, who turned 84 last month, had part of one lung removed during an illness when he was a young man in his native Argentina, increasing his vulnerability to the disease.

The Vatican has only several hundred residents. Most of its employees live in Italy and they too will be getting the vaccine.

There have been fewer than 30 cases of coronavirus in Vatican City, most of them among the Swiss Guard, who live in a communal barracks. 

Reuters:By Philip Pullella  13 hrs ago

Jehovah’s Witness elders made teen listen recording of her rape for hours, lawsuit claims

Elders at a Utah congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses allegedly forced a 15-year-old to listen to a recording of her rape over and over again for hours as part of a religious inquiry, a lawsuit before the Utah Supreme Court claims.

The case seeks to hold the leaders and the church at large responsible for inflicting emotional distress.

The church claims, and lower courts have ruled, that to hold them liable would violate the religious freedoms of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, since it involves weighing the appropriateness of religious conduct.

In duelling briefs, as well as oral arguments for the case on Monday (recordings of which are not yet available), the two sides wrestled over the meaning of this bedrock of American civil rights law.

Karra Porter, a lawyer representing the church, argued there was a difference between the government regulating physical harm and that of the facts in the case, according to the Desert News.

But at least one justice seems not see it that way.

“The allegation here is a mental and emotional equivalent of waterboarding,” Justice Deno Himonas said. “I’ve been a judge for a long time and a lawyer for a long time. I’ve never seen, in court, anything like this that’s alleged.”

The lawyers on the other side have previously argued that neglecting to challenge the church’s alleged actions here would set a precedent that “would give actors free rein to injure others under the guise of religious freedom—a proposition that the US Supreme Court has rejected repeatedly for over a century.” 

Lawyers representing the church and the alleged victim did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The suit, originally filed in 2016, argued that the leaders of a congregation in Roy, Utah, made the teen girl sit and listen to the recordings for hours in 2008 as part of a religious inquiry. The woman in question, now an adult in her 20s, said in court documents a fellow Jehovah’s Witness, age 18, bullied her and allegedly raped her three times, including one instance in which the man involved recorded the incident.

This triggered an investigation from the church in early 2008, where the leaders called the girl and her parents into a committee which would decide whether she had engaged in sinful conduct. During the meeting, they played the recording on and off “for hours” in an attempt to extract a confession, according to court documents, as the girl “continued crying and was ‘physically quivering’ from the trauma of having to listen to her assault over and over.”

This led, her lawyers say, to anxiety, nightmares, loss of appetite, and poor performance in school, leading her to seek damages from the church.

But two lower courts found that the church couldn’t be held liable.

As the Utah Court of Appeals held in 2019, doing would require “an inquiry into the appropriateness of the Church’s conduct in applying a religious practice and therefore violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment," which bars the government from instituting particular religious practices. 

Dozens of suits nationwide have accused the Jehovah’s Witnesses of mismanaging or covering up abuse inside the church, including one in early 2020, when the Montana Supreme Court reversed a $35 million judgement against the church for not reporting a girl’s abuse to authorities 

Explosion at cemetery mars Armistice event in Saudi Arabia

An explosion during an Armistice Day ceremony at a cemetery in Saudi Arabia has left four people injured, including a Briton, officials have said.

The explosive device was set off during the service in Jeddah on Wednesday morning, which was organised by the French Embassy, sources told Reuters.

A number of diplomats from EU countries were present at the event marking the end of the First World War.

Hours after the attack, Saudi state-media quoted a local official who said a Greek consulate employee and a Saudi security man were lightly wounded in the incident. The British government said one UK national also suffered minor injuries.

The French foreign ministry described the attack as "cowardly" and "completely unjustified".

"We call on the Saudi authorities to shed as much light as they can on this attack, and to identify and hunt down the perpetrators," they said in a statement.

Greece's Foreign Ministry condemned the attack and said a Greek policeman, who had been accompanying a consulate employee to the ceremony, was hospitalized but his life was not in danger.

The French consulate in Saudi Arabia issued an urgent warning to citizens living there, asking them to exercise "maximum vigilance" and "stay away from gatherings".

Saudi state TV claimed the situation was "stable" but has not commented further.

It is the second security incident in the city in recent weeks.

On 29 October, a man was arrested after attacking and injuring a security guard outside the French consulate. His motives remain unclear.

Reference: Sky News: 12 Hours ago

Spanish statue bodge-up is a new rival to Borja's Monkey Christ

In the footsteps of the unintentionally iconic Monkey Christ, the Tintin St George, the near-fluorescent Virgin and Child– not to mention the less than sinlessly executed Immaculate Conception – comes … well, it’s hard to say.

The latest Spanish restoration effort to provoke anguished headlines and much social media snarking is, or rather, was, a carved figure adorning an ornate, early 20th-century building in the north-western city of Palencia.

What was once the smiling face of a woman next to some livestock has been replaced with a crude countenance that bears a passing resemblance to the incumbent US president. Or one of the Sand People from Star Wars. Or something from a cheese-induced nightmare. Or, to be honest, pretty much anything you wish to project on to it.

The bodged restoration came to light after an artist placed pictures of the offending visage on Facebook on Saturday.

“The pictures are a bit blurry, but you can see the prank perfectly well,” said Antonio Guzmán Capel. “It looks like the head of a cartoon character.”

Palencia, he added ruefully, now had an attraction to rival the Monkey Christ that propelled the town of Borja to global fame eight years ago after a devout parishioner took it upon herself to restore Elías García Martínez’s Ecce Homo before it flaked and faded into oblivion.

“I’m sure whoever did it got paid for it,” said Guzmán. “But the bigger crime was committed by the person who commissioned it and then tried to carry on as though nothing was wrong.”

Palencia’s reaction may be one of shock and anger for now, but the authorities in Borja managed to find a way to turn the great Monkey Christ fiasco of 2012 to their advantage.

That year, almost 50,000 people visited the small church where the Ecce Homo is displayed behind a protective screen. Thousands still visit the church every year and a small museum has sprung up where people can buy Ecce Homo key rings, T-shirts, teddy bears and mugs. As well as employing two caretakers, the church-museum also yields revenue that is used to help fund places at Borja’s care home for the elderly.

But for restoration experts in Spain, the latest bodged job is another example of the need for proper training, protection and investment.

“THIS #IsNotARestoration,” Spain’s Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators said in a tweet, adding, perhaps a little unnecessarily: “It’s NOT a professional intervention.”