Pope Francis says gossiping is a 'worse plague' than COVID-19

Pope Francis has said "gossiping is a worse plague" than the coronavirus, claiming it can be used to divide the Roman Catholic Church.

Speaking during his weekly address from a window above St Peter's Square at the Vatican, the Pope urged people to "never gossip".

He said: "Please, brothers and sisters, let's make an effort not to gossip. Gossiping is a worse plague than COVID. Worse. Let's make a big effort: no gossiping."

Francis continued: "The devil is the great gossip. He is always saying bad things about others because he is the liar who tries to split the Church."

In the unscripted comments, the 83-year-old added: "If something goes wrong, offer silence and prayer for the brother or sister who make a mistake, but never gossip."

It is the not the first time Francis has brought up the subject of gossiping. In 2016, he urged priests and nuns to avoid spreading stories within their community to prevent the "terrorism of gossip".

In 2018, while making an address at St Peter's Square, he said gossip kills "because the tongue kills, like a knife".

After more than two months of lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, worshippers were allowed to return to St Peter's Square in May under strict social distancing rules.

Last week, Pope Francis held his first weekly public audience in six months, as the Vatican tries to make a return to some normality.

In April, the Pope celebrated Palm Sunday mass behind closed doors because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Italy has been one of the worst-hit European countries, with more than 277,000 confirmed cases and more than 35,500 deaths of people who have tested positive, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Francis is next month due to visit the Italian town of Assisi in what will be his first trip out of Rome since the coronavirus pandemic hit the country in February.

Reference: Sky News: 20 hrs ago: 07/09/2020

Riots rock Malmö after far-right Swedish activists burn Qur'an

The disorderly phalanx of young men and teenagers, many wearing face masks and hooded tops, started to accelerate, excitement rising, as it neared the row of police vans blocking off the troubled district of Rosengård in Malmö.

“We’re gonna fuck this system up because they want to let a man burn the Qur’an,” one of them yelled, as the group starts hurling jagged chunks of concrete paving towards the armoured riot police sheltering behind the vans. “And we’re gonna fuck the police.”

More than 300 rioters threw stones at police and burned tyres in the southern Swedish city on Friday night after a video circulated of followers of the far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan burning a copy of the Qur’an near one of the city’s mosques.

Crowds of young men wielded bars taken from street signs and metal barriers, and threw stones and fireworks after smashing up bus shelters. Further up the road, cars, tyres, pallets and rubbish bins were set ablaze.

Police in Malmö had vacillated for two weeks over whether to give Rasmus Paludan, the leader of Denmark’s extremist Hard Line party permission to hold an anti-Islamic protest. Permission was denied on Wednesday, Paludan was stopped in a car on Friday afternoon as he left the Öresund bridge, deported and banned from entering Sweden for two years.

But this did not stop his supporters from filming themselves burning one copy of the Qur’an, and kicking another around Malmö’s main square like a football, for which three of them were arrested on suspicion of hate crimes.

During the riot, Samir Muric, a prominent Malmö imam, paced up and down in the space between the police and the rioters, imploring the rioters to stop and accusing them of shaming their own religion. Muric, who was dressed in a jubbah, has also condemned the rioters on his Facebook page. “Those who are acting in this way have nothing to do with Islam,” he wrote. “Their shouts filled with ‘la ilaha ill Allah’ and ‘Allahu Akbar’, are just outbursts that they do not mean, because if they really meant them, they wouldn’t have acted like this.”

A maximum of five of them are Muslim. You know why? Because a real Muslim doesn’t do this

Bystander
Among the spectators, it was clear that many of the Muslims and Arabs among them opposed the riot. “I don’t like this, because the Arabs, they’re fucking things up for our community here in Sweden, because one Danish man burned a Qur’an,” complained one man, who grew up in Malmö to Lebanese parents. “And this is what he wants. They want us to be like this. I’ve never seen this ever in my life. I’m shocked.”

Another young man, blocked from returning to his home in Rosengård at the end of a 10-hour shift, struggled to contain his frustration:“A maximum of five of them are Muslim. You know why? Because a real Muslim doesn’t do this. All religions, not only Islam, are about peace.”

Throughout the night, police held their position at the crossroads marking the dividing line between Rosengård and central Malmö, pushing the rioters back with a series of charges.

“Look at them, they can’t fight back fire with fire, that doesn’t work!” a young man, who called himself “the Somali pirate of Rosengård”, hooted in a strong north London accent. “They’re violating our civil rights by letting other people burn the Qur’an that we believe in and now we have to show that they can’t do that. It’s against us, so we’re against them. That’s how simple it is.”

Police officers tried to control the situation by explaining their earlier arrests. “The police did not give them [the far-right activists] permission to do anything,” one officer assured a small but angry crowd gathered around him. “We arrested him as soon as a film came out on the internet showing they had burnt a Qur’an, and we arrested several of the others.”

According to Patric Fors, a press spokesman for the Malmö police, calm had not returned to the area until about 3am on Saturday: “A few policemen have been slightly injured, and I don’t have any reports of any members of the public being injured. We currently have 13 suspects wanted for rioting, five of them have been arrested, but they have all now been released.” The Sydsvenskan newspaper reported that 15 people were held overnight on Friday.

Many witnesses expressed their worries about how the Qur’an-burning and the angry reaction to it might change the city.

Amar Mohsen, an 18-year-old whose mother is Russian and whose father is Iraqi, said politicians in the city should have done more to condemn the plans to burn the Qur’an. “The politicians in Sweden say:

‘It’s a human right. Do what you want. You live in a free country. You can burn a Qur’an in front of a mosque’. It’s not like that. It will affect many people and I think we will be more divided.”

Reference: The Guardian: Richard Orange 1 day ago: 29/08/2020

Watchdog launches investigation into church that promoted fake coronavirus ‘protection kits’

A watchdog has launched an investigation into a London church that promoted fake “plague protection kits” during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bishop Climate Wiseman, head of the Kingdom Church in Camberwell, claimed earlier this year that the £91 small bottle of oil and piece of red yarn would cure and protect people against Covid-19.

The Charity Commission said the discovery sparked a probe into the organisation’s records that revealed concerns about its finances.

Its inquiry will examine records of the charity’s income and expenditure, the trustees’ compliance with legal duties, and potential conflicts of interest.

The watchdog said it would be looking at the church’s relationship with a connected organisation called the Bishop Climate Ministries, which was allegedly responsible for selling the “plague protection kits”.

In a blog post, Bishop Wiseman claimed the concoction of cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet yarn acts as “an invisible barrier to the powers of darkness”.

He wrote: “It is by faith that you can be saved from the coronavirus pandemic by covering yourself with the divine plague protection oil and wearing the scarlet yarn on your body.

"That is why I want to encourage you, if you haven't done so already, to get your divine plague protection kit today!"

He told the PA news agency in April that the church had sold more than 1,000 of the kits.

"This is based on the Bible - I'm a Christian and there is a way that the Bible says to protect us from plagues," he said.

He previously insisted that the church was not selling the kits, and that the price tag was just to cover the cost of the ingredients, yarn and postage and packaging.

Bishop Wiseman said at the time that his church was not telling people to ignore the government's advice.

The kits have been removed from the Kingdom Church’s website and social media pages, amid a separate Trading Standards investigation.

Helen Earner, director of regulatory services at the Charity Commission, said: “Charities should be organisations that people can trust. Many will have been concerned by allegations about this charity’s activities in relation to Covid-19, and so it is right that we, and others, have intervened.

“Our own examination into The Kingdom Church GB has identified further concerns that require investigation which is why we have now opened an official inquiry.”

Reference: Independent: Lizzie Dearden 2 days ago: 26th August 21020

Floodwaters wet toes of Chinese giant Buddha, fulfilling legend about epic rains

Flooding in China rose over the toes of a giant Buddha in southwestern Sichuan province for the first time since 1949.

Muddy floodwaters lapped at the 71-metre Leshan Giant Buddha as authorities fought to try to protect the 1,200-year-old Unesco world heritage site with sandbags.

A local legend says that if the feet of the eighth-century statue carved into a mountainside get wet, Sichuan’s capital city Chengdu will flood too.

China has suffered flooding and landslides from unusually heavy rain and a typhoon, with Sichuan experiencing some of the worst weather.

In Yibin city, 21 vehicles parked in a square fell into a hole after the road beneath them collapsed in the night. China floods force more than 200,000 people from homes,No one was injured, according to media reports.

By Wednesday morning, the emergency status was lowered from the maximum level after waters receded and the toes of the Buddha re-emerged.

The nearby Emei Mountain tourist site reopened after being closed for nearly three days.

Flooding has left more than 200 people dead or missing in China this year and caused $25bn (£19bn) worth of damage, authorities said last week.

Five people were still missing in Sichuan’s neighbouring Yunnan province after a landslide destroyed two homes. Elsewhere, the major municipality of Chongqing was hit by its worst flooding since 1981 as water-covered roofs in low-lying areas of the historic town of Ciqikou, which was closed to tourists because of the rains from Tuesday evening.

On the Yangtze, the water flowing into the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam, a massive hydroelectric facility that spans the river, reached a record 72,000 cubic metres per second, state media said.

Officials at the Ministry of Water Resources warned that the inflow is expected to peak on Thursday at 76,000 cubic metres per second and could lead to more severe flooding upstream.The official People’s Daily newspaper said.

Reference: Independent: Emily Goddard 6 hrs ago: 18th August 2020