Decreased financial and political commitment was blamed recently for the rash of measles outbreaks in 30 African countries.

If the trend continues, by 2012 some 500,000 may die from measles, reversing the gains of the last 18 years that were made against the disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Severe measles can incur complications such as blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhea and dehydration, ear infections or severe respiratory infections such as pneumonia.

Measles deaths among children under five years old fell to 118,000 in 2008 from 733,000 in 2000.

The disease tends to occur among poorly nourished young children with the most severe complications, according to Reuters.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the African countries that had the largest outbreaks are Zimbabwe, Chad and Nigeria.

Some 8,000 migrant children in Bulgaria also had the highly-contagious disease during the period,

WHO expert Peter Strebel said the World Health Assembly’s 193 member states, in their annual meeting in Geneva last Thursday, decided to aim for at least 90 percent measles vaccination coverage nationally by 2015, Reuters reported.

However these goals, while achievable, require a long and determined commitment by the states themselves.

Strebel said the assembly will also aim for 80 percent coverage in every district, and to reduce measles to less than five per million population, Voice of America said.

They also strive to reduce measles mortality by 95 percent compared to 2000 levels.  It costs less than $1 to vaccinate a child against measles, but two doses are required for full protection, according to Voice of America.

Meanwhile large cases of measles have also erupted in the UK, the USA and parts of Europe due to a flawed study that linked measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination to autism.

In Britain vaccination rates dropped below 90 percent last year following the autism scare, Strebel said.  However, after the study was proven to be flawed, in the U.K. in fact there have more recently been improvements in vaccination levels and disease spread has fallen to very low levels, Reuters reported.

The recently announced plans by the Vatican to designate a papal envoy to head the Legionaries of Christ renders this powerful, conservative Catholic order directly under Vatican control.

The Vatican made this move after an eight-month inquiry by five Vatican investigators who reported directly back to Pope Benedict XVI about the double life of its late founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the Associated Press reported.

The Vatican report said Maciel had been sexually assaulting minor seminarians and fathered at least three children from two different women—a daughter from what was described as a “stable relationship”, and two sons who are now grown, who admitted to being his children with another woman, according to CNN.

However, the Vatican hoped that by appointing a personal delegate to lead the order, they could help them “purify” what good still remains, and at the same time help them to undergo a “profound revision”, the AP said.

Maciel was born in Mexico in March 1920.  In January 1941 he founded the Legion of Christ, a powerful and wealthy order that spans 24 countries including Spain, Rome, Ireland, the United States, and several countries in South America and Central Europe.  Recently it had begun projects in Eastern Europe and the Philippines, according to CNN.

With a membership of over 800 priests and 2,500 seminarians, the Legion also has some 70,000 members in the Regnum Christi movement, which was also founded by Maciel. The Legion runs Catholic news outlets, charities, seminaries for boys, schools, and universities in Italy, Mexico and Spain, among others, The Seattle Times said.

In response to the Vatican announcement the Legionaries issued a statement on its website where they said that they “embrace his provisions with faith and obedience”, the AP said.

Critics and advocates of the victims are dissatisfied with the Vatican’s latest move.  They wanted the order to be dissolved.   Others felt the larger part of the Legion’s leadership should be taken out, noting that Macial could not have lived his double life without the knowledge of some of the order’s top leadership, the Seattle Times said.

The Vatican’s statement said, “Of this side of life, a great part of the Legionaries were in the dark — especially given the system of relationship built by P. Maciel, who very skillfully knew how to create alibis, obtain loyalty, trust and silence from those around him and strengthened his own role as charismatic founder,” the CNN reported.

The Vatican said that Macial “…created around him a defense mechanism that made him unassailable for a long period, making it difficult to know his true life.”

According to the AP, Maciel’s victims had tried in the 1990s to bring a canonical trial against him but were shut down.  The late Pope John Paul II had long championed the Legionaries for their orthodoxy and ability to bring in vocations and money.

In 2006, one year after Benedict became pope, the Vatican ordered Maciel to lead a “reserved life of penance and prayer,” and rendered him a priest in name only. He died in 2008 at age 87, the AP reported.

The Catholic church is also investigating complaints of abuse allegedly committed in Britain, Germany, Ireland and other countries, the CNN reported.

Mothers in Britain are angry at Liberal Democrats because they plan to let 16-year-olds star in pornographic films and watch them as well.

Mumsnet, a popular Web site for mothers, is up in arms over the controversial liberal democrat policy about porn, which overwhelmingly passed at the party’s conference in 2004.

Mothers on the site claim it is “essentially legalization of child porn.”

One mom, who goes by the screen name crystal123, said on the Mumsnet Web site: “Many young people aged 12 appear 16 or 17 and could easily end up in explicit pornography. Young people need protecting from perverts, and those who would exploit them in this industry. The Liberals/Libdems or whatever they now call themselves use weasel words to advocate the exploitation of children.”

Another mom, Clairewilliams1973 said, “16 year olds can be pretty all over the place. Both developmentally and emotionally. My son looks much much younger than he is, my daughter looks more mature than her years even though she is just 12. Teens need special protection under the law that lets them experiment with life, have sex, define themselves etc, but protects them from people who may exploit them. I simply cannot vote for a party that advocates this and none of the rest of their policies are a price worth paying for what is essentially legalization of child porn.”

According to The Sun, parenting Web sites like MumsNet and NetMums are seen as vital election battlegrounds.

The Lib Dems confirmed recently that the party’s policy was to let 16-year-olds watch and star in porn movies.  However, they seemed to try to soften their stance when a spokesman said, “Our manifesto sets out what we will do in government. This policy is not in our manifesto,” the spokesman told The Sun.

The current legal age for watching and acting in pornographic films is 18, and the legal voting age in Britain is 18.

Under current laws, 16 year olds who have not reached school leaving age fall under the Children and Young Persons Act (1933).

Under the Children and Young Persons Act, 16 year olds cannot work in prohibited industries, can only do light work, may work up to eight hours on a weekday when not in school, and up to 35 hours in a non-school week and may not work before the close of school hours.

Mandy Smith, the former child-lover and later wife of the Rolling Stone’s bassist Bill Wyman, said recently that the age of consent in Britain should be raised to 18.

Smith said at the currently legal age of consent, which is 16, girls are still emotionally vulnerable, and that even at age 18 some girls are still not ready for sex.  She adds, “You can never get that part of your life, your childhood, back.”

Bill Wyman and his Rhythm Kings Middelburg 27-01-2009/Credit: Jacco Barth

Parliament first established the age of consent in the UK at 13 years in 1875 in response to concerns that young girls were being exploited for prostitution.

The age of consent was amended to 16 years in 1885 under the Criminal Amendment Act because girls as young as 12 were still being sold in the sex trade.

Christian campaigner Josephine Butler, who fought to protect girls and prostitutes from exploitation, was primarily responsible for the changed law.

Two years ago Parliament passed a bill requiring Northern Ireland to lower its age of consent from 17 years to 16 years.  This caused a furor with Northern Ireland’s Legislative Assembly (NLA).

Some NLA warned this would only encourage sexual predators.  Belfast’s Rape Crisis Centre also objected to the change, saying the new law would make it more difficult for them to protect vulnerable girls.

Wild Child

In the 1980s Smith was deemed by media as London’s Wild Child.  She first dated Wyman when she was 13, and publicly admitted they had sex when she was 14 and Wyman was 48.

When Smith reached 16, the age of consent, their relationship became public and their marriage when she was 18 was depicted as a fairy tale wedding.  Two years later they divorced.

Today Smith is 39, single, celibate, and living out a revived Catholic faith.  She mentors young girls and is involved in charitable work.  She laments a childhood that she “could never get back.”

Smith says, “Sometimes, I drive through the city on a Saturday night and see young girls wearing hardly any clothes on their way to a nightclub, while others are being sick on the pavement from binge-drinking. They take their values from some rubbish TV show or wannabe celebrities.”  Smith’s father was absent since she was three, and she met Wyman in a club at a time when her mother was perennially ill.

Today Wyman is remarried with young children. In occasional interviews he refers to his “love affair” with Smith when she was 14 as a “midlife crisis.”

Writer Victoria Coren of The Observer wrote, “It’s not OK for a 48-year-old man to sleep with a 14-year-old, whoever he is. It’s not “a love affair.”

Smith says teenage girls today are caught up in a highly sexualized culture and its expectations.

“The girls I talk to are under pressure to be a certain way,” said Smith. “They think they should be having sex, living a certain life.”

Smith rediscovered her faith in 2005 and says “God is the only man in my life now.  The great thing about the Church is that you can go back. It’s never too late,” she said.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1266664/Mandy-Smith-I-DID-sleep-Bill-Wyman-I-14–man-life-God.html#ixzz0lemZCzQJ

http://christiantelegraph.com/issue9556.html

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10042004.html

Warsaw (ENI). Almost two-thirds of Europeans think Christian values are still relevant to contemporary life and are ready to acknowledge the Church’s efforts to promote them, a recent survey carried out for La Croix daily newspaper has found.

“Whether rooted in Christianity or not, Europeans recognise a privileged place for this religion in its Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox forms,” France’s Roman Catholic-linked newspaper commented on 1 April.

“Yet while two-thirds think Christianity’s message is still up-to-date, this isn’t the case for the other third. So, Christianity remains an element marking the religious culture of the Old Continent, but no longer claims exclusivity,” the newspaper noted.

In the survey, conducted during March by France’s Institut Francais d’Opinion Publique (IFOP) in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, 57 percent of respondents said they believe Christians are “sufficiently visible” in society. That was compared to 28 percent who thought they were “not visible enough” and 15 percent who considered them “too visible”.

Although 61 percent of Europeans said the “message and values” of Christianity remain topical, only Italians believe churches are doing a good job in communicating and reaching out to young people, compared to between 74 and 80 percent of British, French, German and Spanish respondents who thought the opposite.

Forty-eight percent of Europeans assigned a key role to Christian values in promoting “dialogue with different cultures and religions” and “solidarity with the poor,” compared to between three and 13 percent believing these values are important in bioethics and respect for life, in “moralising capitalism” or on issues such as immigration and environmental protection.

At the same time, slightly more than 80 percent of respondents said church priorities for the 21st century should include action for world peace and combating poverty at home, while a third believe churches should be “available at life’s key moments” and one in five think their priorities should include “making Christ’s message known”.

In its commentary, La Croix said the “Christian anchorage” of Europeans appears “too deep to be shifted by the waves stirred by current events”, and has been little affected by current abuse scandals in the churches. However, it also notes strong national differences in attitudes to Christianity, with French citizens voicing stronger criticisms than their Italian neighbours.

In Britain and Germany, where religious pluralism and coexistence are a “well anchored historical reality”, according to La Croix, more citizens regret the failure of traditional churches to hold their ground against new minority faiths.

“For the English above all, religion is a private affair. The Church should be there at life’s important moments, rather than to support world peace, whereas in Germany the churches have a recognised social role as a sort of State institution,” the newspaper noted.
“By contrast, if the majority of French are strongly detached from religion, French Catholics display a more marked religious outlook than Italian or Spanish Catholics. They are also proportionately more numerous in voicing an attachment to Christian values,” it stated.

The survey by IFOP, which was founded in the 1930s, follows other poll results suggesting interest in religion remains extensive in Europe, despite what many see as the continent’s outwardly secular character.

The issue of Christian marginalization has gained new heat as the National Secular Society (NSS) recently accused Christian church leaders, including former Archbishop Lord Carey of Canterbury, of seeking special treatment at the Court of Appeals (CA).

In a separate instance Shirley Chaplin, a nurse, was banned by Devon and Exeter NHS Trust from wearing her crucifix on the job although she had done so without incident for the last 30 years.

This has sparked new debate among Christians, Muslims and secularists about the issue of discrimination of Christians in favor of secularists.

Stephen Evans of the NSS said “Equality for all before the law must be non-negotiable.”

However, Paul Diamond of the Christian Legal Centre filed the request on behalf senior church leaders after religious activists had already lost several cases of church discrimination.

Diamond also represents Gary McFarlane, who was fired from his job for refusing to give sex therapy to gay couples.

The church is requesting that McFarlane’s case is heard by a specialist panel of five judges with a proven understanding of religious issues.  They also requested that the panel is headed by Lord Judge and the Lord Chief Justice.

The Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON) website noted that senior churchmen felt the CA judges are biased against them.

Lord Carey and others said that in the long term there is a need to appoint a panel of judges – of all religious faiths – to hear sensitive religious rights cases.

In a separate instance Shirley Chaplin, a nurse, was banned by Devon and Exeter NHS Trust from wearing her crucifix on the job although she had done so without incident for the last 30 years.

Others Protest

Dr. Taj Hargey, chairman of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford said secularism in Britain is “virulent”, and that Britain should be defending Christianity as the faith of the British majority instead of marginalizing it.

Hargey said “As a Muslim, I am filled with despair at the attitude of our politically correct officials towards Christianity” in his article entitled “What Has Britain Come to when it takes a Muslim Like me to Defend Christianity?”

Hargey expressed regret that the core of religious liberty, which was a “…cornerstone for our democratic, respectful and tolerant nation” is slowly ebbing.

Donald MacLeod, principle of the Free Church college in Edinburgh was featured in guardian.uk.com saying “Muslims may wear their burkas, gays their earrings and Sikhs their turbans, but Christians may not wear crucifixes.  Marriage is attacked because of presumed links with Christianity, and euthanasia promoted because it is presumed to have none.”

In the same article Mary Warnock said “We need an established church.  There are occasions when the cultural traditions and ceremonies of religion are essential, and nothing else will do.  Christianity is not just a private but a public matter, woven into our constitution and our shared imaginative life.”