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theirishtimes--2019-09-06--A potted history of plants at Dublins National Botanic Gardens
| 2019-09-06T00:00:00 |
theirishtimes
|
A potted history of plants at Dublin’s National Botanic Gardens
|
Plants and Power: Botanical Imperialism is the intriguing theme of a new series of guided walks in the National Botanic Gardens on Saturdays in September. Devised by guide Charlotte Salter-Townshend, the walks will explore the geographical origins of plants and the role certain plants played in empire building, the development of slavery and international trading routes. “I’ll be retelling certain parts of history through plants and look at how the world was shaped through the trading of tea, coffee, sugar, cotton and other plants,” explains Salter-Townshend, who has a master’s degree in public history and cultural heritage from Trinity College Dublin. Admitting to having scant knowledge of how to grow plants, this enthusiastic guide at the botanic gardens has, instead, a fascination for the history of botanical gardens, 19th-century plant hunters and the often ruthless trading of newly discovered plants from Asia and South America. For example, Salter-Townshead has tracked how rubber, which originated in Brazil, was brought through England to southeast Asia, where rubber production was then developed. And, did you know that the Dutch traded New York (formerly called New Amsterdam) with the British for control of the sugar plantations in Surinam in South America? “We rely on plants for our survival, but there is a dark side to the story of plants and how people were exploited through slavery, smuggling and trade wars. Even today, in parts of the world, drug gangs are gaining control of avocado plantations,” she says. On her tours, Salter-Townshead will take visitors on a potted history of plants whose trade played a role in the rise and fall of empires. Take tea, for example, which became a fashionable drink in England when Charles II married a Portuguese princess where tea drinking had already become popular. “The British had been buying tea from the Chinese since the 17th century. This was costing them a lot of money so they began exporting opium to China in the 19th century, which led to huge social and economic problems in China and the so-called Opium Wars. “The Scottish plant hunter Robert Fortune smuggled thousands of tea plants on ships from China to India so the English could grow tea in India instead, which led to the establishment of the British East India Company,” explains Salter-Townshend. The National Botanical Gardens in Dublin was first developed in 1795 at the gardens of the Dublin Society and then the Royal Dublin Society. “Its original function was to support industry and agriculture with practical education for landowners and farm labourers. There was a hay garden and a cattle garden as well as a vegetable garden,” explains Salter-Townshead. It wasn’t until the 1830s, as the British empire expanded, that the more exotic plants start to arrive. “Plant hunters in Asia, Africa and South America sent back seed and living plants to Kew Gardens and to the gardens here, as Dublin was the second city of the British empire.” On her tours, she shows visitors many of these exotic plants held in the magnificent curvilinear glasshouses at the botanic gardens. The gardens also has a collection of plants that Roger Casement brought back to Dublin from the Congo while on a mission there to report to the British government on the Belgian colonial regime. “We have the original coffee, cocoa and baobab plants in our herbarium that Roger Casement brought from the Congo in the early 1900s,” says Salter-Townshead. She will also take visitors through the wild Ireland section of the gardens to explore how potatoes, which were originally brought from South America to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors, became so popular in Ireland. “Potatoes, which belong to the nightshade flowering plants, were originally viewed with suspicion, deemed to be poisonous and associated with witchcraft. Yet when they were brought to Europe, they produced a high yield in a small patch, were nutritious and didn’t require harvesting equipment, so they became a staple crop, which led to population boom,” she says. Interestingly, it was David Moore, the curator of the gardens in the 1840s, who first noted potato blight at Glasnevin on August 20th, 1845, and predicted that the impact on the potato crop would lead to famine in Ireland. He later correctly identified the fungal cause of the blight but narrowly missed finding a remedy. The big focus at the gardens at that time was the building of the Richard Turner curvilinear glasshouses and the propagation of orchids. “This in itself shows the power of the Dublin Society and the prestige of the gardens at the time,” says Salter-Townshend. While guided tours focused on such a vast historical theme can only whet visitors’ appetites, she is keen to bring a contemporary angle to her story of plants and power. “The focus of botanic gardens has changed from being a place where plants are used for profit and power to one of protecting biodiversity. So, for example, we grow heritage apple trees here and we save seeds of tomatoes for future food security,” she says. National Botanic Gardens conservation botanist Dr Noeleen Smyth is the Irish representative for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. “The trade of wildlife is the fourth-largest illegal trade after drugs, human trafficking and arms trafficking,” says Salter-Townshend. Plants and power: Botanical Imperialism, a themed guided tour of the National Botanical Gardens, run on Saturday, September 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th, starting at the Education and Visitor Centre at 2.30pm. Admission €5. Booking: 01-8570909, botanicgardens @opw.ie
| null |
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/a-potted-history-of-plants-at-dublin-s-national-botanic-gardens-1.4006634
|
2019-09-06 23:00:00+00:00
| 1,567,825,200 | 1,569,331,076 |
human interest
|
plant
|
790,199 |
theirishtimes--2019-11-10--Michael D Higgins moves to protect plants and wildlife in Phoenix Park
| 2019-11-10T00:00:00 |
theirishtimes
|
Michael D Higgins moves to protect plants and wildlife in Phoenix Park
|
President Michael D Higgins has asked for a specialist team to develop plans to protect plants and wildlife around Áras an Uachtaráin and the Phoenix Park. The Office of Public Works, which owns the park, has commissioned a year-long “bio-diversity” audit of the 52.6-hectare (130-acre) site, which includes formal gardens and certified organic kitchen gardens, grasslands, wooded areas and a lake. The Trinity College ecologists will be led by biodiversity specialist professor Jane Stout, and include experts in plants, fungi, insects, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Speaking at the first National Biodiversity Conference earlier this year, Mr Higgins said that we are facing “profound challenges” in terms of threats to our natural environment. He said reversing biodiversity loss will require all of us to be leaders within our own spheres of influence.
| null |
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/michael-d-higgins-moves-to-protect-plants-and-wildlife-in-phoenix-park-1.4078591
|
Sun, 10 Nov 2019 20:23:28 +0000
| 1,573,435,408 | 1,573,431,909 |
human interest
|
plant
|
1,010,592 |
thetelegraph--2019-07-07--RHS chief admits that she doesnt know all the Latin names for plants
| 2019-07-07T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
|
RHS chief admits that she doesn’t know all the Latin names for plants
|
Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) chief has admitted that she doesn’t know all the Latin names for plants. Sue Biggs, Director General of the RHS encouraged nervous gardeners by admitting that even she does not know all the Latin names given to plants. “I don’t know most of the Latin names, so if I can be the boss at the RHS and not know the Latin names I’m sure everyone listening to this is fine with that too,” she said. She added that cautious gardeners could use the My Garden function on the RHS website which gives all the common names. “Through Plant Finder and My Garden on there, if you’re really not sure just quietly put it in and then you can wow everyone with your amazing latin knowledge,” she told Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. She went on to say that she had also killed “hundreds of plants” in her life. “The worst thing you can do in gardening is kill a plant and I’ve killed hundreds in my life. So feel free, you help the nursery trade by killing plants.
|
Jessica Carpani
|
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/07/rhs-chief-admits-doesnt-know-latin-names-plants/
|
2019-07-07 05:00:00+00:00
| 1,562,490,000 | 1,567,536,565 |
human interest
|
plant
|
708,621 |
theguardianuk--2019-08-26--Ecotherapy why plants are the latest treatment for depression and anxiety
| 2019-08-26T00:00:00 |
theguardianuk
|
Ecotherapy: why plants are the latest treatment for depression and anxiety
|
Many gardeners already know the uplifting feeling you get from being muddied of hand, nurturing plants from seed to bloom and watching the seasons change. It is something the NHS is increasingly taking notice of, too, as a way to improve and manage mental health, along with other conditions. A GP surgery – Cornbrook medical practice in Hulme, Manchester – has started prescribing gardening to people with anxiety and depression. Patients are given plants to care for, which are later planted in the surgery’s communal garden – a place where they can join in an activity with others and strengthen social connections. There are other similar schemes, such as Sydenham Garden in south London, which takes GP referrals for its therapeutic sessions. “Research shows that outdoor exercise or ‘ecotherapy’, such as gardening or walking, has huge benefits for wellbeing and can even be as effective as antidepressants in treating mild to moderate depression and anxiety,” says Aimee Gee from the mental health charity Mind. “This is thought to be due to a combination of doing more physical activity, which is known to have many physical and mental health benefits; getting more regular social contact with people, which can reduce loneliness and boost self-esteem; and being surrounded by nature, which can boost your overall mood and sense of wellbeing.” The colours, sounds and smells of a garden, she says, “boost our wellbeing, while nurturing a garden or allotment provides the satisfaction of completing tasks and a stronger connection with the natural environment, both of which are associated with improved self-esteem and decreased levels of anger”. Monty Don, the gardener and TV presenter, has credited gardening with helping with the depression he has experienced. In a column for Gardeners’ World earlier this year, he summed up the optimism gardening instils: “When you plant something, you invest in a beautiful future amid a stressful, chaotic and, at times, downright appalling world.” Even if that doesn’t convince you of the magic of gardening, there is a strong possibility that other forms of non-clinical “social prescribing” might be on their way to your surgery soon; other alternative treatments include arts and crafts, walking and singing lessons.
|
Emine Saner
|
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2019/aug/26/ecotherapy-plants-treatment-depression-anxiety
|
2019-08-26 14:26:09+00:00
| 1,566,843,969 | 1,567,533,376 |
human interest
|
plant
|
1,013,868 |
thetelegraph--2019-08-25--Pot plants prescribed to help alleviate anxiety and depression in move away from pills
| 2019-08-25T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
|
Pot plants prescribed to help alleviate anxiety and depression in move away from pills
|
For thousands of years plants have been used to alleviate anxiety and depression, with Pliny the Elder recommending borage, and the Roman military doctor Proscurides extolling the benefits of St John’s Wort, as early as the 1st century AD. Now the NHS is catching up, prescribing plants instead of pills in a pilot scheme in Greater Manchester. Instead of sedatives and anti-depressants, patients are being given a tubs of herbs, pot plants or trays of vegetables to tend in the hope that caring for a living thing will help lift their spirits. Doctors have also selected specific herbs for their mood-boosting benefits, including lemon balm which is used in aromatherapy to relieve anxiety, stress and...
|
Sarah Knapton
|
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/08/25/pot-plants-prescribed-help-alleviate-anxiety-depression-move/
|
2019-08-25 17:00:00+00:00
| 1,566,766,800 | 1,567,533,432 |
human interest
|
plant
|
499,455 |
sottnet--2019-04-01--Keeping a jasmine plant in your room reduces anxiety panic attacks and depression
| 2019-04-01T00:00:00 |
sottnet
|
Keeping a jasmine plant in your room reduces anxiety, panic attacks and depression
|
Plants are an excellent way to increase oxygen levels in the room and improve air quality. There are also beneficial plants that will help you improve mood, and fight anxiety, depression, and prevent panic attacks.Researchers have found that there is a direct link between stress and oxygen levels and showed that high levels of toxins in the air lead to anxiety and stress. Therefore, you can drastically improve your mood and relieve stress and anxiety.Scientists have conducted studies on mice and discovered that the aroma of jasmine plant and jasmine essential oil significantly calmed them, and made them stop all activity and sit quietly in a corner.Their brain scans showed that jasmine fragrance boosts the effects of a chemical called GABA on nerve cells, and thus relieves anxiety and encourages rest.According to Professor Hanns Hatt, these findings published online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry can be regarded as evidence of a scientific basis for aromatherapy.Prof Hatt, of the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, stated thatResearchers found that jasmine is much more effective than sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medications, and sedatives, asResearchers at the Wheeling Jesuit University, led by Dr. Bryan Raudenbush, assistant professor of psychology, found that dispensing jasmine odor into a room where participants were sleeping "led to greater sleep efficiency and reduced sleep movement."Subjects who breathed jasmine in the air rated their level of anxiety and vigor lower, and performed cognitive tests faster, while the alertness level in the jasmine odor condition was greater during the afternoon hours, which helped maintain students' focus on academic work throughout the day.Jasmine essential oil is an effective natural way to improve sleep, boost happiness, regulate hormones, and treat anxiety and fatigue. It can be used to improve concentration, soothe spasms, and ease mild depression, since it:Therefore, keep a jasmine in your bedroom, and you will reap all the benefits of this amazing plant!Sources:
| null |
https://www.sott.net/article/410282-Keeping-a-jasmine-plant-in-your-room-reduces-anxiety-panic-attacks-and-depression
|
2019-04-01 18:29:48+00:00
| 1,554,157,788 | 1,567,544,539 |
human interest
|
plant
|
704,065 |
theguardianuk--2019-06-30--House plants the new bloom economy
| 2019-06-30T00:00:00 |
theguardianuk
|
House plants: the new bloom economy
|
In October last year, an American entrepreneur named Eliza Blank raised $5m in venture funding for the Sill, a New York brand described on its website as “A modern plant destination for the modern plant lover.” Blank established the Sill in 2012, with the help of a Kickstarter campaign. “We want to make it fun and easy to own a plant!” she wrote then. It had not been fun and easy for Blank up to that point. Every time she moved from one city apartment to another, she would “try to integrate plants into my home,” she says, but, “I would just kill every single one of them.” She noticed friends facing similar struggles: they neither knew of convenient places to buy plants nor, crucially, how to look after them. Monsteras slowly dwindled; peace lilies faded to stem; fronds slumped to an unhappy limp… You couldn’t call it a bloodbath, really, but there was slaughter. “Plants are assuredly good!” Blank says. But where to buy them in the city and how to become a dutiful plant parent? “I asked: ‘Why isn’t there a consumer brand that can elevate this to commodity status?’” She became frustrated at first, then excited, the way entrepreneurs do, I suppose, when landing on a new growth opportunity. She would sell plants online! Bird’s nest ferns. Cheese plants. Moss balls… then offer consumers helpful information about how to not kill them. Blank’s Kickstarter campaign raised $12,632, hardly big money, but enough as a seedling. She was banking on houseplants becoming rising stars of commerce – snake plants as retail phenoms. The market was ripe, she thought, or at least ripening, because she had noticed houseplants appearing more frequently online. And she was right. In the years since the Sill launched, business has grown month by month, in tandem with the increased standing of the houseplant as an arbiter of millennial taste. The American gardening industry alone is now worth $48bn, according to the National Gardening Association. That is big business and it is getting bigger. Younger fingers in particular are becoming greener. Last year Blank sold more than 100,000 plants, more than 270 a day, predominantly to millennials, pulling in around $5m in revenue, she says – profits succulent enough to keep investors chirpy. To meet consumer demand, the brand recently opened three bricks-and-mortar stores, two in New York and one in Los Angeles. It is no great leap to assume that the yucca you just “liked” on Instagram, positioned carefully in the corner of a Brooklyn loft, or a Manhattan brownstone, or even some condo in Middle America – the Sill does not discriminate by postal code – comes from Blank’s stock. Plants were not one of Blank’s childhood passions. Before launching the Sill, she worked in marketing, and she thinks like a retail strategist: how can we best reach consumers and ensure they’re happy? How can we convince our customer base of the must-have status of the kentia palm? The same can be said of Freddie Blackett, also a former marketeer, also once not so green-fingered. In 2015 Blackett launched Patch, an online platform that sells houseplants to homes in London. By his own admission, he had few horticultural credentials before setting Patch up, but he too sensed an opportunity: how the millennial interest in technology, wellness, the climate and interior design might converge to transform the houseplant into a valuable commodity. Last year, Blackett sold 120,000 plants, more than 320 a day, and created a video series that helps customers care for their recent purchases. In my experience, the videos have gone viral in a kind of traditional sense. They pop up in my Instagram feed like troublesome weeds. In the millennial mode, the Patch website is easy to use but idiosyncratic enough to be inviting and the brand’s packaging is elegant and simple. The same is true of the Sill. Sometimes the delivery is as much a draw as the product itself. In an unboxing video posted online, one YouTuber described a package as “kinda big” but “really cool”. “We’re in a new era of e-commerce,” the YouTuber says, with excitement, “where everyone is questioning what can and can’t we ship through the mail. The Sill is proving that you can ship a beautiful houseplant to you safe and sound!” A message on the delivery reads: “Plants Make People Happy.” Both the Sill and Patch focus a large part of their marketing on a curious fiction: that plants are somehow active care-givers, able to alleviate all sorts of modern ills: anxiety, loneliness, indoor air pollution, the problem of great social-media content. An article posted on the Sill’s website titled, “Why You Need Plants in Your Life” includes a list of benefits that the brand says are backed by scientific studies. In an age of mental fatigue, houseplants “boost mood, productivity, concentration and creativity”. In an era of climate disaster, they “clean indoor air by absorbing toxins”. As work continues to define us, they “reduce stress”, and can prevent “sore throats and colds”. Plants “are therapeutic,” one line reads, “and cheaper than a therapist”. This language is savvy enough to acknowledge the fact that millennials, craving comfort, have been widely reported to be relying on houseplants to fill a vacuum. We are struggling to connect with each other. We are struggling to connect with our planet, which is not-so-gradually falling to pieces. We are invited to think: might a houseplant help? Blackett, in a clever early move, decided to baptise Patch products with human names – Chaz, the Swiss cheese plant (from £14); Fidel, the fiddle-leaf fig (from £12) – so as to rely less on Latin terms, which he worried might become a stumbling block for consumers, but also, you’d have thought, to suggest a more personal connection between houseplant and owner. Somehow, not long ago, the phrase “plant parenthood”, often prefixed with a hashtag, entered the lexicon as a legitimate term. It is no longer unusual to nourish and attend to a parlour palm as if it were offspring. “My fussy calatheas are starting to get brown tips because they lack humidity,” one Twitter user wrote recently. “I mean, seriously girls? It’s been hella humid!” Can a houseplant fill so big a void? The answer, really, is hardly. A peace lily will never replace a partner, nor a child, nor even a pet (though sometimes you wonder). As far as I’m aware, no proud plant parent has launched an Instagram account dedicated to his cute monstera, in the way pet lovers frequently do for their animal dependents. And it’s doubtful whether a houseplant can affect the air to the degree necessary to create human benefit, though the marketeers will try to sell you on it. Both Patch and the Sill include links to lists of “air-purifying plants” – “Grow your own fresh air” – though neither seems to agree on which plants are most purifying. “In theory, the claims are true,” Curtis Gubb, a PhD student in environmental health at the University of Birmingham, who is investigating how effective housplants are at removing harmful indoor pollutants, told me. Plants have been found to remove all kinds of pollutants, he said, “but just because a plant removes something doesn’t mean it’s affecting the room. You’d need 100 plants in a small room,” to have a significant effect. He added that, really, houseplants are “very unlikely to clean the air.” The science, he says, is well behind the claims. Most of us can agree that plants are good, fundamental to our existence somehow, though often the benefits are subjective. In a recently published essay, the late neurologist Oliver Sacks praised the “healing power of gardens”. “As a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible,” he wrote. “In 40 years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.” A line on the Sill reads: “Even brief exposure to nature has been shown to make us more altruistic and co-operative,” and later, presumably to hammer home the point: “It’s true when we say plants make people happy.” A few months ago, I ordered a peace lily from Patch. It arrived wrapped in plastic and planted in a distressed ceramic pot I’d bought as an add-on. I placed it immediately in my bathroom, because I’d read somewhere, rightly or wrongly, that it would thrive in all that after-shower humidity. When a couple of weeks later I went on holiday with my family, strict care instructions were given to my neighbour. To my surprise, the plant was the first thing I checked when we arrived home. Was it still alive? Had it missed me? Yes, it was thriving – my neighbour had done an excellent job of not killing it. And, no, of course it hadn’t missed me. I am not too proud to admit I felt a little disgruntled. I might need the plant, I thought, but the plant does not need me.
|
Alex Moshakis
|
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jun/30/house-plants-bloom-economy-wellbeing
|
2019-06-30 11:00:18+00:00
| 1,561,906,818 | 1,567,537,503 |
human interest
|
plant
|
715,330 |
theguardianuk--2019-11-21--Re-greening: can Louisville plant its way out of a heat emergency?
| 2019-11-21T00:00:00 |
theguardianuk
|
Re-greening: can Louisville plant its way out of a heat emergency?
|
There are parts of Louisville, Kentucky, that are enveloped in green, where towering trees arc over broad avenues and walkers, joggers and bikers enjoy beautiful parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the man who drew up plans for Manhattan’s Central Park. Even on the hottest days of summer, these neighbourhoods feel comparatively refreshing next to the more sun-baked quarters of the city, where shade is often an unavailable commodity on the street. Cities are their own climates, often hotter than their surroundings due to the way surfaces like asphalt trap heat even as cars and buildings exude it. When a city is markedly warmer than surrounding rural areas, it is called an urban heat island – and Louisville ranks among the worst heat islands in the US, according to a 2014 study, with an average temperature difference of 2.7C (4.8F). Worse still, a 2012 study by Georgia Tech’s Urban Climate Lab found that Louisville was the fastest-warming urban heat island in the nation. Part of the reason for Louisville’s temperature extremes is geography. But a lot of it comes down to trees. A study commissioned by Louisville in 2015 found that the city had lost 54,000 trees a year between 2004 and 2012, reducing the city’s canopy cover from 40% to 37% over the period. Today, canopy cover is likely to be around 27%, according to Cindi Sullivan, executive director and president of the nonprofit TreesLouisville. Trees provide shade while also lowering the temperature of their surroundings through evaporative cooling. Without action, it is feared the tree canopy will continue to decline as trees fall due to storms, pests and age – a scenario that could see the city’s rapid warming continue, alongside a number of other deleterious effects. “Without a robust tree canopy,” said Sullivan, “our air quality is going to continue to decrease, stormwater and flooding from these extreme weather events is going to increase, the effects of draught are going to increase. There will be more health problems.” And while Louisville may be among the worst heat islands, the problems seen here are replicated nationwide – the city was only fifth-worst US heat island in the 2014 study, behind Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Denver and Portland, Oregon. “Most cities by the middle of the century [will be becoming] increasingly dangerous places to be outside,” said Brian Stone Jr, who wrote the Georgia Tech report on urban heat islands. “So if no steps are taken, that will just be amplified.” He added: “I think this is a non-trivial health-related issue for all large cities in the US. “It isn’t just that heat is uncomfortable – it kills people and is only set to get worse as the climate crisis continues.” While individual cities have little ability to impact the planet-wide climate crisis on their own, they do have the ability to temper the urban heat island effect within their own borders. Louisville is hoping to do just that. When it was named the fastest-warming US city in 2012, it did not take its new superlative lightly. The city created an office of sustainability, hired an urban forester and tapped Stone to conduct an urban heat management study, the first of its kind for a major American city. The city’s main approach to cooling itself has been twofold: promoting the use of more “cool surfaces” for paving and roofs to reflect radiation and heat away, but, more importantly, encouraging the planting of trees. “You need to do both. It’s not one silver bullet,” said Maria Koetter, formerly head of the city’s office of sustainability. The link between trees and health TreesLouisville offers free trees to Louisville’s residents that can either be delivered to them or picked up. The group, in conjunction with the city, also offers a rebate to residents of up to 40% of a tree’s price – up to $80 – for trees they purchased themselves. Sullivan says that with 70% of the land available to plant in Louisville privately owned, getting individual families and businesses to plant trees is the only way the city can preserve and ultimately grow its tree canopy. “Five or six decades ago you wouldn’t move into a house without planting a tree, because that tree was your air conditioning,” she said. “So the idea that trees are a valuable asset is something that is not front of mind anymore for many people.” The Depave Project aims to plant trees in parking lots, and the city is offering rebates to residents and businesses that use cool roofs. Meanwhile, the University of Louisville’s Green Heart Project has just started to plant the first of its 10,000 trees in south Louisville neighbourhoods as part of a study looking into the impact on greenery on health that it says is the first of its kind. Aruni Bhatnagar, the professor of medicine leading the project, calls it “a community-based clinical trial in which instead of pills, we have trees.” The main hypothesis of the estimated project, which is expected to cost $20m, is that planting trees will reduce air pollution and thus improve cardiovascular health. But Bhatnagar says they will also be looking closely at secondary outcomes: when it’s greener and cooler, will residents be more inspired to exercise outside, lowering rates of diabetes and obesity? Will stress and anxiety levels drop? Will trees shield enough noise that sleep quality and duration improves? In cities like Louisville, tree canopy cover often corresponds directly with things like race and income, bringing heat, lack of shade and the associated heat-related health problems to areas already suffering other inequalities. An NPR analysis of 97 major US cities this summer found that poorer neighbourhoods were more likely to be hotter in more than three-quarters of the cities. Sullivan said a TreesLouisville analysis had found that Louisville neighbourhoods that were red-lined in the 1930s – that is, where loans and other services were refused based on racial discrimination – have 22% canopy cover today, while those that weren’t red-lined have 49%. In announcing the city’s study of its heat island problem in 2016, Louisville mayor Greg Fischer said: “We know that too often the zip code where you are born can correlate with negative health outcomes. That’s unacceptable.” But getting Louisville to a tree canopy cover to the city’s goal of between 40% and 45% may prove difficult. Reaching those goals could take decades and cost north of $1bn, according to the city’s canopy study. Money is tight and the city, despite its commitment to the heat island issue, recently folded its office of sustainability into another department and laid off Koetter, the office’s director. “I wouldn’t say we are necessarily on the path” to addressing the heat island effect, says Koetter. “I would say we are aware of what needs to happen.” She added that to meet its tree canopy goals, Louisville needed to plant about 100,000 trees a year for the first 10 years of a canopy building program, but that she did not see the city as being able to generate enough revenue to do that. Stone, the Urban Climate Lab director, pointed out that New York City was able to plant 1 million trees over the course of eight years, but said he was less optimistic that Louisville could reach its tree canopy goals. In 2017, Louisville passed an ordinance requiring that trees removed from public rights of way must be replaced. A new tree-protecting ordinance that would require developments to maintain certain levels of tree canopy cover is currently being considered by the city’s metro council. “We’re in a situation right now where many tree advocates and environmentalists think it doesn’t go far enough, that the percentage of trees that need to be saved in new developments needs to be increased,” said Bill Hollander, the councilman who introduced the proposal. “We also have some members of the development community saying it goes too far.” Sullivan of TreesLouisville said the proposed ordinance is a step in the right direction, but that more needs to be done – and fast. “There’s an old eastern adage that says the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second-best time is now,” she said. “We’re way behind, I’d say decades behind other communities that have already figured some of this out.” Ebony Pryor, 42, hopes the planting being done now will make a difference. She works as a business manager at New Birth Church in Rubbertown, a largely industrial area of the city known for its chemical plants. In the summer, eggy, sulfury smells waft into the church on some days and the heat is relentless. “It’s just straight sun and it’s 10 degrees or more hotter down here than other parts of the city,” she said. “That’s where the trees come in. The trees will be able to take some of that smell out – and definitely shade the area.” TreesLouisville recently planted young trees at New Birth Church, the first of 10,000 trees the group plans to put in Rubbertown in the coming years. “While you don’t seen an immediate effect, over time it will improve and help the quality of life down here,” said Pryor. In 10 or 15 years, “I think it’s going to be beautiful – and smell good.” Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to join the discussion, catch up on our best stories or sign up for our weekly newsletter
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Josh Wood in Louisville, Kentucky
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https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/nov/21/re-greening-can-louisville-plant-its-way-out-of-a-heat-emergency
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Thu, 21 Nov 2019 10:00:53 GMT
| 1,574,348,453 | 1,574,339,143 |
human interest
|
plant
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777,443 |
theindependent--2019-11-30--How plants are the new millennial craze
| 2019-11-30T00:00:00 |
theindependent
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How plants are the new millennial craze
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They came armed with totes, trash bags, empty strollers and collapsible nylon wagons. They came with wish lists and whispers of their “unicorns”, whose Latin names sounded like incantations: adansonii, patriciae, obliqua. Some travelled by aeroplane to get here. Others, in moving trucks. Because one does not walk into the 42nd Annual International Aroid Society Show and Sale simply to browse. Aroids (it sort of rhymes with “steroids”) are a family of tropical plants that have surged in popularity in recent years and inspired a revival of the freewheeling Seventies jungle aesthetic. The monstera, whose perforated deliciosa leaves adorn smartphone cases and statement wallpaper, is an aroid. So are philodendrons, anthuriums and tetraspermas – plants prized not for fussy flowers, but for dramatic, lush foliage. “With orchids, you have to be patient for it to flower,” says Anat Scham, 25, an animator who lives in Washington DC, and sold botanical illustrations at the show. “Whereas with foliage, it’s instant gratification.” Several years ago, the Aroid Society, like some of its rarest specimens, appeared to be dwindling. The hobby had an arcane, almost Victorian dustiness to it, akin to collecting stamps or coins. But in the past two or three years, says Alex Bello, 33, the president of the International Aroid Society and the chairman of the event, attendance has spiked from around 500 people in a weekend to a few thousand. “It has been exorbitant, the amount of people we’ve been getting,” he says. “We’ve been pummelled.” When Bello opened the door of the Garden House at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden on the first morning of the sale, on 21 September, attendees heaved into the room shoulder to shoulder. After the frenzy of buying and selling, I find Micah Garner, 32, posted up in line clutching two handfuls of plants and waiting for his girlfriend, Alessia Resta, 27, whose Instagram account, @apartmentbotanist, has nearly 40,000 followers. The couple live in New York and share their 700-square-foot apartment on the Upper West Side with around 200 plants. They brought an extra suitcase to carry home all the new ones. Resta found the plant at the top of her list, a $110 Philodendron luxurians “Choco.” “Right now it’s a little bit of an ugly stump, but one day, it’s going to be beautiful,” she says. Another aroid type that has become a bona fide object of obsession for this new generation of collectors is the eminently photogenic variegated monstera, whose leaves are marbled with painterly splashes of white. At the show, one vendor from Ecuador sold individual cuttings for $200 apiece. A large, potted version sold for $650. But that’s nothing compared to the madness and mythos that swirls around the Monstera obliqua. “When you’re talking about how the Aroid Society’s changed, obliqua is probably the best example,” says Mick Mittermeier, 27, the aroid curator at Fairchild. Obliqua (in Latin, “lopsided”) is tiny, typically no taller than six or so inches, with lace-like foliage that almost appears to be more negative space than organic matter. A decade ago, a collector sold its cuttings at the show for $8 apiece, Mittermeier says. Now, a plant might go for a thousand bucks or more. “Last month,” he adds, “Enid sold one on eBay for $3,700.” It was $2,700, but still. One houseplant queen to rule them all Enid Offolter, 49, isn’t a botanist. She doesn’t operate a wholesale nursery. She has a tough time explaining to the uninitiated what it is, exactly, that she does now. Before this, she sold vitamins. The simplest explanation is that Offolter sources, propagates and sells some of the most sought-after specimens of the tropical plant-collecting world. She’s become a bit of a plant celebrity in the process. Born and raised in southern Florida, Offolter taught herself propagation through trial and error, and a few trustworthy books. Typically, she buys individual segments of plants (cuttings) from international importers, then carefully cultivates them until they’ve established root systems and leaves. This process can take one month or six, she says, depending on the species of plant, the condition in which it arrives (“sometimes I just get a box of goo”), and the season. A cutting acquired in May might be ready in a month, while the same plant started in October might not be viable until the following spring. “They’re a lot slower once the days slow down,” Offolter says. She has run Natural Selections Exotics Tropicals, or NSE Tropicals, since 2000 from her home, on an otherwise typical residential street in a Fort Lauderdale suburb. Behind the tall wooden security fence in Offolter’s driveway hides an acre that is thrumming with life. There are so many plants that it’s almost impossible to focus on one at a time, like looking at a pointillist painting in a million shimmering hues of green. Offolter loves propagation; it feels like magic to her. If it’s magic, it’s a practical kind: business is booming, and no one appears to be more surprised by this than she. “I feel like I was busy raising my son, then I looked up and all this was going on,” says Offolter. “I never realised this would go so far.” When Offolter started NSE Tropicals, she mostly supplied to botanical gardens and speciality landscapers. Now, her customers are almost all young people. A lot of Offolter’s high-ticket specimens end up going to Portland, Seattle and New York. And they go fast, she says, often minutes after she posts about them on Instagram. She started the account last year and shot up to 40,000 followers in a few months. “I certainly don’t advertise anymore,” she says. “All I have to do is say I have the plant, and people just go nuts.” At the aroid show, strangers sheepishly approach her – “Hi, are you Enid?” – and ask for selfies. Some stifle a gasp when they see her. By lunchtime, she estimates she’s taken about 100 pictures. Aroids make up the vast majority of Offolter’s business, largely because she has a soft spot for weird. Their oddities abound: the protruding “unicorn horn” of a flower’s spadex, the snakeskin-like petioles of a particular anthurium, the vicious fish hooks along a cyrtosperma johnstonii. Then, there’s the melodrama of their foliage. “Flowers are a dime a dozen,” Offolter says, gazing at the curtain of philodendron tumbling from the wall of her shade house. “But I mean ... just look at these leaves.” While Offolter lists most of her plants on NSE Tropicals’ website, she often turns the rarer stuff over to bidders on eBay (in part because she feels guilty for asking the sky-high prices they now frequently fetch). Recently, she auctioned off a variegated monstera adansonii and set the opening bid at $19. It sold for $2,700. Few of Offolter’s plants have evoked quite the level of excitement that the variegated monstera has. It’s how I first learned about her – in a message board thread about how to find the increasingly scarce plants, where “Enid” and “NSE” were passed around like whispered passwords at a speakeasy. Despite the incessant stream of orders, Offolter works alone and prefers it that way, spending seven days a week hunched over a packing bench in one of her four shade houses, carefully rolling up each plant in paper “like a burrito” before tucking it into a package. She could probably hire someone to help her with the mounting administrative duties. She could flex to meet what appears to be an insatiable demand for her plants. She could buy more land. “I have the option to go big or go home,” she acknowledges. But she’s sceptical: People can’t keep spending money like this, right? Then again, that’s what she said last year, and the year before. Working with nature in this way is a constant dance of give and take, and nature is always leading. Caterpillars and cold snaps can wreak havoc on valuable plants. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a rare specimen might bear fruit, like one of the variegated monsteras Offolter planted in her yard recently has. She can only hope that the squirrels don’t get to the corncob-size collection of seeds before they’re ready. “This thing could pay off the house,” she jokes. Perhaps the most daunting and unpredictable challenge is climate – namely, surviving the ever-worsening hurricane seasons in south Florida. In 2017, after Hurricane Irma, Offolter says, “it looked like someone drove a bulldozer through here.” She lost two of her shade houses and the roof of her greenhouse to the storm, which reduced many of her plants to, in her words, “creamed spinach.” A storm could easily destroy her only source of income, but Offolter’s plants are more than just assets. “Imagine if your dogs got hurt in a hurricane,” she tells me. “Now imagine you have thousands of dogs.” Countless articles have sought to unspool millennial motivations for loving plants: they’re a replacement for children, a respite from urban cityscapes, a totem of climate anxiety, a life preserver to which one can cling in uncertain times, a kind of self-care. Versions of all of these sentiments are echoed at the aroid show. “It puts me in a really good head space,” says Chelsea Grace, 32, who owns a Seattle plant shop called Cultivate Propagate. “And,” she adda, “as dorky as it sounds, when things put out a new leaf, it feels really constructive.” There’s also the unavoidable underbelly of any consumer bubble: hubris and hoarding, grifts and theft. There are shady sellers shilling questionable “seeds” online, rabid collectors swiping cuttings from botanical gardens and poachers ripping rare specimens out of their habitats without permits. “Instagram has spawned a lot of people who are influencing people’s buying decisions on plants, so those plants become more scarce, and all of a sudden everyone needs one, then five, then 10, then a 100,” says Trevor Bradshaw, 31, who works at a garden center in Nashville, Tennessee. “It’s crazy that you can convince someone to buy a living thing, like it’s a luxury item.” Bradshaw says that he recently apprehended someone stealing variegated monstera cuttings from his store after they posted about the theft on Instagram. Offolter, for one, doesn’t keep plants inside her home. It took time for her to get comfortable with the idea of sending a rare tropical specimen to go live in a decidedly not-tropical apartment. More recently, she’s seen how dedicated young collectors are making their homes hospitable to plant life, kitting out their living rooms with grow lights and foggers. “I’d hate to be some of these landlords,” she jokes. And she understands, as Grace pointed out, that it’s hard not to feel connected to nature when it’s unfurling right there in your living room. “You have your own little microcosm that you’re trying to control the climate in,” Grace says, “and you really see how that impacts your plants.” Of the thousands in Offolter’s collection, there is one indisputable crown jewel, one she says she’ll never cut up and sell: spiritus sancti, a philodendron whose name, at least in these circles, is usually uttered with a kind of hushed reverence. In the wild, Philodendron spiritus sancti is nearing total extinction; Offolter says that the plants that still grow in native Brazil probably number in the single digits. The plant’s long, slender leaves are cloven at the top and tapered at the tip, like an exaggerated cartoon heart. What it lacks in Insta-optimized splashiness, it makes up for in understated beauty – not to mention its scarcity, which is why collectors will pay upward of $1,400 for one. Offolter estimates that in the two decades she’s been in business, she’s sold maybe 20 or 30 spiritus sancti cuttings. One recent evening, she received four consecutive email enquiries from people hunting for it. Plant mania is complicated, though. The spiritus sancti is a species on the brink of disappearing from nature entirely. While stockpiling it inside one’s Brooklyn apartment isn’t exactly the most generous interpretation of “conservation”, it is, at the very least, keeping it on the planet. And, in the long run, a growing appreciation for plants might inspire more people to want to understand them, and not just as decorative objects. “It’s living things,” Offolter says. “It’s not puppies, but it’s still living things.”
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Gray Chapman
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https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/plants-millennial-craze-aroids-a9204986.html
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Sat, 30 Nov 2019 12:12:35 GMT
| 1,575,133,955 | 1,575,161,476 |
human interest
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plant
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460,689 |
renegadetribune--2019-02-26--Sacred Trees
| 2019-02-26T00:00:00 |
renegadetribune
|
Sacred Trees
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THE subject of tree-worship is a vast one, as anyone may gather who will read the Golden Bough. Fortunately for my readers it is not necessary to discuss the whole or even any great part of it in connection with the inquiry which now concerns us. I may say that only rarely is the old tree-worship considered with its concomitant of temple-worship, so that I now have to bring together information widely separated because the connection which I have to show was intimate has not been enlarged upon; indeed, in many cases it has not been suspected. There is another limitation of the inquiry. We have only to deal chiefly with those plants and trees recorded as worshipped at the chief festival times of the year, which have already been marked out for us by the fire ceremonials. These fires were like the chronofer installed in modern days at the General Post Office, their practical function being to give the time; they announced the beginning of a new season. In Chapter IV. I referred to the association of Mistletoe with the Solstitial worship. When we deal with the May year we meet constantly with references to the Rowan and the Hawthorn in the folklore connected with it. We seem in presence, then, not only of tree cult generally, but of sacred trees special to each of the two worships we have been considering. I propose now, therefore, to bring. together some of the information to be gathered from a very cursory reference to the vast literature which exists on the subject. In the first instance I begged my friend, Professor Bayley Balfour, Keeper of the King’s Garden at Edinburgh, to give me some particulars of the Rowan Tree, which I imagined (1) to have been chosen on account of its flowers being prominent about May Day (Beltane) and its berries in early November (Hallowe’en), and (2) to have a different habitat from the Mistletoe. I have to thank my friend for much valuable information. The Rowan Tree, called also the Mountain Ash (Pyrus Aucuparia), seems to grow pretty freely all over the Northern parts of Europe. Professor Balfour tells me: “Rowan is essentially a Northern plant—an immigrant to Europe from N.W. Asia—and now is spread all over North and Central Europe in abundance, with only some ‘feelers’ passing south into the Mediterranean Basin. It does not go south of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. It does not reach Greece. In Italy it occurs on the Eastern Apennines, and also in N.E. Sicily. In Spain it runs over the higher regions in the N. and into the centre, passing just into Portugal. Its occurrence in Madeira is not certainly established as a natural phenomenon; perhaps it is only introduced there. In all these Southern outruns the tree cannot be said to have any dominance, and its area and abundance are infinitely, less than in the North. Scandinavia is one of its best homes. Everywhere it is found right north to 71°, there becoming a bush only, but yet ripening seed. It reaches Iceland, where trees of some size occur. All over Great Britain and Ireland it is generally spread. You may certainly say there is much in Norway, and there is equally certainly less, even little, in Italy.” In Pratt’s Flowering Plants of Great Britain (vol. 2, p. 260) it is stated, “The flowers, which grow in dense clusters, and are greenish-white, appear in May . . . . In autumn, however, the tree is more beautiful than in summer, for at that season the rich cluster of red fruits gleams among the foliage, each berry having the form of a tiny apple, and containing a little core and seeds within.” At Christiania the mean of ten years’ flowering is given by Professor Schübeler as—first flowers, June 19; general flowering, June 30. This, then, is later than in Britain. On high grounds the fruit is conspicuous here on November 1; on lower levels the birds attack it and reduce its striking appearance before that date. Associated with the Rowan in the folklore connected with temple worship is the Hawthorn, Whitethorn or “May” (Crategus oxyocantha), which also flowers at the beginning of May, while its berries or “haws,” like those of the Rowan, are conspicuous in November. We see, then, that there is a most obvious reason in this for the association of the two trees. According to Rhys, the English name appears to be of Scandinavian origin, the Old Norse being reynir, Danish rönne, Swedish rönn; and the old Norsemen treated the tree as holy and sacred to Thor. These two trees interest us from. three points of view. We find them connected with:— In this chapter I shall deal with the two former. Seeing that the year beginning in May was established because that month really opened the vegetation year, it is little to be wondered at that among the chief features of New Year’s Day was what we may term a flower worship; it is probable that we are here dealing with the sacred-tree side of the general festival at all the monuments erected in connection with the year worship. The old traditions have lingered longest around the things we have still with us, the trees and flowers; and it is in connection with this. side of the worship that most information is available. From the facts I have already stated, for Britain the Rowan and Hawthorn were most naturally, selected as the typical forms. Many poets have written of this festival Chaucer, Shakspere, Milton; Bourne, Herrick and others. Chaucer writes: when not the courtiers only, but lowliest of men and maidens sallied forth There is a vast literature connected with May Day celebrations, among it references to Celtic customs, and I may add that, besides May Day, August, November and February had their flower festivals also. I shall, however, deal chiefly with May in this book to keep it within bounds. May Day in Manx was termed Shenn Laa Boaldyn; it is the belltaine of Cormac’s Glossary, the Scotch Gaelic equivalent of which is bealtuinn. The traditions and customs connected with May Day in Great Britain have survived longest in the West of England; even now, as will be seen by the account of recent celebrations at Helston in Cornwall, given below, they are still continued. Altogether the customs, ancient and modern, of which the flower worship formed a part, may be summed up as follows:— 1. Lighting of bonfires, and, in the evening, houses illuminated with candles, torches carried about, and fireballs played with. 2. Man, and beast passed through the: fire, or between two fires. 3. Going out at daybreak to gather Whitethorn or May (Sycamore in Cornwall), and making whistles of the branches for the May-music and merry-making. Blowing of tin horns at daybreak by boys, and from money received getting breakfast at a farmhouse. 4. Flower-bedecked girls dance round a Maypole, and one chosen as “Queen of the May.” 5. In Cornwall the custom prevailed till lately of going out with buckets or any available vessels full of water and thoroughly wetting anyone who was not wearing a piece of May. 6. The “Furry Dance” (in Cornwall), which consists in dancing through the town and also through as many houses as desired. If resistance is offered it is permitted to break open the door, and no penalty can be imposed. 7. Sacrifices made (Isle of Man) at a very ancient date, and probably human ones still earlier (Scotland). Flowers are public property on Flora Day, and this custom of dancing through the houses is supposed to have originated probably for the purpose of picking the flowers in the gardens behind. The following is a short abstract of a very interesting account given. in The Western Weekly News, May 13th, 1905, of the “Flora Day” at Helston, Cornwall, which took place this year. It gives us an idea of former festivals which are so quickly dying out:— The Furry Dance is always the feature of the day. The first part took place at seven o’clock in the morning, at which hour two couples started out and danced through the streets and through some houses of residents. The great dance was at noon, and those taking part 1n it assembled in the Corn Exchange. When all was ready the whole company, headed by a band playing the old Furry Dance, started out and danced through the town and through many houses. The rest of the day was given over to a Horse Show and to much merry-making. Excursions had been run from all parts. There is little doubt that in the constant association of the Rowan with the May worship and the holy wells which were adjacent to the stone circles where the worship was conducted, we find the reason of the selection of the wood of the Rowan Tree as an antidote to all the ills which witchcraft was supposed to bring about. Rhys tells us that “The tree has also the old names of Quicken-tree, Roddon, and Witchen-tree.” To quote again from Pratt (op. cit. vol. 2, p. 261): “The old notion that the Mountain Ash, or Rowan Tree, as it is called in the North, was efficacious against witchcraft and the evil eye, still prevails in the North of England and the Scottish Highlands. Pennant remarks, in his Tour of Scotland, that the farmers carefully preserve their cattle against witchcraft by placing branches of Honeysuckle and Mountain Ash in their cowhouses on the 2nd of May. The milkmaid in Westmorland may often be seen, even now, with a branch of this tree either in her hand or tied to here milking-pail, from a similar superstition; and in earlier days crosses cut out of its wood were worn about the person. In an old song called “Laidley Wood,” in the Northumberland Garland, we find a reference to this: Rhys, referring to May Day customs in the Isle of Man, writes : “This was a day when systematic efforts were made to protect man and beast against elves, and witches; for it was then that people carried, crosses of rowan: in their hats and placed may-flowers over the tops of their doors and elsewhere as preservatives against all malignant influences. With the same object in view, crosses of rowan were likewise, fastened to the tails of the cattle, small crosses which had to be made without. the help of a knife.” In connection with this last reference, Rhys, quotes a passage showing that a similar thing is done in Wales on May Eve. “Another bad papistic habit which prevails among some Welsh people is that of placing some of the wood of the rowan-tree (coed cerdin or criafol) in their corn lands (ttafyrieu) and their fields on May eve (Nos Glamau) with the idea that such a custom brings a blessing on their fields, a proceeding which would better become atheists and pagans than Christians.” Rhys also tells us that in Lincolnshire, “a twig of the rowan-tree, or wicken, as it is called, was effective against all evil things, including witches. It is useful in many ways to guard the welfare of the household, and to preserve both the live stock and the crops; while placed on the churn it prevents any malign influence from retarding the coming of the butter.” We also read (p. 358): “Not only the Celts, but some also of the Teutons, have been in the habit of attaching great importance to the rowan or roan tree, and regarding it as a preservative against the malignant influence of witches and all things uncanny. . . . Moreover, the Swede of modern times believes the rowan a safeguard against witchcraft, and likes to have on board his ship, something or other made of its wood, to protect him against tempests and the demons of the water world.” In the Hibbert Lectures, 1886, we have another interesting reference to this tree. Rhys first relates an old Irish fairy story, the scene of which is supposed to have been “on the plain near the Lake of Lein of the Crooked Teeth; that is to say, the Lake of Killarney.” In it we are told that the scarlet quicken-berries were first brought from the “Land of Promise,” that one was accidentally dropped and took root, and “from the berry there grew up a tree which had the virtues of the quicken-tree growing in fairy-land, for all the berries on it had many virtues.” Then we learn (page 358) that these berries “formed part of the sustenance of the gods, according to Goidelic notions; and the description which has been quoted of the berries makes them a sort of Celtic counterpart to the soma-plant of Hindu mythology.” This suggests that at the November Celebration a decoction or brew of Rowan berries was used for curative or superstitious purposes. I have thought it desirable to enter at some length into the use of the Rowan as a protection against witchcraft and as the basis of a brew used for different purposes, because the Mistletoe has been dealt with in exactly the same manner; indeed, it was to the later Solstitial worship what, the Rowan and Maythorn were to the earlier May worship. Mr. Frazer has collected in his Golden Bough much information bearing on these points. In Sweden, on Midsummer Eve, Mistletoe is sought after, the people “believing it to be, in a high degree, possessed of mystic qualities; and that if a sprig of it be attached to the ceiling of the dwelling-house, the horse’s stall, or the cow’s crib, the ‘Troll’ will then be powerless to injure either man or beast.” The Oak Mistletoe, we are told, is “held in the highest repute in Sweden, and is commonly seen in farmhouses hanging from the ceiling to protect the dwelling from all harm, but especially, from fire; and persons afflicted with the falling sickness think they can ward off attacks of the malady by carrying about with them a knife which has a handle of Oak Mistletoe. “A Swedish remedy. for other complaints is to hang a sprig of Mistletoe round the sufferer’s neck, or to make him wear on his finger a ring made from the plant.” It would appear from Mr. Frazer’s inquiries that the Mistletoe was en évidence at both the summer and winter solstice—precisely as the Rowan and Hawthorn were associated with the May and November festivals. “The sacred mistletoe may have acquired, in the eyes of the Druids, a double portion of its mystic qualities at the solstice in June, and accordingly they may have regularly cut it with solemn ceremony on Midsummer Eve. The conjecture is confirmed when we find it to be still a rule of folklore that the mistletoe should be cut on this day. Further, the peasants of Piedmont and Lombardy still go out on Midsummer-morning to search the oak-leaves for the ‘oil of St. John,’ which is supposed to heal all wounds made with cutting instruments. Originally, perhaps, the ‘oil of St. John’ was simply the mistletoe, or a decoction made from it. For in Holstein the mistletoe, especially oak-mistletoe, is still regarded as a panacea for green wounds; and if, as is alleged, ‘all-healer is the name of the plant in the modern Celtic speech of Brittany, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, this can be nothing but a survival of the name by which, as we have seen, the Druids addressed the oak, or rather, perhaps, the mistletoe. At Lacaune, in France, the old Druidical belief in the mistletoe as an antidote to all poisons still survives among the people; they apply the plant to the stomach of the sufferer, or give him a decoction of it to drink.” If we attempt to collate the different festivals with the vegetation most striking or abundant at each, in different countries naturally possessing, different floras; a great variety of plants and trees has to be considered. It is probable that the Rowan-tree was chiefly taken here as the representative of the ash in more southern and eastern lands, and the ash indeed did not always take second rank, especially in the worship connected with wells, as we shall see. Grimm calls the ash “a world tree which links heaven, earth and hell together; of all trees the greatest and holiest.” In the same way at the later established Vernal Equinox festival, the palm which grows in lower latitudes was replaced here by the willow: Coles, in his Adam in Eden, writes: “The willow blossoms come forth before any leaves appear, and are in their most flourishing state usually before Easter, divers gathering them to deck up their houses on Palm Sunday, and therefore the said flowers are called palme.” Willows are still used to deck churches at this time. As in the case of the Rowan, the willow (or palm) was a protection against witchcraft; small crosses and palm were carried about in the purses and placed upon doors. These crosses had to be made on Palm Sunday out of the wood used in the church. Sometimes box replaced the willow. We are driven to the conclusion that practices connected with magic, the precursor of the later “witchcraft,” were associated with the festivals now in question, and that the products of the vegetable world at the different seasons were utilized for these purposes. The putting on of a special garb by the vegetable world at each season in turn would be one of the first things to be manifested, and the close association of it with the stars and the sun in their yearly course would cause the representatives of it to be worshipped together with them, and it would appear from the records that the astronomer priests did not neglect those magical arts which were practised by man in the early stages of civilisation. Indeed, these magical practices seem to have taken such firm root that it was difficult to get rid of them even in much later times. Newton writes: “I once knew a foolish cock-brained priest which ministered to a certaine young man the ashes of boxe, being (forsooth) hallowed on Palme Sunday, according to the superstitious order and doctrine of the Romish Church, which ashes he mingled with their unholie holie water using to the same a kind of . . . . exorcisme; which . . . . medicine (as he persuaded the standers by) had vertue to drive away any ague.” Among the virtues attributed to the May thorn was that of preserving the beauty of those maidens who at daybreak on May morning each year would wash themselves in hawthorn dew: As late as 1515 it was recorded that Catherine of Aragon, accompanied by twenty-five of her ladies, sallied out on May morning for this purpose.
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renegade
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http://www.renegadetribune.com/sacred-trees/
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2019-02-26 21:31:30+00:00
| 1,551,234,690 | 1,567,547,309 |
human interest
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plant
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461,547 |
renegadetribune--2019-09-07--The Cult of Sacred Trees
| 2019-09-07T00:00:00 |
renegadetribune
|
The Cult of Sacred Trees
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The things said of sacred waters can also be said of sacred trees among the Celts; and, in the case of sacred trees, more may be added about the Druids and their relation to the Fairy-Faith, for it is well known that the Druids held the oak and its mistletoe in great religious veneration, and it is generally thought that most of the famous Druid schools were in the midst of sacred oak-groves or forests. Pliny has recorded that ‘the Druids, for so they call their magicians, have nothing which they hold more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows, provided only it be an oak (robur). But apart from that, they select groves of oak, and they perform no sacred rite without leaves from that tree, so that the Druids may be regarded as even deriving-from it their name interpreted as Greek (a disputed point among modern philologists). Likewise of the Druids, Maximus Tyrius states that the image of their chief god, considered by him to correspond to Zeus, was a lofty oak tree; and Strabo says that the principal place of assembly for the Galatians, a Celtic people of Asia Minor, was the Sacred Oak-grove. Just as the cult of fountains was absorbed by Christianity, so was the cult of trees. Concerning this, Canon Mahé writes:–‘One sees sometimes, in the country and in gardens, trees wherein, by trimming and bending together the branches, have been formed niches of verdure, in which have been placed crosses or images of certain saints. This usage is not confined to the Morbihan. Our Lady of the Oak, in Anjou, and Our Lady of the Oak, near Orthe, in Maine, are places famous for pilgrimage. In this last province, says a historian, “One sees at various cross-roads the most beautiful rustic oaks decorated with figures of saints. There are seen there, in five or six villages, chapels of oaks, with whole trunks of that tree enshrined in the wall, beside the altar. Such among others is that famous chapel of Our Lady of the Oak, near the forge of Orthe, whose celebrity attracts daily, from five to six leagues about, a very great gathering of people.”‘ Saint Martin, according to Canon Mahé, tried to destroy sacred pine-tree in the diocese of Tours by telling the people there was nothing divine in it. The people agreed to let it cut down on condition that the saint should receive its great trunk on his head as it fell; and the tree was not cut own. Saint Germain caused a great scandal at Auxerre hanging from the limbs of a sacred tree the heads of wild animals which he had killed while hunting. Saint Gregory the Great wrote to Brunehaut exhorting him to abolish among his subjects the offering of animals’ heads to certain trees. In Ireland fairy trees are common yet; though throughout Celtdom sacred trees, naturally of short duration, are almost forgotten. In Brittany, the Forest of Brocéliande still enjoys something of the old veneration, but more out of sentiment than by actual worship. A curious survival of an ancient Celtic tree-cult exists in Carmarthen, Wales, where there is still carefully preserved and held upright in a firm casing of cement the decaying trunk of an old oak-tree called Merlin’s Oak; and local prophecy declares on Merlin’s authority that when the tree falls Carmarthen will fall with it. Perhaps through an unconscious desire on the part of some patriotic citizens of averting the calamity by inducing the tree-spirit to transfer its abode, or else by otherwise hoodwinking the tree-spirit into forgetting that Merlin’s Oak is dead, a vigorous and now flourishing young oak has been planted so directly beside it that its foliage embraces it. And in many parts of modern England, the Jack-in-the-Green, a man entirely hidden in a covering of green foliage who dances through the streets on May Day, may be another example of a very ancient tree (or else agricultural) cult of Celtic origin.
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renegade
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http://www.renegadetribune.com/the-cult-of-sacred-trees/
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2019-09-07 16:23:21+00:00
| 1,567,887,801 | 1,569,330,939 |
human interest
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plant
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940,194 |
thesun--2019-02-22--Meghan Markle baby shower Flower display inside the Duchess lavish suite revealed as she donates t
| 2019-02-22T00:00:00 |
thesun
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Meghan Markle baby shower: Flower display inside the Duchess’ lavish suite revealed as she donates them to charity
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MEGHAN Markle fans have been given a glimpse inside her luxury £57,000-a-night baby shower suite, after she thoughtfully donated her flowers to charity. The pregnant Duchess of Sussex's lavish party, which is rumoured to have cost £380,000 ($500,000), included a bouquet arranging session in the Grant Penthouse at The Mark hotel in New York. But the blooms weren't given to guests to take home. Instead the 37-year-old Royal, who's expecting her first baby with Prince Harry, 34, in the spring, donated them to charity Repeat Roses. Posts on social media made by the charity, who pass flowers leftover from weddings and events onto child cancer patients and disabled people, give a sneak peak inside the plush suite where Meghan's A-list pals stayed. One photo - which shows a staff member collecting the colourful blooms - shows the £107 mandarin trees which were delivered to the hotel ahead of the event. Others focus on the bouquets themselves - which include Meghan's favourite pink peonies, white poppies, purple tulips, roses, rhododendrons and yellow lilies. The thoughtful move comes as Meghan has been accused of flaunting her wealth by Piers Morgan. While Royal butler Paul Burrell told Fabulous Online she may have "infuriated Prince William by spending thousands and acting like a diva". The stunning 10,000sq ft baby shower suite has been described as a "castle in the sky" and boasts a huge rooftop terrace overlooking Central Park, five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a conservatory and a living room that can be "transformed into a full-size Grand Ballroom". Wednesday's baby shower was attended by an A-list crowd including tennis ace Serena Williams, designers Jessica Mulroney and Misha Nonoo, lawyer Amal Clooney and TV anchor Gayle King. But the charitable donation shows another side to the pricey affair. Speaking on US show CBS This Morning yesterday, Gayle said of the donations: "I thought that was a very sweet thing… "It just speaks to who she is. She's kind, she's very generous. And a really, really sweet person." Among the charities to be sent the flowers was Ronald McDonald House in New York, who house and care for young cancer patients. They were also donated to patients at Unique People Services, who support those with learning difficulties, health problems or a history of substance abuse. Repeat Roses described the gift as "the very special experience planned for this very special baby shower" in a gushing post on Instagram. They added: "We were honored to match the beautiful floral arrangements designed by the Duchess of Sussex and her guests, including host @serenawilliams, to a few of our very favorite NYC neighbor organizations. "The gesture of kindness brought smiles and an emotional health boost to pediatric cancer patients at @rmhnewyork, cancer patients at the @hopelodgenyc and to behaviorally and medically fragile men at the @uniquepeopleservices Vyse Avenues Program. "The flowers brought a ray of sunshine on a cold winter day, and will be greatly enjoyed for the week ahead. "Later, we’ll return to collect flowers and vases for composting and recycling to close the loop and ensure a zero-waste experience. Giving back to People + Planet." Unique People Services also posted their praise for the Duchess, saying: "We were honoured to be a recipient" and praising Meghan's "big heart". They added: "The results, and smiles, were stunning!" The beautiful bouquets were created during a class taught by celebrity florist Lewis Miller, who's based in New York's plush Upper East Side. He has worked with designer brands including Chanel, Estee Lauder and Valentino in the past - and is famous for his 'flower flashes', where he transforms street features like bins and construction signs with blooms. They were delivered by Upper East Side florist Lady Fleur, who charge up to £300 for a single bouquet.
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Josie Griffiths
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https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/8490602/meghan-markle-baby-shower-flower-display-suite-charity/
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2019-02-22 21:35:41+00:00
| 1,550,889,341 | 1,567,547,671 |
human interest
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plant
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64,282 |
birminghammail--2019-07-03--Group praised for helping theft-hit flower festival in Bilston
| 2019-07-03T00:00:00 |
birminghammail
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Group praised for helping theft-hit flower festival in Bilston
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A Wolverhampton-based community group has been praised for coming to the rescue of a local flower festival that was targeted by thieves who stole plants and compost last month. Organisers of the annual 'Bilston In Bloom' festival have spent months preparing floral displays in the town centre in readiness for a visit from Heart of England judges later this month. Last month thieves stole dozens of plants donated by members of the public along with eight bags of soil worth £250 from St Leonard's Church - setting the project back several weeks. However, Councillor Linda Leach (Lab. Bilston North), who is one of the organisers, said she and volunteers in the town had been given a massive lift by a team from Wolverhampton community interest group Right Track who had visited the church to help replace the plants. She said: "We were all so upset at the time. The thieves had not only stolen from the church but also from our community, and so many good people had given up their time to work really hard on the grounds. "However, I was absolutely delighted that Right Track and the good people of Bilston all rallied round and gave us an amazing show of support to put the festival back on track. We had a fantastic turnout at St Leonard's. "We have been truly blessed and received help from two amazing teams from Right Track and also Nova Training, plus our friendly and supportive neighbourhood police and drugs team. Also, Wolverhampton Homes have supported us throughout and been so kind." Right Track Managing Director Andy Morris said: "We are an established community interest company that provides meaningful day activities for our service users which includes training, practical work experience, creative arts and other outside activities. So this was a great opportunity for us to help out. "We strive to enhance the wellbeing and self esteem of the people we work with and their immediate families, and we aim to enhance personal development and develop life skills that will improve people’s independence. We also run friendship groups that help members to interact socially. "We cover a lot of areas, including things such as gardening, carpentry, allotments, arts and crafts, pottery and computer skills. We are geared towards helping people with learning difficulties, special needs, disabilities and those who are disadvantaged or underprivileged to boost their wellbeing and help them to achieve their goals." Cllr Leach added: "I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has volunteered for their help, kindness and generosity. It was a sad setback when all our plants and compost was stolen. But people have come forward and showed us so much kindness. "It just shows what we can do when we all pull together as a community. The church grounds are looking fabulous now. There's still a lot of work to do but we are getting there. We really do have some great people in Bilston. "The area surrounding the church has deteriorated over the years but these people have helped to make a real difference to how it looks now. "We are trying to do a good thing here through 'Bilston in Bloom' and this community effort has proved these thieves haven't won," she said. Judges are set to visit Wolverhampton this month.
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[email protected] (Joe Sweeney)
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https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/group-praised-helping-theft-hit-16526632
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2019-07-03 15:12:39+00:00
| 1,562,181,159 | 1,567,536,998 |
human interest
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plant
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159,506 |
eveningstandard--2019-01-15--Duchess of Cambridge announces she has designed aposmagicalapos garden for Chelsea Flower Show
| 2019-01-15T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
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Duchess of Cambridge announces she has designed 'magical' garden for Chelsea Flower Show... as she visits community garden in London for first engagement of the year
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The Duchess of Cambridge has helped to design a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show inspired by “magic” childhood memories of spending time in the “great outdoors”. Kensington Palace announced the tie-up with Kingston-based landscape architects Davies White today, ahead of the duchess’s visit to King Henry’s Walk Garden in Islington. The “Back to Nature” garden, based on a tranquil woodland glade, will be the first that the duchess has been involved in creating at the world’s most famous horticultural show. The RHS said Kate's garden "has been inspired by childhood memories that are triggered by the natural world, as well as special moments that will be created and treasured by families now and in the future". In a statement, the Palace said: “The garden will build on Her Royal Highness’s passion for the outdoors and the proven benefits that nature has on physical and mental health — the duchess is a strong advocate for the positive impact that nature and the environment can have on childhood development.” It added that the garden “seeks to recapture for adults the sense of wonder and magic that they enjoyed as children, in addition to kindling excitement and a passion for nature in future generations. "Wild planting and natural materials will be used to recreate a woodland wilderness where children and adults alike can feel closer to the great outdoors.” Sue Biggs, director-general of the Royal Horticultural Society, which runs the annual event, said: “We could not be more thrilled, or feel more honoured, that the Duchess of Cambridge has co-designed our RHS Garden at Chelsea Flower Show.” After the show in May much of the exhibit will be donated to a mental health trust. The duchess and Davies White will also co-design gardens for the RHS at Hampton Court and Wisley. The announcement came as Kate returned to work with her first engagement of the New Year on Tuesday. Kate is viewing the King Henry's Walk Garden to learn about a project bringing people together through a shared love of horticulture and to meet keen amateur gardeners who have been running the green urban space for more than a decade with support from Islington Council. The duchess sported a khaki tweed jacket by Irish brand Dubarry and skinny jeans as she arrived at the north London project, which is an RHS It's Your Neighbourhood group. She also opted for a pair of sturdy walking boots for the visit to the community garden. Kate will visit the garden to meet with volunteers from the community to hear about the benefits of the project - and to try her hand in an open air pizza kitchen. The garden has been run for over a decade by community volunteers, with support from Islington Council. Kate is known for her passion for the outdoors and the proven benefits that nature has on physical and mental health. She is a longstanding supporter of organisations such as the Scouts and Farms for City Children, as well as having visited the Sayers Croft Forest School and Wildlife Garden, the RHS Campaign for School Gardening.
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Robert Jobson, JOnathan Prynn, Ella Wills
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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/duchess-of-cambridge-announces-she-has-designed-magical-garden-for-chelsea-flower-show-as-she-visits-a4039281.html
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2019-01-15 11:52:00+00:00
| 1,547,571,120 | 1,567,552,345 |
human interest
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plant
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163,498 |
eveningstandard--2019-02-07--Kew Gardens Orchid Festival 2019 Londonaposs flower fiesta to splash out with the colours of Colo
| 2019-02-07T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
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Kew Gardens Orchid Festival 2019: London's flower fiesta to splash out with the colours of Colombia
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There is far more to Colombia than Shakira, great coffee and Narcos. The South American country, with its snow-capped mountains and white sandy beaches, is the world’s second most biodiverse, trumped only by Brazil – which is seven times its size. Among Colombia’s rich collection of flora and fauna are 4,270 species of orchid, the most in the world. To celebrate this, and the country's vibrant culture, Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens are dedicating their 24th annual orchid festival to "the colour of Colombia". This year’s festival will run from Saturday February 9 until Sunday March 10 within the Gardens’ Princess of Wales Conservatory. It will feature more than 6,200 orchids, including Colombia’s national flower, the purple-lipped Flor de Mayo. Guests will walk through the different zones of the glasshouse to find a range of displays, each representing diverse aspects of Colombian wildlife and culture. The central feature will be a "carnival of animals", depicting a toucan in flight, a hanging sloth and a swimming turtle, all created from an elaborate arrangement of orchids and other tropical plants. Other highlights include a floral recreation of Colombia’s Caño Cristales river, an enchanted forest scene complete with life-sized jaguars, and a floating display of yellow orchids to honour the legend of El Dorado. As part of the festival’s wider theme, Colombian artist Vanessa Moncayo González will fill the glasshouse film room with colourful Bogotá-style street-art murals, while her compatriot, sculptor Omar Castañeda, will unveil a series of original sculptures for a "treasures of Colombia" exhibition. A programme of special events and activities will also take place over the course of the festival, featuring Colombian music, dance and cuisine. This will include after dark evenings, half term workshops and behind-the-scenes tours. Entry to the orchid festival is included in the standard ticket to the Gardens, and tickets to special events can be bought in advance here.
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Harriet Brewis
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https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/attractions/kew-gardens-orchid-festival-2019-colour-of-colombia-a4060731.html
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2019-02-07 17:37:00+00:00
| 1,549,579,020 | 1,567,549,300 |
human interest
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plant
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163,913 |
eveningstandard--2019-02-10--Duchess of Cambridge reveals plans for aposback to natureapos garden at Chelsea Flower Show
| 2019-02-10T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
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Duchess of Cambridge reveals plans for 'back to nature' garden at Chelsea Flower Show
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A Chelsea Flower Show garden co-designed by the Duchess of Cambridge will highlight the benefits the natural world brings to mental and physical well-being. Plans were unveiled today for the “Back to Nature Garden” showing in May. The Duchess has co-designed the woodland wilderness garden alongside landscape architects Andree Davies and Adam White, ad the Royal Horticultural Society. Its centrepiece will be a high platform tree house, clad in stag horn oak that draws inspiration from a bird or animal nest. Kensington Palace said in a statement the garden will help "inspire families to get outside and explore nature together". It added: "The garden hopes to trigger memories of time spent in nature, and encourage others to go out and create new experiences in the great outdoors." The garden will also feature a swing seat, rustic den and a campfire as well as tree stumps, stepping stones and a hollow log for children to play on. Interaction with the natural environment will be encouraged through the garden's "multi-sensory", green and blue plant scheme. The design also includes "incredible edibles", plants for craft activities, "forest scents" and a range of plants, shrubs and trees of different heights and textures. A waterfall and stream will provide an opportunity for children to paddle and play. In creating the garden, Kate is following in the footsteps of her father-in-law the Prince of Wales, whose passion for horticulture is well known. Her involvement with the 2019 RHS Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show was first revealed in January.
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Bonnie Christian
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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/duchess-of-cambridge-reveals-plans-for-back-to-nature-garden-at-chelsea-flower-show-a4062436.html
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2019-02-10 09:40:05+00:00
| 1,549,809,605 | 1,567,548,999 |
human interest
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plant
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164,172 |
eveningstandard--2019-02-11--Why you should buy houseplants instead of flowers this Valentineaposs Day
| 2019-02-11T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
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Why you should buy houseplants instead of flowers this Valentine's Day
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It’s that time of year again: romance, chocolate, and… plants? We’re big fans of giving all our nearest and dearest the gift of green on V-Day. Though flowers die after a week or so, plants can really last if you care for them correctly… and isn’t that a beautiful metaphor for love? However, the most romantic day of the year falls squarely in winter, which can be a tough season for plants. Don’t let your loved ones stress — just share these helpful care tips. 1. Make sure your plant is getting all the light it needs As we all know too well, sunlight isn’t particularly reliable during winter. Since the sun rises later and sets earlier, you have to make sure that your plant is getting all the light it needs to thrive. Try moving your plants closer to a window for the dark winter months — a south-facing window is best, since it gets the most sun. 2. Give your windows a good clean to really allow the sun to seep in You can also give the leaves of your plant a wipe with a damp cloth — this will allow it to absorb all the light it needs. 3. Make sure the temperature is right Most plants don’t love being in temperatures below 10°C, so make sure they aren’t in those really cold spots in your home for very long. On the flipside, they also don’t like being too hot, so make sure they aren’t too close to radiators or fireplaces. 4. Don’t give them any fertiliser in the winter This would be like trying to force food down the mouth of a sleeping person. Wait until growing season (that’s spring and summer) to give them feed again. This is the most crucial bit: cut back on your watering routine. Unless there’s a fair amount of humidity in the air, plants like it when their soil dries out completely between waterings in winter. This means your plant’s soil should be dry all the way through, not just at the top layer. The best way to check if it’s shower time: pick up your plant by its pot. If it feels really light, then it’s probably time for a drink — douse your plant in water, let it drain through, and then discard the run-off. “Our love fern! You let it die?” 10 points if you can guess which film that quote’s from. Hailing originally from tropical climes, this leafy fern is sure to bring heat to a relationship. This trailing beauty has heart-shaped leaves, making him the perfect V-Day present. But Phil isn’t just a pretty face: his laid-back personality means he’s a perfect pick for the clueless gardener. If you absolutely have to give someone flowers, go with our girl Lara. This gorgeous orchid stays in bloom all year round, a good symbol of your everlasting love. If the object of your affection can’t even keep their electric toothbrush alive, then maybe you should consider giving them a hard-to-kill cactus. Spike, our prickliest little pal, is the perfect choice for the black-thumbed people in your life. Another nearly-unkillable house plant, Suri — our succulent — is exceptionally easy to look after, provided she’s kept in a bright spot. Her lovely colour brings a bit of romance to any space. Whether inside or outside your home or office, Patch helps you discover the best plants for your space, delivers them to your door, and helps you look after them. Follow @PatchPlants on Instagram to get inspired by the world’s best indoor and outdoor urban gardens.
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Freddie Blackett
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https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/best-house-plants-why-indoor-plants-are-better-valentine-s-day-gifts-than-flowers-a4063436.html
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2019-02-11 12:30:29+00:00
| 1,549,906,229 | 1,567,548,890 |
human interest
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plant
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164,418 |
eveningstandard--2019-02-13--Chelsea Flower Show 2019 preview of the best gardens and top trends
| 2019-02-13T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
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Chelsea Flower Show 2019 preview of the best gardens and top trends
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If there’s one message that the RHS Chelsea Flower Show wants us to take home this year it’s to reconnect with nature. Woodlands and forests abound, from a playful family garden full of adventure co-designed by the Duchess of Cambridge to Sarah Eberle’s stately forest glade. "Get outside and get your nature fix," say Adam White and Andree Davies of Davies White Landscape Architects, who are designing the RHS Back to Nature garden with the Duchess of Cambridge. The garden, which will not be judged, will include a hollow log to hide in, a tree house, stream, campfire and den to reconnect children to the natural world through play. Trees may be taking stage this year, but there is one exception. Oak trees are banned from the show to prevent spreading the destructive pest oak processionary moth which has been found in the grounds. With Europe-grown lavender already off the menu because of the disease xylella – a headache for designers because English-grown lavender is hard to get to flower in May – plant health is no longer a subject that can be ignored, even at Chelsea. We all need to do our bit to prevent diseases spreading said RHS Director General Sue Biggs at a press conference to launch the show in central London this week. "If there’s one message we’d love to get out there, it is ‘Don’t bring plants back from holiday.'" So, royal tree houses aside, what will be the other highlights this year for the 170,000 people who will swarm the showground this May? Look out for Tom Dixon’s indoor food laboratory for Ikea, the return of Chelsea heavyweights Thomas Hoblyn and Andy Sturgeon and an installation to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day featuring haunting figures of servicemen that recede into the distance amid a sea of 10,000 pink sea thrift plants. There will also be a Yorkshire canal, Patagonian waterfalls, a Zimbabwean classroom, a new clematis called ‘Meghan’ named after the Duchess of Sussex and the intriguing prospect of the introduction of a ‘watermelon radish’. As for the Donkey Sanctuary garden in the Artisan Category, we’re hoping for a real donkey. Take a look through our gallery above for the best highlights to watch out for at this year's show. Designer Tom Dixon’s ‘Gardening will save the world’ garden for Ikea is an exciting prospect that celebrates how we can grow food even in inner cities. The lighting, furniture and accessories innovator has turned his hand to a sort of ‘upstairs, downstairs’ edible fantasyland where subterranean mushrooms and other hydroponic edibles in the lower storey are topped with a wild landscape. The public will be able to wander through garden which will be in the Great Pavilion. A first-time Chelsea designer, Dixon confesses to nerves about how the yellow lighting in the tent will make the plants look, but reassured that he will be dry whatever the weather. The power of the natural world takes centre stage with several gardens celebrating its ability to endure and regenerate. Andy Sturgeon’s M&G landscape is a Jurassic-looking bold-leaved woodland sliced through with enormous charred timber formations inspired by rocks he saw on a Australian beach. Sarah Eberle’s restful forest for the Forestry Commission is inspired by the gardener William Robinson who introduced the idea of wild gardening to the Victorians. Titled ‘The Resilience Garden’, it highlights the importance of helping forests adapt to climate change and pests and diseases. Multi-award winning Eberle is never boring. Last year her garden was a giant cricket wicket. This year the centrepiece is an enormous farm grain silo that doubles as tree researcher’s workshop. Thomas Hoblyn returns to Chelsea with the Dubai Majilis Garden inspired by the beauty found in arid landscapes. Last year Mark Gregory scooped the People’s Choice Award for his patch of the Dales complete with babbling brook, bird sounds and sheep poo. This time for Welcome to Yorkshire, in his 99th garden for Chelsea, Gregory is building a canal with flowing water, a lock keepers lodge and working gates. You can almost smell the bilge water. Likely to be another crowd pleaser. Jo Thompson celebrates Wedgwood's rich 260-year history by setting its foundations in Etruria, the 18th-century Staffordshire village that Josiah Wedgwood created for his workers. Framed by pavilions and arches and underplanted with airy planting, this will have an elegant, classical feel inspired by Thompson’s childhood in Rome. Kate Gould is designing a garden for Greenfingers, the charity that helps life-limited children and their families. A lush split-level garden with sloped walkways and a lift to access the top storey, it evokes a peaceful space filled with trees where children and their families can relax together. Last year Jonathan Snow recreated the burnt landscape of the South African fynbos in his show garden. This year he’s heading west to Patagonia for his Trailfinders garden complete with waterfalls, to evoke a ‘land of snow-capped mountains covered in ancient forests and dense vegetation’. Expect gunneras, ferns, fuschias and geums. His challenge will be trying to make a dramatic waterfall with only a few metres of height to play with. But the former army officer will doubtless relish the challenge. The Space to Grow gardens always offer a fresh take and Jilayne Rickard’s garden for the charity Camfed that supports girls’ education in Africa brings rural Zimbabwe to Chelsea with colourful oil drums and edibles. Kampo no Niha celebrates healing plants for common ailments inspired by the landscape of northern Japan. And Facebook comes to Chelsea with Joe Perkins’ Beyond the Screen garden which imagines an ever-changing coastal landscape to explore the positive side of social media.
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Alex Mitchell
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https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/rhs-chelsea-flower-show-2019-preview-the-top-gardening-trends-and-mustsee-gardens-coming-up-at-this-a4066226.html
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2019-02-13 18:30:43+00:00
| 1,550,100,643 | 1,567,548,636 |
human interest
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plant
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181,228 |
eveningstandard--2019-08-01--Five easy ways to keep your garden flowering in the hot summer months
| 2019-08-01T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
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Five easy ways to keep your garden flowering in the hot summer months
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We all go to seed eventually, but it’d be nice if the garden could last through the barbecue season. In August, just as we’re spending most time out there, our favourite flowering plants lose their oomph, providing no colour to complement our new outdoor cushions. These five simple tips will keep your garden flowering fabulously during this hottest of months, even if you can spare only a few minutes a day. When a flower has faded, it turns into a seedhead and the plant stops producing any more blooms. Snip off faded flowers before they set seed so the plant keeps on flowering. Cosmos, marigolds, roses, Shasta daisies, California poppies, dahlias, rose campion and zinnias will all reward you with new flowers if you snip off the old ones. Cut back to the next flower bud down. Break off the old flowers of your potted pelargoniums back to the main stem. If they’re ready, they’ll come off cleanly with a snap. Mini snips let you do the deadheading one-handed (Mini Snips, £5.99, burgonandball.com). A Hip Trug (£7.99, burgonandball.com) will keep your hands free for tidy deadheading as you go. As for hardy geraniums, shear them down to the ground now in one go and they will bounce back with a new lease of life. If you’re going on holiday, time it for just before you leave and they’ll be looking better by the time you get back. Frequent watering in August is unavoidable but lawns and established plants can be ignored. Concentrate on potted plants and new arrivals. Five minutes a day before or after work is a good routine. Spray hoses are convenient but can be fierce. The gentle Gardena City Gardening Balcony Sprayer (£9.99, robertdyas.co.uk) won’t create a mudbath on your decking. For rooftops, terraces or balconies, attach your sprayer to a 10m Terrace Hose (robertdyas.co.uk, £26.49) which automatically rolls up after use. Or fit an automatic watering system. If you haven’t an outside tap, the Gardena Adaptor for Inside Taps (homebase.co.uk, £3.50) lets you attach a hose to an inside kitchen or bathroom tap. Don’t waste time pulling up weeds by the roots in summer. Chop off the tops with a hoe and leave them on the soil to shrivel up in the sun. A long- or short-handled razor hoe is small enough to avoid damaging plants (£29.99, burgonandball.com). Water on a general liquid plant food such as Miracle-Gro All Purpose Concentrated Plant Food (£4.42, diy.com) or a tomato fertiliser high in potash to encourage more flowering every couple of weeks. Next year add a handful of slow-release fertiliser to the compost when planting and you won’t have to bother to feed later. Smarten up edges of lawns with shears or a lawn edger. For a classy finish, do what professional gardeners do — make the edge of the flower bed a little lower than the lawn to create a neat shadow gap.
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Alex Mitchell
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https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/top-gardening-tips-five-quick-and-easy-ways-to-keep-your-garden-flowering-during-the-hot-summer-a4203196.html
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2019-08-01 15:11:00+00:00
| 1,564,686,660 | 1,567,535,108 |
human interest
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plant
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337,477 |
naturalnews--2019-11-06--These 5 flowering plants will attract good bugs to your garden
| 2019-11-06T00:00:00 |
naturalnews
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These 5 flowering plants will attract good bugs to your garden
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Create the right habitat for beneficial insects Not all insects are bad for your crops. While some insects feed on and destroy your plants, other bugs will feed on the bad bugs. These bug-eating insects will protect your crops and planting the right kinds of flowers to attract them is the key. To ensure that your garden has a lot of carnivorous bugs that will keep the herbivores from ruining your crops, create the right habitat for them. Provide food and shelter for carnivorous bugs by planting beautiful flowering plants that offer both. The good bugs will make their home in the flowering plants. Time your planting right so the carnivores are in full force when the herbivores arrive. Carnivores like hoverflies, lacewings, ladybugs, parasitic wasps, pirate bugs, and praying mantises will get rid of pests like aphids, cabbage worms, leafcutter ants, squash vine borers, and whiteflies. Other insects will feed on nectar from the flowers at various stages of their life cycle. The beneficial bugs may also feed on nectar when their prey isn’t available in your garden. Listed below are five flowering plants that provide habitats for your tiny garden helpers. (Related: A simple guide to creating a pollinator-friendly garden.) Coneflower (Echinacea) plants have two-foot-tall flower stalks that suit a perennial border adjacent to your vegetable garden. Sponsored solution from the Health Ranger Store: The Big Berkey water filter removes almost 100% of all contaminants using only the power of gravity (no electricity needed, works completely off-grid). Widely consider the ultimate "survival" water filter, the Big Berkey is made of stainless steel and has been laboratory verified for high-efficiency removal of heavy metals by CWC Labs, with tests personally conducted by Mike Adams. Explore more here. Coneflowers attract butterflies that feed on the nectar from its flowers, but the plant’s unique purple blossoms also attract various smaller, beneficial insects. Goldenrods are known for their loose yellow blossoms, which are an eye-catching late-season addition to any home garden. While the other plants included in this list usually blossom during spring and summer, goldenrod tends to bloom late in summer all the way into fall. Pair the other flowers on this list with goldenrod to ensure that the beneficial bugs stay in your garden throughout the year. Marigolds are a small annual plant with orange- and yellow flowers. Incorporate marigolds into your vegetable beds to beautify your garden and keep out pests. Marigolds don’t just repel above-ground pests. Their roots are also toxic to root-knot nematodes. This common pest attacks your precious vegetables from below. Sweet alyssum has honey-scented white flowers that will completely cover the plant. A ground-hugging annual, sweet alyssum flowers will blossom for several months during the growing season. This small and low-growing plant acts as a ground cover around taller vegetables like chard and kale. As a bonus, sweet alyssum may seed itself. After you plant it once in your home garden, it will sprout again every year. Yarrow is a perennial flower that bears red, yellow, and white blossoms. The flowers grow from a spreading mat of lacy foliage that exudes a lovely herbal fragrance when crushed. Yarrow attracts good insects like hoverflies and ladybugs. The plant also attracts butterflies that feed on the large blossoms full of nectar. Additional tips that will attract beneficial bugs to your home garden Planting dill and gazania also attracts ladybugs while nasturtium attracts ground beetles and spiders. Clover will help attract pollinators like bees. Grow native flowers in your garden to attract more beneficial bugs than cultivars. Finally, don’t use harmful pesticides that may kill the good bugs that you need in your home garden.
|
Zoey Sky
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http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-11-06-flowering-plants-that-attract-garden-bugs.html
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Wed, 06 Nov 2019 02:44:06 +0000
| 1,573,026,246 | 1,573,062,858 |
human interest
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plant
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426,367 |
pravadareport--2019-12-18--Flowers bloom in snowless Moscow
| 2019-12-18T00:00:00 |
pravadareport
|
Flowers bloom in snowless Moscow
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Central Russia is experiencing an unusually warm winter. It rains instead of snowing, grass turns green, and buds swell on the trees. Flowers started blooming at a Moscow botanical garden. Dandelions, hellebores, primroses and snowdrops started blooming in the middle of December 2019. On December 17, snowdrops started blooming. The phenomenon of winter flowering is dangerous to botanicals as they may not bloom in spring. Warm weather is not going to leave Moscow in the coming days due to the influence of air masses from the Atlantic. This week, temperatures will be above the climate norm by an average of 8 degrees, according to the Meteorological Center of Russia. Weather forecasters do not expect any snow in Moscow until the beginning of the third decade of December.
| null |
https://www.pravdareport.com/news/society/144182-moscow_winter/
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Wed, 18 Dec 2019 19:25:00 +0300
| 1,576,715,100 | 1,576,816,417 |
human interest
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plant
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692,042 |
theguardianuk--2019-02-28--Early spring flowers around the UK readers travel tips
| 2019-02-28T00:00:00 |
theguardianuk
|
Early spring flowers around the UK: readers’ travel tips
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This fascinating four acre-garden was created in the early 20th century by noted artist and botanist Edward Bowles, whose nickname, the Crocus King, gives an indication of his passion for spring flowers. The Alpine Meadow, a scrubby slope for most of the year, is carpeted with snowdrops, fritillaries, daffodils and crocuses from February to April. There are beds of gorgeous cyclamen and hellebore currently in bloom and the well-stocked Victorian glasshouses are a delight at any time of the year. In May, the 111-year-old wisteria adds to the attractions. There’s also a small cafe and museum. • Free entry, car park £2.50, visitleevalley.org.uk Emma As St David’s Day approaches, what better way to celebrate the arrival of spring than by being surrounded by thousands of that most optimistic of flowers, and national emblem of Wales, the daffodil? In the sheltered eight acres of wooded valley that form part of Colby Woodland Walk in Pembrokeshire, you’ll not only find banks of cheerful golden trumpets but also drifts of snowdrops, dotted with jewel-like purple crocuses. Hard to imagine that this was once a coal-mining area; nature has reclaimed it, painting it in vibrant spring colours. • Adult £8.40, child £4.20, nationaltrust.org.uk Clare Enter the cream garden gates of Dunham Massey at this time of year and you are swathed in the sweet scent of flowering shrub daphne Jacqueline Postill. As my sight is getting worse, I particularly appreciate these fragrant shrubs, plus winter honeysuckle and sweet box. There is much else to enjoy: a classic group of white birches gleaming against the black leaf litter and a neighbouring copse of the delicate multi-stemmed variety; shy clumps of tiny magenta cyclamen; an avenue of sulphur yellow witch hazels; and sunlit dogwoods, bare stems glowing salmon, ruby and lime. • Adult £11, child £6.50, nationaltrust.org.uk Helen Brazier Spring brings a tapestry of colour in these gardens near Kingbarns, home to a national collection of snowdrops and a woodland walk to the sea. Snowdrop season is enchanting but, as well as these intriguing little beauties, there are aconites, anemones, irises, daffodils, crocus, hellebores, primroses and fragrant shrubs bursting into hopeful bloom. It’s a family-friendly place, with a lost elf village, snowdrop tours, yummy veggie and vegan food in the cafe, plant sales and cute new-born piglets. • Adult £5.50, under-16s free, cambogardens.org.uk Rebecca William Wordsworth was warden at St Mary’s Church church in Rydal and when his daughter Dora died of TB at the age of 42 in 1847 he and his wife planted hundreds of daffodils as a memorial to her. The Wordsworths’ had bought the land to build on in 1826 because they were concerned they would lose their tenancy at neighbouring Rydal Mount. Not just the beauty and tranquillity of the garden appeals but the view from it overlooking Windermere. Walter Many Cambridge colleges lie with their rears facing the River Cam, creating wooded meadows called the Backs. In February the area is carpeted with purple crocuses. As you pass along the path towards the flowers, view King’s College Chapel and Trinity’s Wren Library across the Cam. Walk or cycle from Cambridge railway station towards Silver Street, cross the Cam and then follow the hoggin (gravel and sand) path north and parallel to the river for about 500 metres. The densest flowering is behind Trinity College, west of North Paddock. John Hall When it comes to early spring it’s hard to top these gardens and walks near Chiddingfold in the Surrey Hills. The natural woodland feel and layout means every walk feels like a discovery instead of a meticulously planned garden. The visitors’ map we received on entry helped in our spotting of camellias, magnolias and azaleas and helped us identify the many rare flowering shrubs. There are plenty of spots to sit and take in the views and it’s also wonderful for photography as the garden’s lakes and pools add amazing reflections. And, very importantly, there’s a tearoom. • Opens on 16 March, adult £7.50, under-16s free, ramsterevents.com Stan This garden between Rugby and Kettering is among my favourite places to visit in spring. It has a woodland area where white narcissus grow alongside anemones and violas. In the orchards I am quite jealous of the spring-flowering shrubs. The camellias, magnolias and viburnums all look so healthy. There is an on-site plant nursery but maybe I could employ the Coton Manor gardeners to spruce up my garden. Well worth a visit. Adults £7, child £3, cotonmanor.co.uk Candice Each spring wild crocuses carpet this meadow seven miles south-east of Newbury. A delight to view and a joy to visit – for free. One legend has it that 12th-century crusaders brought them back from central Europe. Others believe that they are garden escapees that have established themselves over the past 200 years. Alongside the crocuses you may find wild orchids, oxeye daisies and vivid mauve and purple scabious and knapweed. • bbowt.org.uk J Messenger Snowdrop Valley puts on a marvellous show each spring. The woodland and dells surrounding the River Anvil play host to hundreds of thousands of delicate snowdrops. The estate is privately owned but opens for about a month each year to share just how beautiful it is. This year it is open until 3 March. There are five walks of varying difficulty to take: we chose walk two, which takes about an hour-and-a-half and consists of bridle paths and footpaths, largely through woodland. The snowdrops line the route and lie in front of you like a giant white carpet. • Car park £2, wheddoncross.org.uk lisa anderson This article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and makes a purchase. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative. The links are powered by Skimlinks. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that Skimlinks cookies will be set. More information.
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Guardian readers
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https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/feb/28/early-spring-flowers-uk-blooms-readers-travel-tips
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2019-02-28 10:00:47+00:00
| 1,551,366,047 | 1,567,547,031 |
human interest
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theguardianuk--2019-04-24--Dutch fence off tulip fields to stop selfie-takers crushing flowers
| 2019-04-24T00:00:00 |
theguardianuk
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Dutch fence off tulip fields to stop selfie-takers crushing flowers
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Barriers and advertising banners are being erected around fields in the tulip bulb region of the Netherlands in an attempt to deter a growing number of tourists from flattening the flowers to take selfies. Tourists have been seen jumping above the tulips to secure the perfect picture, or lying down in the middle of fields, squashing the bulbs. Simon Pennings, a grower near the town of Noordwijkerhout in the bulb region of south-west Netherlands, was the first to erect a barrier in his field, emblazoned with the slogan of a pilot campaign backed by the local tourist board: “Enjoy the flowers, respect our pride.” “They are so careless,” Pennings said of the tourists. “We get large groups of people visiting, which we find very nice and fun, but they flatten everything. It is a shame and we suffer damage as a result. Last year, I had a plot with €10,000 [£8,700] in damage. Everything was trampled … They want to take that selfie anyway.” Nicole van Lieshout from the local tourist office said a group of 40 “ambassadors” – a voluntary team of guides, including retired farmers – will seek to teach visitors about the history of the tulip fields. “In recent years, the number of tourists coming has been higher and higher,” said Van Lieshout. “I think the tourists think the fields were made for them. Everyone wants the perfect selfie and the pictures go all over the world, lying or dancing among the flowers. “We don’t want to send the tourists away. The farmers make the fields beautiful for the visitors, but pictures need to be taken on the edge of the fields, not in or on the flowers.” Pennings told the Dutch newspaper the Algemeen Dagblad people were generally respectful when they were educated about the fields. “They don’t think about it,” he said. “People have lost sight of how a plant grows and that we are working on it all year round. When I explain that to people in the field, they say, ‘Oh, oh, yes, you’re right’, and ‘I’m sorry I didn’t see it at all and didn’t understand it’. “It’s largely ignorance. I assume that. Milk also comes from a factory and not from a cow. That is also the case with the bulbs. It is thought that it is a kind of plastic.” The Dutch tourism board has made a “dos and don’ts” guide to taking a selfie near a tulip field. Van Lieshout said growers’ difficulty in dealing with the interest in tulips had been highlighted over the weekend when the roads into the Keukenhof, a 32-hectare (79 acre) floral garden where growers showcase their latest flowers, became gridlocked. Drivers had spilled out of their cars and into the fields. The annual number of visitors to the Keukenhof has risen from 800,000 to 1.4 million in the past six years. The garden’s director, Bart Siemerink, described the situation as “unacceptable for residents and entrepreneurs in the bulb region”. The curse of the selfie-taking tourist is not a new phenomenon. Last summer, the New York Times reported on the case of the Bogle family, who had opened their farm in Ontario to allow visitors to wander past tall sunflowers. After eight days, the family shut the gates, blaming hordes of amateur photographers who trampled on plants in order to secure the best selfie, plucked sunflower heads to use as props and left rubbish strewn across the farm.
|
Daniel Boffey in Amsterdam
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/24/netherlands-tulip-fields-barriers-tourists-selfie-takers
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2019-04-24 10:47:43+00:00
| 1,556,117,263 | 1,567,541,932 |
human interest
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701,701 |
theguardianuk--2019-06-01--The best scented flowers and foliage Alys Fowler
| 2019-06-01T00:00:00 |
theguardianuk
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The best scented flowers and foliage | Alys Fowler
|
I came home late to a damp road and an empty house. In the neon glow of the street lamp, I could smell the purple honesty, Lunaria annua, their heads popping over the front-garden wall. I could smell them before I opened the gate, subtle, sweet and strong in the cool air after the rain. The house might have been dark and the fridge half-empty, but these scented plants in my front garden said, “Welcome home.” Lilac’s glory may be brief; the flowers last for only a few weeks but, oh, how fragrant and divine they are. There are numerous varieties of Syringa vulgaris, the common lilac, such as ‘Katherine Havemeyer’ with its lavender-blue flowers, or the elegant, white double ‘Madame Lemoine’. But as both will eventually grow to 7m tall, if allowed, they are not the best for very small spaces. Not so the Korean lilac, S. meyeri, and its cultivars, which is tiny in comparison, at 1.5m tall and that again wide, with small, highly scented flowers. All syringa are deciduous, which is a bonus as they won’t gloom out your front room in winter. The mock orange, Philadelphus species, are fast-growing, hardy shrubs with dark green leaves in summer and wonderful yellow autumn colour. These are minor details compared with their scented flowers, which appear in June and July, when their intoxicating perfume floats long on the breeze. A magnet for bees, they are known to be tolerant of urban pollution, salt-laden air and chalky soil as well as not minding a little shade. ‘Belle Étoile’ is an elegant single; ‘Manteau d’Hermine’ a blousy double. Lavender and rosemary are both good choices for scented foliage. On a hot day, you can often smell both long before you arrive at their destination. The low-growing Rosmarinus officinalis Prostratus Group will happily sprawl over pathways and won’t mind a little errant treading to release its oils. ‘Miss Jessopp’s Upright’ is the opposite, staying very stiff, but lending vertical interest to a sunny spot. Every bit of Russian sage, perovskia species, smells good, from the leaves to the flowers; it also manages to glow once in bloom, with its silver-grey leaves and tiny, violet-blue flowers. The taller varieties such as ‘Blue Spire’ tend to be quite floppy, but ‘Little Spire’ stays trim and is perfect for a path edge. It combines happily with any number of other later summer-flowering types, such as the softer pink of Phlox paniculata ‘Franz Schubert’, which has deeply honeyed notes to its scent and is much loved by both bees and butterflies. This article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and makes a purchase. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set. More information.
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Alys Fowler
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/01/alys-fowler-scented-foliage-gardens
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2019-06-01 10:00:12+00:00
| 1,559,397,612 | 1,567,539,466 |
human interest
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plant
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941,651 |
thesun--2019-02-27--Scientists discover flower that MOVES its male parts over the female organs to self-pollinate
| 2019-02-27T00:00:00 |
thesun
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Scientists discover flower that MOVES its male parts over the female organs to self-pollinate
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SCIENTISTS have found the first self- loving plant — which slowly rubs itself for hours in a bid to reproduce. The yellow wallflower sets to work when the sap rises. Tips of its stamen — the male part of the flower — slowly brush over the stigma — its lady bits. That deposits pollen on the female organ and allows it to reproduce without pollinators like bees. Experts from Stirling University and the University of Granada dubbed the phenomenon “anther rubbing” and revealed it resulted in healthy offspring. The Erysimum in- canum, found in Spain and North Africa, also produced as many seeds as those cross-fertilised with other plants. The Sun’s Gardening Editor Peter Seabrook said: “The world of gardening is fascinating and every day I learn something new. “This is the first time I have heard of a plant actually moving to self-pollinate.” Study boss Professor Mohamed Abdelaziz said: “With the loss of pollinators worldwide, any plant trait that promotes reproduction is important.” The findings appear in the journal American Naturalist.
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Lily Hewitson
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https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/8518961/scientists-discover-flower-that-moves-its-male-parts-over-the-female-organs-to-self-pollinate/
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2019-02-27 00:11:05+00:00
| 1,551,244,265 | 1,567,547,136 |
human interest
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plant
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969,736 |
thesun--2019-06-29--When is the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2019 how do you get to the palace and how do I get ticket
| 2019-06-29T00:00:00 |
thesun
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When is the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2019, how do you get to the palace and how do I get tickets?
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IF YOU are fan of all things horticultural, the Hampton Court Flower Show is an extravaganza not to be missed. Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s colourful show and getting your hands on tickets for the event. The event, which showcases gorgeous gardens and floral displays, kicked off on Tuesday July 2 and will end on Sunday July 7. The flower show aims to be a great family day out, which allows guests to immerse themselves in displays showcasing over 250,000 flowers. You can stroll round the show gardens, try your hand at workshops, browse stalls with gardening products and food, see talks and see the Scarecrow competition. From Tuesday to Saturday, the event will be open from 10am to 7.30pm. On the Sunday, there are slightly reduced hours from 10am to 5.30pm. There was also a preview evening on Monday July 1, which takes place from 5pm until 10.30pm. Tickets are currently on sale and there are a range of options available. Tuesday and Wednesday are currently RHS Members only days, and members can book up to four tickets in total for these days or the preview evening. The general public can buy tickets from Thursday to Sunday, and these cost £33 for a full day event (or £39.50 if you pay on the day). Alternatively you can enter the grounds after 3pm for a late ticket which costs £22 or £25.50 on the day. You can buy tickets at seetickets.com and at ticketmaster.co.uk. Hampton Court Palace is located in East Molesey in Surrey and the post code is KT8 9AU if you are travelling by car. The palace is on the A308 and is well signposted from all major local roads. The nearest train station is Hampton Court, which is located a five-minute walk away. Services to Hampton Court run from London Waterloo every 30 minutes, calling at Vauxhall, Clapham Junction, Earlsfield, Wimbledon, Raynes Park, New Maldon, Berrylands, Surbiton and Thames Ditton. You can travel to Zone 6 Hampton Court from Waterloo using your travelcard/oyster card. There is no underground station at Hampton Court, and the nearest stations are Wimbledon and Richmond. The buses that run from Kingston are the 111, 216, 411, 461 and 513, and from Richmond is the R68.
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Becky Pemberton
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https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/6352327/hampton-court-flower-show-2018-tickets-palace/
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2019-06-29 12:15:32+00:00
| 1,561,824,932 | 1,567,537,588 |
human interest
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994,955 |
thetelegraph--2019-01-08--Root to flower eating is to be food trend of 2019 experts say
| 2019-01-08T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
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Root to flower eating is to be food trend of 2019, experts say
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Root to flower eating is sweeping the menus of Britain as food waste worries mean chefs are using the whole plant instead of throwing away leaves. From the River Cottage to Nobu, diners can enjoy carrot tops, beetroot stems, cauliflower leaves and cucumber flowers. Vernon Mascarenhas , a vegetable wholesaler from Nature's Choice at New Covent Garden Market, said that dainty cucumber flowers are perfect for garnishing sushi and salads. He told The Telegraph: "Cucumber flowers are used as as a garnish, they're very pretty. I first discovered these in our glass house when the farmer was basically thinning out the crop. So he was just picking these cucumbers with small flowers and dropping them on the floor as waste. "I immediately started putting them into punnets and the first restaurant to take them was Nobu in Park Lane - and it's just sprung up. Some farmers just grow plants to be cucumber flowers, just for the flower now."
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Helena Horton
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/08/root-flower-eating-food-trend-2019-experts-say/
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2019-01-08 20:00:00+00:00
| 1,546,995,600 | 1,567,553,440 |
human interest
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999,026 |
thetelegraph--2019-02-11--Oak trees to be banned from Chelsea Flower Show for the first time due to Processionary Moth infesta
| 2019-02-11T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
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Oak trees to be banned from Chelsea Flower Show for the first time due to Processionary Moth infestation
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Oak trees have been banned at Chelsea Flower Show because of fears the Oak Processionary Moth could spread across Britain. The moth causes significant damage to oak trees and releases tiny hairs as a caterpillar which can cause severe allergic reactions. It has taken hold in West London, and any oak tree taken to Chelsea risks being infected. This has caused a headache for exhibitors with one insider telling the Telegraph: “We know one designer who had to redo his whole garden because all the trees he was planning to use were on the banned list.” Guy Barter, Chief Horticulturalist at the RHS, told the Telegraph: “The Processionary Moth is embedded in London now. It only appears on oak trees and has now spread around west London. If anyone brought oak trees to Chelsea it would have to be destroyed in situ because of a contamination risk. We have plant health inspectors on site to check. “If the disease comes to Chelsea it could easily spread all around the country. “We strongly encourage people to source all their plants from Britain." Also on the banned list this year is non-native lavender, with anyone showing a garden with the fragrant herb having to source it from England.
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Helena Horton
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/11/oak-trees-banned-chelsea-flower-show-first-time-due-processionary/
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2019-02-11 21:05:12+00:00
| 1,549,937,112 | 1,567,548,908 |
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999,543 |
thetelegraph--2019-02-16--Plants that dont need soil or water to feature at Chelsea Flower Show in bid to attract Millennial
| 2019-02-16T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
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Plants that don't need soil or water to feature at Chelsea Flower Show in bid to attract Millennial gardeners
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Plants that require neither soil nor water to grow will make their debut at this year's Chelsea Flower Show as organisers hope to encourage young novices into gardening. Photos of air plants displayed neatly in glass terrariums are expected to be uploaded all over social media after the country's top horticulturists said their low maintenance made them a good match for millennials. Houseplants in general are becoming more and more fashionable among young people, who are increasingly strapped for time and space in their homes. They are already a firm Instagram trend, with green-fingered youths contributing over 2.2 million pictures of greenery to the #plantsofinstagram hashtag. This year air plants are expected to lead the way because they require minimal attention, can fit in small spaces and brighten up house shares and flats. They only require occasional misting and sunlight. A whole section at the Chelsea Flower Show will be dedicated to them. Guy Barter, the chief horticulturalist at the RHS, said: "Air plants are compact, exotic and stylish, making them a great addition to rooms of any size. "As relatively low maintenance plants, they are a good match for young novices taking the first steps into the wonderful world of gardening. "These strange and outlandish plants are a great introduction to the wonders of botany and fit very well into any sized space.
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Helena Horton
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/16/plants-dont-need-soil-water-feature-chelsea-flower-show-bid/
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2019-02-16 17:00:00+00:00
| 1,550,354,400 | 1,567,548,312 |
human interest
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1,002,970 |
thetelegraph--2019-03-31--Botanist warns of trend of poisonous flowers on food after toxic blooms appear on Mothers Day cak
| 2019-03-31T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
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Botanist warns of trend of poisonous flowers on food after 'toxic' blooms appear on Mother's Day cake
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The trend of sprinkling petals onto food could prove poisonous, a botanist has warned, after a food magazine printed an image of a lemon cake on its front cover, adorned with toxic flowers. Ahead of Mothering Sunday, The Guardian’s Feast magazine printed a cake recipe by the food writer Tamal Ray, which had been embellished with ranunculus blooms. But science writer and plant expert James Wong, who trained at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, warned that the flowers were poisonous and called for people to take greater care when selecting inedible and potentially deadly decorations. Plants in the ranunculus family can cause blistering in the mouth and intestines and an upset stomach. Even if...
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Sarah Knapton
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/03/31/botanist-warns-trend-poisonous-flowers-food-toxic-blooms-appear/
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2019-03-31 15:38:03+00:00
| 1,554,061,083 | 1,567,544,570 |
human interest
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1,003,328 |
thetelegraph--2019-04-02--Top 25 flowers to plant for spring
| 2019-04-02T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
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Top 25 flowers to plant for spring
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Spring is the season that many gardeners look forward to the most, especially if it follows a long cold, dark winter. The official first day falls around March 20 or 21, otherwise known as the March equinox. At this time, in Britain at least, deciduous trees will still be bare or only just showing signs of life. Some early bulbs will have been flowering already, such as snowdrops, crocus, chionodoxa. Spring is a great opportunity to enjoy colour in areas of the garden that are dominated later in the year by shrubs and trees - before the tree canopy closes up, higher light and moisture levels at ground level mean that woodlanders and ground cover plants can come to the fore and flower. Here, expert Val Bourne has chosen a range of spring-flowering plants for different situations around the garden that will take you through from March to June. 1 Lungwort 'Diana Clare' (Pulmonaria) Long, silvered leaves with an apple-green cast flatter deep violet flowers, making this pulmonaria perhaps the best of all. Part shade (30cm/2ft).
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Val Bourne
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/how-to-grow/top-25-spring-plants/
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2019-04-02 09:30:53+00:00
| 1,554,211,853 | 1,567,544,325 |
human interest
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plant
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1,004,297 |
thetelegraph--2019-04-09--Six clever ways to keep cut flowers alive
| 2019-04-09T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
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Six clever ways to keep cut flowers alive
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The truth is cut flowers don't last forever, but garden expert Sarah Raven has some simple tricks for keeping them fresh and maximising their life span so you can enjoy them for longer. Anything that looks floppy should have its stem ends seared in boiling water for 30 seconds. Give woody stems a bit longer – so bluebells only 10 seconds, whereas lilac needs one minute. Put 2.5cm-5cm (1in-2in) of boiling water into a mug and plunge the stems in. The amount of stem you sear is to an extent proportional to the length of stem you’ve cut. I sear 10 per cent. If it’s 6ft tall, sear 6in. If it’s 18in, sear 1in-2in. Don’t leave the stems in too long or they’ll cook and disintegrate....
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Sarah Raven
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/problem-solving/six-clever-ways-to-keep-cut-flowers-alive/
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2019-04-09 11:39:26+00:00
| 1,554,824,366 | 1,567,543,449 |
human interest
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plant
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1,007,174 |
thetelegraph--2019-05-21--Chelsea Flower Show 2019 awards revealed full list of medal winners
| 2019-05-21T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
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Chelsea Flower Show 2019 awards revealed: full list of medal winners
|
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show has revealed its medal winners for 2019. Known as the most glamorous event on the gardening calendar, the Chelsea Flower Show returned for its 60th year, boasting an impressive display of 11 show gardens and 17 smaller gardens. The event, which is open to the public from 21 - 25 May, takes gardening to the next level, showcasing plants and sculptures to create a conversation around contemporary topics. While the top prize, Best Show Garden, will be announced later on Tuesday, below are the best of the best.
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Telegraph Reporters
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/chelsea-flower-show/chelsea-flower-show-2019-awards-full-list-medal-winners/
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2019-05-21 08:32:16+00:00
| 1,558,441,936 | 1,567,540,284 |
human interest
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plant
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1,007,175 |
thetelegraph--2019-05-21--Chelsea Flower Show 2019 dates tickets transport advice and the best day to go
| 2019-05-21T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
|
Chelsea Flower Show 2019: dates, tickets, transport advice and the best day to go
|
When it comes to the Chelsea Flower Show, the earlier you visit, the better. The first two days of the show (21-22 May) are for RHS members only, but for £47.25 you can become a member and have access to all gardens throughout the year. Visiting on these days will mean less crowds and fresher displays. If visiting later on in the week, it is best to go early in the morning or later on, in the early evening; the crowds tend to peak in the middle of the day. It is worth noting, however, that most of the tickets have now sold out - except for the day-long Thursday ticket, which costs £107 on the RHS website. The prestigious flower show has been held in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea every year since 1913 (excluding breaks during the war years). The address is: London Gate, Royal Hospital Road, Royal Hospital Chelsea, London SW3 4SR. Note, however, that if you are driving to the show and parking at Battersea Park, you need to type the postcode SW11 4BY into your sat nav. This will take you straight to the Rosary Gate entrance.
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Telegraph Gardening
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/chelsea-flower-show/chelsea-flower-show-2019-dates-tickets-transport-advice-best/
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2019-05-21 13:45:22+00:00
| 1,558,460,722 | 1,567,540,286 |
human interest
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plant
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1,007,264 |
thetelegraph--2019-05-21--The best gardening events and flower shows and where to book tickets
| 2019-05-21T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
|
The best gardening events and flower shows and where to book tickets
|
The award-winning Hole Park Gardens in Rolvenden will be open every day from March 30 until June 8 for visitors to enjoy the gorgeous bluebell blooms in their 10-acre wood. For the first time this year, owners may bring their dogs into the gardens provided they are kept on leads, making this a lovely springtime option for dog-walkers. Light lunches and homemade cakes are available in the Coach House, where apple juice, local beer and homemade jam and honey produced from the fruit and bees on the Hole Park Estate can be purchased. Admission is £7.50 for adults and £1 for children.
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Telegraph Gardening
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardening-events/gardening-events-2018/
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2019-05-21 16:22:11+00:00
| 1,558,470,131 | 1,567,540,283 |
human interest
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plant
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1,016,022 |
thetelegraph--2019-09-22--Let caterpillars eat your flowers this autumn to help pink moth RHS says
| 2019-09-22T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
|
Let caterpillars eat your flowers this autumn to help pink moth, RHS says
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The Royal Horticultural Society has halted anti-caterpillar measures on its plants after seeing an increase in the larvae of pretty, pink moths. Gardeners have been urged to let grubs munch holes in their honeysuckles in order to help the elephant hawkmoth, which has attractive pink wings. The giant caterpillars of the moth are also interesting to look at, with distinctive markings which look like eyes. The striking larvae have been spotted in RHS gardens as they wander from their feeding plants to find a safe place to bed down for the winter (as pupae). Earlier this year there were also sightings of the rare migrant spurge and death’s head hawkmoths; these moths breed in warmer climes but a good year allows them to fly over the channel and visit the UK. The charity is urging gardeners to turn a blind eye to the small-time damage it can cause this autumn and plant evening flowering favourites of the adult moth to support their dwindling numbers. These include Nicotiana, Honeysuckle and Evening primrose. Hawkmoths are the biggest of the UK’s moths, and along with their smaller cousins are an essential part of the ecosystem, acting as pollinators and providing food for birds and bats. Hayley Jones, entomologist at the RHS, said: "Moths get a bad rap and are often overlooked in favour of their cousins, the butterflies, which are thought to be more showy and beneficial to gardens. In fact, moths come in a huge range of colours and patterns and act as important pollinators – less than seven species are known to favour clothes in your wardrobe. "Now with many species in decline, it’s time we celebrated the more than 2,500 species of moth found in the UK. Early autumn is the perfect time to set out and see these beautiful creatures and lay the groundwork for their proliferation next year." In recent years reports made to RHS advisory reveal six times fewer sightings in gardens. Although hawkmoth caterpillars cause some small damage to plants, they are an essential part of the ecosystem, acting as pollinators and providing all important food for birds and bats. Many of the UK’s moths are in decline, a symptom of changing climate and destruction of their natural habitats but they are likely to have benefitted from the recent warm weather. Gardeners can help by planting caterpillar food plants and nectar plants for the adults, and tolerating some caterpillar damage in order to benefit these amazing creatures. A spokesperson for the RHS said their gardeners had been turning a blind eye to caterpillars, adding: "The moths cause only superficial damage and their benefit to the environment vastly outweigh the pesky holes they leave in some of the plants. Plus, particularly in the case of the beautiful elephant hawkmoth, they make for a beautiful sight!"
|
Helena Horton
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/22/let-caterpillars-eat-flowers-autumn-help-pink-moth-rhs-says/
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2019-09-22 19:00:00+00:00
| 1,569,193,200 | 1,570,222,493 |
human interest
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plant
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1,021,178 |
thetelegraph--2019-11-26--Chelsea flower show contestants could be judged on how eco-friendly their gardens are, RHS reveal
| 2019-11-26T00:00:00 |
thetelegraph
|
Chelsea flower show contestants could be judged on how eco-friendly their gardens are, RHS reveal
|
The Chelsea flower show is considering judging gardens on how environmentally friendly they are, the Royal Horticultural Society has revealed, as it unveils the greenest ever line up for 2020. Contestants who enter the up and coming show could face questions on where they sourced materials from and whether any plastic was used. The proposal for the new criteria is due to be discussed today at the annual judges meeting. “We want to show visitors who come to Chelsea that their gardens can be places that are good for the environment with long-lasting materials,” Catherine Potsides, head of shows development, said. "I cannot promise the environmentally friendly judging criteria will be in place for the 2020 show but I can say that the conversation is taking place." Award winning design duo Hugo Bugg and Charlotte Harris have designed a communal residential garden for show sponsor M&G, with a focus on forging "vital green space" in places that need them most.
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Izzy Lyons
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/26/chelsea-flower-show-contestants-could-judged-eco-friendly-gardens/
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Tue, 26 Nov 2019 00:01:00 GMT
| 1,574,744,460 | 1,574,728,298 |
human interest
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plant
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1,039,208 |
theweekuk--2019-01-16--What to expect from Kate Middletons Chelsea Flower Show garden
| 2019-01-16T00:00:00 |
theweekuk
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What to expect from Kate Middleton’s Chelsea Flower Show garden
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Kate Middleton has helped to design a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show, Kensington Palace has announced. The Duchess of Cambridge’s horticultural creation, titled Back to Nature, is said to have been inspired by “magic” childhood memories of spending time in the “great outdoors”, and uses “wild planting and natural materials”. Her collaboration with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and Kingston-based landscape architects Davies White marks the first time that the Royal has been involved in a display at the world’s most famous horticultural show, the London Evening Standard reports. Award-winning garden designer Adam White explained that he and the Duchess “spoke about our childhood memories, being outdoors and exploring nature”, and that she had been “very open and has been hugely collaborative”. “She is very hands-on, model making, emailing images, coming up with all the ideas that we want to capture. She would often bring a folder of cuttings with her full of ideas,” he continued. According to well-being magazine Happiful, the Duchess hopes to “encourage families to rediscover nature, as well as the physical and mental health benefits it has to offer”. A Palace spokesperson said: “The garden seeks to recapture for adults the sense of wonder and magic that they enjoyed as children, in addition to kindling excitement and a passion for nature in future generations. “The garden will build on Her Royal Highness’s passion for the outdoors and the proven benefits that nature has on physical and mental health.” RHS director Sue Biggs added: “We could not be more thrilled, or feel more honoured, that the Duchess of Cambridge has co-designed our RHS Garden at Chelsea Flower Show.”
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Brittany
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https://www.theweek.co.uk/99010/what-to-expect-from-kate-middleton-s-chelsea-flower-show-garden
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2019-01-16 14:32:46+00:00
| 1,547,667,166 | 1,567,552,165 |
human interest
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plant
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1,040,944 |
theweekuk--2019-05-20--The royals at Chelsea Flower Show in pictures
| 2019-05-20T00:00:00 |
theweekuk
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The royals at Chelsea Flower Show – in pictures
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The Duchess of Cambridge has shared family photographs of the young royals larking around in her garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, which opens to the public tomorrow. Kate Middleton teamed up with landscape architects Andree Davies and Adam White to design the Back to Nature Garden, which was devised with the aim of encouraging families to spend more time outdoors. The Duke and Duchess’s children, Prince George, five, Princess Charlotte, four, and one-year-old Prince Louis helped gather moss, leaves and twigs to decorate the display. In images taken by award-winning photographer Matt Porteous, the two older children sit with thir legs dangling over the side of a bridge George climbs up a waterfall as Louis runs around with a stick “The garden’s centrepiece contains a high-platform tree house, clad in stag horn oak that draws inspiration from a bird or animal nest. It also features a swing seat, rustic den and a campfire as well as tree stumps, stepping stones and a hollow log for children to play on,” says Hello! magazine The Duchess returned to the show today with a group of schoolchildren, climbing into the treehouse and roasting marshmallows. “The Duchess of Cambridge is a strong advocate for the benefits that the outdoors has on physical and mental health, and the positive impact that nature and the environment can have on childhood development,” says Town & Country magazine. Speaking to presenter Monty Don for a BBC interview, she said: “There’s an amazing fact I learnt recently that 90% of our adult brains are developed before the age of five. And really what a child experiences in those really early years directly affects how the brain develops and that’s why I think that it’s so important that all of us, whether we’re parents or carers or family members, really engage in quality time with children and babies from a really, really young age.”
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hollie
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https://www.theweek.co.uk/101326/the-royals-at-chelsea-flower-show-in-pictures
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2019-05-20 12:17:15+00:00
| 1,558,369,035 | 1,567,540,396 |
human interest
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plant
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163,566 |
eveningstandard--2019-02-07--This is the worldaposs most expensive bouquet of flowers
| 2019-02-07T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
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This is the world's most expensive bouquet of flowers
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Nothing says I love you more than a bunch of flowers on Valentine's Day - especially when they cost £20,000. Artists behind Endura Roses, the UK's leading preserved flower company (yes, that is indeed a thing) have truly outdone themselves by creating the Cullinan, the world's most expensive bouquet. Inspired by the Cullinan Diamond, a gem which now sits in Her Majesty's Crown, the delightful spruce contains no less than 100 specially preserved flowers. So what's in it? Lush black hydrangea, a towering forest of roses, including six grandeur roses encased in 24-carat gold (obvs); a grande rose sourced all the way from the volcanic-rich soils of Cayambe, Equador; a trio of handmade heart roses and a large, uber rare and lavishly shaped Juliette Rose with double petal galore. If that's not enough, the bouquet has been finished off with Diamond Dust, a semi-precious kind of fairy spray containing multi-faceted diamonds. In other words, it's v. bling. The pièce de résistance? A Mon Chérie curved glass cloche sits at the centre and hides two Cullinan diamonds, one 0.5 carat and the other 0.3 carat. Casual. And if £20,000 seems a little steep for a bouquet, designer Oliver Hibbert says the it lasts for "between three and five years, though if you want it to last forever you can have it encased in glass" (all very Beauty and The Beast). Now if that doesn't make your partner want to bed you, we don't know what will. For those that want to buy it, visit Endura's website to find out more or email [email protected].
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Luke Abrahams
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https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/living/this-is-the-worlds-most-expensive-bouquet-of-flowers-a4053231.html
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2019-02-07 10:30:00+00:00
| 1,549,553,400 | 1,567,549,298 |
human interest
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plant
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373,810 |
newyorkpost--2019-04-05--Howard Stern sends former foe Kathie Lee Gifford a huge bouquet of roses
| 2019-04-05T00:00:00 |
newyorkpost
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Howard Stern sends former foe Kathie Lee Gifford a huge bouquet of roses
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She is leaving after 11 years on the show.
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admin
|
https://nypost.com/ss-post/howard-stern-sends-former-foe-kathie-lee-gifford-a-huge-bouquet-of-roses/
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2019-04-05 14:38:43+00:00
| 1,554,489,523 | 1,567,543,926 |
human interest
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plant
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797,493 |
themanchestereveningnews--2019-03-21--How to get a free bouquet of flowers for Mothers Day worth 23
| 2019-03-21T00:00:00 |
themanchestereveningnews
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How to get a free bouquet of flowers for Mothers Day worth £23
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Mother's Day falls on 30 March this year and it is time to get organised with something nice for the women we love. We have secured a reader offer that will allow you to get a beautiful bouquet of flowers free using a combination of voucher code and cashback deals. There are deals in your local flower shop which can sometimes do the trick but this online offer from Bloom & Wild is too good to miss. Using a voucher code and a cashback website it is possible to get a bouquet worth £23 free after cashback. The deal is available on 'The Ella', a Spring-themed bouquet with cheerful yellow alstroemeria, scented freesia and solidago. It includes 18 stems delivered through the door in our bespoke letterbox packaging, with a gift card including your personal message. To get the deal sign up to cashback website Quidco here and Bloom & Wild Flowers & click 'Redeem Bonus'. The site is giving £2.30 discount using the code QUIDCOTEN at checkout, bringing the price down to £20.70. However, the site is also cutting the price of a bouquet for all members by 30% automatically. That brings the price down to just £14.19. Still with us? Well, if you are also a new member to the website you can get £15 back when you order the flowers, making it free when ordered before 31st March. The free bunch is the Ella- which is one of the online stores best selling letterbox bouquets. Here is the step by step of how to redeem yours- and it should only take a couple of minutes.
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Stacey Dutton
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https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/how-free-bouquet-flowers-mothers-16002242
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2019-03-21 15:07:29+00:00
| 1,553,195,249 | 1,567,545,379 |
human interest
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plant
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821,793 |
thepoke--2019-07-24--This woman took a bouquet she found in the woods and her realisation what shed done is a slow burni
| 2019-07-24T00:00:00 |
thepoke
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This woman took a bouquet she found in the woods and her realisation what she’d done is a slow burning delight
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We’re grateful to a woman called Dani for sharing this exchange she found on Facebook, which began with a woman saying how lucky she felt to have found a bouquet of flowers left by someone in the woods. And when we say it rather escalated from there, well it really, really did. “I’m never deleting Facebook,” said Dani, and here are just a few of the things people said after she shared it on Twitter. And if it reminded you of something, you weren’t alone. This classic Facebook exchange about a dead cat is sad and very, very funny
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John Plunkett
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https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/07/24/this-woman-took-a-bouquet-she-found-in-the-woods-her-realisation-what-shed-done-is-slow-burning-delight/
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2019-07-24 15:00:57+00:00
| 1,563,994,857 | 1,567,535,951 |
human interest
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plant
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937,462 |
thesun--2019-02-12--Where to get cheap Valentines Day flowers The best deals on roses and bouquets for 2019
| 2019-02-12T00:00:00 |
thesun
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Where to get cheap Valentine’s Day flowers – The best deals on roses and bouquets for 2019
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LOVEBIRDS hoping to impress their other half with a bunch of roses this Valentine's Day face forking out a small fortune on the traditionally romantic blooms. But don't worry, we've got your backs and put together a guide to where you can get the cheapest bouquets - and most of the deals are under a tenner. If you're looking to save some cash then your best bet is to head to your nearest supermarket, but it doesn't mean they will last the longest. Typically, high street retailers sell short-stemmed flowers while ones with long stems are premium and considered the best. Flowers with bigger heads also tend to be more expensive too and are generally available from florists - supermarkets tend to stock smaller "sweetheart" roses. Surprisingly, prices actually drop on Valentine's Day itself as supermarket try to shift surplus stocks. But if you're not prepared to leave it to the last minute, then these are your best bet. If you're ordering your flowers online and they're not in a good condition by the time they get to you should be able to get a full or partial refund. In 2016, Moonpig - which sells more than one million roses a year over Valentine's Day - was bombarded with complaints after delivering damaged flowers on Mother's Day. In some cases, it didn't deliver anything at all. If your bouquet isn't up to scratch then the first thing you should do is take a photo of the flowers which will support your complaint. Complaints to the retailer must be made by the person who bought the flowers because they will need to access the order information to resolve the problem. You'll also be able to get a full refund for flowers that don't arrive at all. If you order a specific number of flowers but less are delivered to you then you are also entitled to a partial refund, according to consumer group Which?. We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Money team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 78 24516. Don't forget to join the Sun Money's Facebook group for the latest bargains and money-saving advice.
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Hollie Borland
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https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/8325432/cheapest-valentines-day-flowers-2019-best-deals-roses-bouquets/
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2019-02-12 16:51:37+00:00
| 1,550,008,297 | 1,567,548,794 |
human interest
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plant
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960,839 |
thesun--2019-05-15--Best summer bouquets delivered to your door
| 2019-05-15T00:00:00 |
thesun
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Best summer bouquets delivered to your door
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WHETHER they’re for your home, workplace or a gift for a loved one, you can be sure a bunch of fresh, bright and beautiful flowers will never go unappreciated. And if you don't have time to head over to your local florist, it's now easy to order expertly arranged bouquet, without even leaving your home With a few clicks on your computer, your friend or loved one can have a blooming surprise delivered to their door in time for any celebration. Equally, if you want to inject a little summer into your own home there are plenty of beautifull bouquets available online. The only downside to the burgeoning online flower delivery trend is that there are now so many sites and blooms to choose from. With so many factors to consider, we handpicked the best summer bouquets available out there, so you don't have to. The Summer Glow bouquet from Bunches is made of stunning sunflowers, yellow roses and cream stocks complemented by matricaria daisies. The vibrant bouquet which costs about £24 can be delivered for free across the UK. According to the retailer, the blooms should stay fresh for at least seven days. All flowers and plants from Bunches are shipped in specially designed packaging to ensure that your gift arrives in style - perfect if you want to surprise a loved one. This real rainbow of colours is sure to brighten up your home or put a smile on the face of a loved one this summer. Tulips are a spring flower that start to bloom when the weather warms up. They tend to be available all year around as they are imported from overseas when available locally, mainly from Holland. Called Rainbow Tulips, you can get this bouquet from Bunches for just under £23 with free delivery across the UK. This beautiful collection of flowers from Interflora is available in three sizes with 18 stems in a small bunch and up to 30 stems in an extra large bouquet. Prices vary from £35 to £55 depending on which size you opt for. Featuring pink large headed roses, cream spray chrysanthemums, cerise germini, purple phlox and cerise roses, it comes wrapped and presented in gift packaging. Same-day delivery is available although bare in mind that it will set you back £8 as opposed to £6 for next-day delivery. If you want to cut the costs, Summer Sunshine, is a slightly cheaper option from Interflora. Prices vary between £30 to £50 depending on the size you choose - £5 less than the Summer Adventures bouquet. Arranged and hand-delivered by local florists with wonderful "wow" factor upon arrival, this bouquet features lemon germini, cerise medium headed roses and orange LA lilies. Bare in mind that Lilies can be toxic to cats and dogs if ingested, so avoid this one if you're a pet owner. Hand-arranged by skilled florists, the high-quality arrangement comes hand-wrapped in a sheet of frosted cellophane. Again make sure you keep the flowers away from your pet if you're a dog or a cat owner. Next-Day delivery is available for just £4. Are you heading to a festival this summer? No festival kitbag is complete without a statement wellie or some stylish boots. Here's our selection of the best ones available out there including unicorn wellies and sequins Dr Martens boots. Or if you need some staycation inspiration, here's how to make it feel like you've gone abroad without the added travel. If you're travelling with a pet, check out our selections of the best pet-friendly hotels in the UK. Find offer codes, for Interflora and Bunches with The Sun Vouchers This article and any featured products have been independently chosen by The Sun journalists. All recommendations within the article are informed by expert editorial opinion. If you click a link and buy a product we may earn revenue: this helps to support The Sun, and in no way affects our recommendations.
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Zlata Rodionova
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https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/9062483/best-summer-bouquets-delivered/
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2019-05-15 14:52:40+00:00
| 1,557,946,360 | 1,567,540,591 |
human interest
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plant
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55,705 |
birminghammail--2019-01-30--The best Valentines Day roses deals from supermarkets and florists
| 2019-01-30T00:00:00 |
birminghammail
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The best Valentine's Day roses deals from supermarkets and florists
|
Love is in the air for Valentine's Day and roses will be top of many shopping lists in the run up to the big day. Buying the one you love a single rose is often seen as a sign of love on the most romantic day of the year but a single rose - or a full bouquet - can be expensive. There are many deals out there to get a cheap enough bouquet or rose without breaking the bank also and here are the best of them. Asda has some extremely affordable bunches of roses in store and online. For a small bunch at Asda, they are just £2 and you can add them to your shopping cart even when shopping on the Asda website. So, be ready to order these within 5 days before you see your Valentine to make sure they are still nice and fresh. Home Bargain- our favourite affordable store is running a deal on bunches of Kenyan Spray Roses for £15.99 this year. The bunch comes in a mix of colours including red, yellow, pink and white- and for a huge bouquet of 50 roses, this as always is an absolute steal for shoppers. You'll need to order the flowers online, where you can also chose a personalised romantic note to be written on the message card. The £50 bouquet is one of the more popular deals couples will consider this year- with a special twist to help them last longer. The supermarket favourite has released the bouquet deal with 12 freeze dried roses which they are promising will keep for up to a year. Even though they are a little more expensive, at least brownie points are there to be earned every time your spouse sees them in pride of place in your home for a whole year. They will be available in stores from February 11. Morrisons Flowerworld section of their website is seemingly a huge hit with Morrisons shoppers with some Valentines worthy bouquets available. The store features this beautiful letterbox bouquet (above) called the Raspberry Ripple Roses & Pandora Bell Lollipop for just £25, for something a little different. Or, if you would rather order to hand to a loved one, they also have numerous other Valentines Day bundles, including the Best Unicorn Roses for £43, which we can imagine will be massively popular. This one is available for delivery from February 4. Lidl will be offering shoppers a dozen red roses for Valentines Day for just £4. From February 13- the supermarket will have limited stock of the cheap bunch, and its looking to be one of the cheapest deals we can find. Also, the store is going to have a single red rose in a cone for £3 for those not wanting to splurge. Other popular bundles include their 100 roses for £25 or a dozen "deluxe" large head roses for £10. Ranging from £25- £175, Waitrose is one of the more high end options for shoppers. The store features some rose bundles which you can have delivered from February 12- and some from February 13. Waitrose shoppers have many bunches to choose from, it just all depends how much you want to spend. If you fancy a splurge, the store is offering a £90 gift set of premium red roses and Champagne. Featuring large headed white roses hand-tied with thlaspi, pistache and salal leaves, and presented in Interflora Gift Packaging. The Standard size contains 12 stems, large contains 18 stems, Extra Large contains 24 stems- this popular bundle is £49 for 12, £69 for 18 and £89 for 24 roses. With Interflora, rest assured all bouquets are: Have a look through their huge array of flower arrangements on the website here- where The Florist website is also offering £10 off when you spend £60 with code AFFHIGHTEN or £5 off when you spend £45 with code AFFHIGHFIVE. The online florists bestsellers include the Rose and Lily bouquet and their classic 40 roses with free chocolates for just £24.99. Prestige Flowers offer a number of different bouquets with roses included for various other occasions- which would still also be perfect for Valentines. But, you can be sure to find plenty of options in their Valentines section- where there are TONNES of savings to be made. For instance, the J'adore bundle featured (above) with tulips, red berries and forest greens for just £26.99 features a free bunch of chocolates. The Bloom & Wild website has the ultimate crush package to send out for that special someone. 12 deep roses with three stems can be delivered through their door without any trace of you for the secret admirers. Colours may vary, but they promise to always give the highest quality bouquet. You can grab this bouquet at £33. They also have various other bundles between £30-£60 available online. Many of eFlorist's bouquet's are on offer at the moment- with some going for under £30 with £5 and £10 savings. The online florist features even a single rose and chocolates for just £16.99. This article contains affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission on any sales of products or services we write about. This article was written completely independently, see more details
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Stacey Dutton
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https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/best-valentines-day-roses-deals-15746436
|
2019-01-30 14:53:49+00:00
| 1,548,878,029 | 1,567,550,193 |
human interest
|
plant
|
93,816 |
chicagosuntimes--2019-11-06--Chicago’s official Christmas tree a 55-foot blue spruce
| 2019-11-06T00:00:00 |
chicagosuntimes
|
Chicago’s official Christmas tree a 55-foot blue spruce
|
Millennium Park is getting one step closer to the kickoff of the 2019 holiday season in Chicago. After weeks of a search for the ideal candidate to become the city’s 106th official Christmas tree, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events on Wednesday announced that a 55-foot blue spruce is the winner from among more than 40 entries in this year’s contest. The Gene Nelson family of Elgin is donating the tree, which will be cut down Thursday morning from their front yard and delivered to Millennium Park on Friday evening. Chicago has had an official Christmas tree annually since 1913, when the first tree was lit in Grant Park. The tree and festivities moved to Daley Plaza in 1966 (in 1982 the tree was positioned at State and Wacker but returned to Daley Plaza the following year) and then to Millennium Park in 2016. The Nelson family will join Santa and other special guests for the official tree lighting ceremony on Nov. 22 in Millennium Park at Washington and Michigan. The fun begins at 6 p.m. with the lighting at approximately 6:30 p.m. Admission if free. The tree will be on display through Jan. 6, 2020. The illuminated tree’s proximity to “The Bean” and the annual Caroling at Cloud Gate, as well as the park’s ice skating rink, make for a full-out holiday experience for the whole family.
|
Miriam Di Nunzio
|
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/11/6/20950985/city-of-chicago-official-christmas-tree-millennium-park-blue-spruce
|
2019-11-06T09:00:00-06:00
| 1,573,048,800 | 1,573,063,321 |
human interest
|
plant
|
664,551 |
thedenverpost--2019-09-11--A beetle that burrows into spruce trees has infected Denver city parks
| 2019-09-11T00:00:00 |
thedenverpost
|
A beetle that burrows into spruce trees has infected Denver city parks
|
Beetles that feast on spruce trees have invaded Denver’s parks and now crews are cutting down infected trees, starting Wednesday in Cheesman Park. On Wednesday morning, two crews cut down three trees, and they have plans to remove nine more by the end of the week, Cynthia Karvaski, a Denver Parks and Recreation Department spokeswoman, said. In all, parks officials have found 74 infected trees in city parks. The trees have been invaded by the Ips engraver beetle, a species that burrows beneath bark to feed on a tree’s nutrients and lay eggs. The beetle infestations occur in nine-or ten-year cycles and cause trees to die, creating the risk of branches falling and putting people and property in danger. The beetles are drawn to trees that are newly planted, sick or simply weak. “The trees have been stressed from drought,” Karvaski said. “Once they’re infested, there’s no treatment. And it spreads.” This isn’t Denver’s first rodeo with the beetle. The city removed 300 spruce trees in 2002 due to an infestation, then 200 more in 2012. The beetles are drawn to the smell of trees stressed from drought. According to the National Weather Service, Denver experienced some of its warmest months in 2018. This weather prevents trees from turning water into a layer of resin for defense. Because of this, trees become more susceptible to the engraver beetle. The insects start at the top of spruce trees and feed and lay eggs in the most carbohydrate-rich layer of the tree. “The first generation hatches in the spring, and the second hatches between July and August,” Dan West, an entomologist with the Colorado State Forest Service, said. “They feed on the phloem layer, which provides nutrients to the entire tree.” Karvaski said that the department has spotted 31 infestations on private party. The parks department has sent a notice on NextDoor advising residents to keep an eye on the health of their trees.
|
James Burky, Andrew Kenney
|
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/11/denver-engraver-beetle-trees-cheesman-park/
|
2019-09-11 23:07:53+00:00
| 1,568,257,673 | 1,569,330,355 |
human interest
|
plant
|
3,748 |
activistpost--2019-01-14--Change Your Phone Settings So Apple Google Cant Track Your Movements
| 2019-01-14T00:00:00 |
activistpost
|
Change Your Phone Settings So Apple, Google Can’t Track Your Movements
|
Technology companies have been pummeled by revelations about how poorly they protect their customers’ personal information, including an in-depth New York Times report detailing the ability of smartphone apps to track users’ locations. Some companies, most notably Apple, have begun promoting the fact that they sell products and services that safeguard consumer privacy. Smartphone users are never asked explicitly if they want to be tracked every moment of each day. But cellular companies, smartphone makers, app developers and social media companies all claim they have users’ permission to conduct near-constant personal surveillance. The underlying problem is that most people don’t understand how tracking really works. The technology companies haven’t helped teach their customers about it, either. In fact, they’ve intentionally obscured important details to build a multi-billion-dollar data economy based on an ethically questionable notion of informed consent. Most companies disclose their data protection practices in a privacy policy; most software requires users to click a button saying they accept the terms before using the program. But people don’t always have a free choice. Instead, it’s a “take-it-or-leave-it” agreement, in which a customer can use the service only if they agree. Anyone who actually wants to understand what the policies say finds the details are buried in long legal documents unreadable by nearly everyone, perhaps except the lawyers who helped create them. Often, these policies will begin with a blanket statement like “your privacy is important to us.” However, the actual terms describe a different reality. It’s usually not too far-fetched to say that the company can basically do whatever it wants with your personal information, as long as it has informed you about it. U.S. federal law does not require that a company’s privacy policy actually protect users’ privacy. Nor are there any requirements that a company must inform consumers of its practices in clear, nonlegal language or provide consumers a notice in a user-friendly way. Theoretically, users might be able to vote with their feet and find similar services from a company with better data-privacy practices. But take-it-or-leave-it agreements for technologically advanced tools limit the power of competition across nearly the entire technology industry. There are a few situations where mobile platform companies like Apple and Google have let people exercise some control over data collection. For example, both companies’ mobile operating systems let users turn off location services, such as GPS tracking. Ideally, this should prevent most apps from collecting your location – but it doesn’t always. Further, it does nothing if your mobile provider resells your phone’s location information to third parties. App makers are also able to persuade users not to turn off location services, again with take-it-or-leave-it notifications. When managing privileges for iOS apps, users get to choose whether the app can access the phone’s location “always,” “while using the app” or “never.” But changing the setting can trigger a discouraging message: “We need your location information to improve your experience,” says one app. Users are not asked other important questions, like whether they approve of the app selling their location history to other companies. And many users don’t know that even when their name and contact information is removed from location data, even a modest location history can reveal their home addresses and the places they visit most, offering clues to their identities, medical conditions and personal relationships. Websites and apps make it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for most people to say no to aggressive surveillance and data collection practices. In my role as a scholar of human-computer interaction, one issue I study is the power of defaults. When companies set a default in a system, such as “location services set to on,” people are unlikely to change it, especially if they are unaware there are other options they could choose. Further, when it is inconvenient to change the location services, as is the case on both iOS and Android systems today, it’s even less likely that people will opt out of location collection – even when they dislike it.
|
Activist Post
|
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/01/change-your-phone-settings-so-apple-google-cant-track-your-movements.html
|
2019-01-14 19:15:13+00:00
| 1,547,511,313 | 1,567,552,476 |
economy, business and finance
|
business information
|
6,346 |
activistpost--2019-12-22--Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla Named in Child Cobalt Mining Deaths and Injuries Lawsuit
| 2019-12-22T00:00:00 |
activistpost
|
Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla Named in Child Cobalt Mining Deaths and Injuries Lawsuit
|
Cell phones, computers, and other digital, electronic, and wireless technology require ingredients often referred to as “conflict minerals” in order to operate (see 1, 2). There are reasons why they are referred to that way – mining for them is dangerous, sometimes deadly, and frequently involves exploited children. Thanks to Annie Kelly for investigating and The Guardian for publishing details about another tragic situation involving “conflict minerals”: A landmark legal case has been launched against the world’s largest tech companies by Congolese families who say their children were killed or maimed while mining for cobalt used to power smartphones, laptops and electric cars, the Guardian can reveal. Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington DC by human rights firm International Rights Advocates on behalf of 14 parents and children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The families and injured children are seeking damages for forced labour and further compensation for unjust enrichment, negligent supervision and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It is the first time that any of the tech companies have faced such a legal challenge. In the court documents, the Congolese families describe how their children were driven by extreme poverty to seek work in large mining sites, where they claim they were paid as little as $2 (£1.50) a day for backbreaking and dangerous work digging for cobalt rocks with primitive tools in dark, underground tunnels. Activist Post reports regularly about the many issues associated with digital, electronic, and wireless technology. For more information, visit our archives. Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Become an Activist Post Patron for as little as $1 per month at Patreon. Follow us on SoMee, Flote, Minds, Twitter, and Steemit. Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.
|
Activist Post
|
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/12/apple-google-dell-microsoft-and-tesla-named-in-child-cobalt-mining-deaths-and-injuries-lawsuit.html
|
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 21:20:47 +0000
| 1,577,067,647 | 1,577,059,592 |
economy, business and finance
|
business information
|
3,904 |
activistpost--2019-01-30--New State Regulations Force a California Charity for the Homeless to Close Shop
| 2019-01-30T00:00:00 |
activistpost
|
New State Regulations Force a California Charity for the Homeless to Close Shop
|
For the past four years, Deliverance San Diego has been delivering hot meals to the city’s homeless population every Friday, averaging 200 donated meals on any given evening. Now, due to new guidelines passed by the State Legislature of California, the non-profit is ceasing operations and will dissolve by the end of the month. Through their existing model, hot meals were prepared in volunteer homes and distributed on the streets. “Volunteers from various churches gather at 17th and Commercial downtown to load four food wagons with chili, soup, cornbread, water, and other snacks,” the group’s web site explains. “We offer prayer and spiritual support, but one of the easiest things we do is get someone’s name and remember it.” Through the new requirements, set forth by the San Diego Department of Environmental Health, Deliverance would need to use licensed, state-approved kitchens, implement hand-washing stations, and meet a variety of other requirements. With a yearly budget of less than $7,000, according to the non-profit’s treasurer, Deliverance determined it can no longer sustain operations without extensive and expensive organizational changes. “We’re on a shoestring budget,” explains volunteer Gary Marttila, “so working out all those logistics became too big of an obstacle to overcome.” ABC 10 News in San Diego tells more of their story: As the San Diego Union-Tribune explains, several of the law’s backers have expressed surprise at the closure of Deliverance. According to Heather Buonomo, a program coordinator with the Department of Environmental Health, some sort of workaround may have been available or achievable. “We’re happy to work with them to find a solution that works for their charitable organization,” she said. According to Monique Limón, one of the bill’s authors, “The law would encourage more charities to provide food for the needy while also creating a level of oversight to ensure they follow proper health guidelines.” The fact that it didn’t even try says something about the pressure that these policies put on small and vulnerable charities and institutions who don’t feel they have political sway. Yet it’s unclear what exactly would or could have been done if Deliverance had tried to negotiate with the state and find “a solution that works.” And the fact that it didn’t even try or think it could try says something about the pressure that these policies put on small and vulnerable charities and institutions who don’t feel they have political sway. Likewise, one can make any number of arguments about food safety, as Limón does, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which more burdens, more requirements, and tighter regulations will somehow “encourage more charities to provide food for the needy.” The reality is that the state’s dream of regulated soup and sandwiches is taking precedence over the bottom-up activity of neighbors who are passionate about loving their neighbors. Is that really an acceptable trade-off, particularly in an area that so desperately needs an intimate and personalized approach? “We’ve sought to provide comfort to those who are going through an incredibly difficult time,” says Deliverance’s press release on the closure. “In many situations, they are without a home due to no fault of their own. This action by the state creates significant barriers to those organizations like ours who simply want to show God’s love through a hot meal and some conversation.” Given the good—and thus far, safe—work of organizations like Deliverance, such regulations represent a prime example of the “unseen costs” of government action. In some cases, well-intended government policies lead to trade imbalances or economic surpluses or corporate cronyism or community inequities—all of which yield their own forms of social corrosion. But in cases such as these, we see the ill effects of these policies on charitable activity, resulting in real and tangible barriers to human love and relationship. This article was reprinted with permission from the Acton Institute and was sourced from FEE.org Joseph Sunde is an associate editor and writer for the Acton Institute. His work has appeared in venues such as The Federalist, First Things, Intellectual Takeout, The City, The Christian Post, The Stream, Patheos, LifeSiteNews, Charisma News, The Green Room, Juicy Ecumenism, Ethika Politika, Made to Flourish, and the Center for Faith and Work. Joseph resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife and four children.
|
Activist Post
|
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/01/new-state-regulations-force-a-california-charity-for-the-homeless-to-close-shop.html
|
2019-01-30 17:20:15+00:00
| 1,548,886,815 | 1,567,550,186 |
economy, business and finance
|
business information
|
3,912 |
activistpost--2019-01-31--New State Regulations Force a California Charity for the Homeless to Close Shop
| 2019-01-31T00:00:00 |
activistpost
|
New State Regulations Force a California Charity for the Homeless to Close Shop
|
For the past four years, Deliverance San Diego has been delivering hot meals to the city’s homeless population every Friday, averaging 200 donated meals on any given evening. Now, due to new guidelines passed by the State Legislature of California, the non-profit is ceasing operations and will dissolve by the end of the month. Through their existing model, hot meals were prepared in volunteer homes and distributed on the streets. “Volunteers from various churches gather at 17th and Commercial downtown to load four food wagons with chili, soup, cornbread, water, and other snacks,” the group’s web site explains. “We offer prayer and spiritual support, but one of the easiest things we do is get someone’s name and remember it.” Through the new requirements, set forth by the San Diego Department of Environmental Health, Deliverance would need to use licensed, state-approved kitchens, implement hand-washing stations, and meet a variety of other requirements. With a yearly budget of less than $7,000, according to the non-profit’s treasurer, Deliverance determined it can no longer sustain operations without extensive and expensive organizational changes. “We’re on a shoestring budget,” explains volunteer Gary Marttila, “so working out all those logistics became too big of an obstacle to overcome.” ABC 10 News in San Diego tells more of their story: As the San Diego Union-Tribune explains, several of the law’s backers have expressed surprise at the closure of Deliverance. According to Heather Buonomo, a program coordinator with the Department of Environmental Health, some sort of workaround may have been available or achievable. “We’re happy to work with them to find a solution that works for their charitable organization,” she said. According to Monique Limón, one of the bill’s authors, “The law would encourage more charities to provide food for the needy while also creating a level of oversight to ensure they follow proper health guidelines.” The fact that it didn’t even try says something about the pressure that these policies put on small and vulnerable charities and institutions who don’t feel they have political sway. Yet it’s unclear what exactly would or could have been done if Deliverance had tried to negotiate with the state and find “a solution that works.” And the fact that it didn’t even try or think it could try says something about the pressure that these policies put on small and vulnerable charities and institutions who don’t feel they have political sway. Likewise, one can make any number of arguments about food safety, as Limón does, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which more burdens, more requirements, and tighter regulations will somehow “encourage more charities to provide food for the needy.” The reality is that the state’s dream of regulated soup and sandwiches is taking precedence over the bottom-up activity of neighbors who are passionate about loving their neighbors. Is that really an acceptable trade-off, particularly in an area that so desperately needs an intimate and personalized approach? “We’ve sought to provide comfort to those who are going through an incredibly difficult time,” says Deliverance’s press release on the closure. “In many situations, they are without a home due to no fault of their own. This action by the state creates significant barriers to those organizations like ours who simply want to show God’s love through a hot meal and some conversation.” Given the good—and thus far, safe—work of organizations like Deliverance, such regulations represent a prime example of the “unseen costs” of government action. In some cases, well-intended government policies lead to trade imbalances or economic surpluses or corporate cronyism or community inequities—all of which yield their own forms of social corrosion. But in cases such as these, we see the ill effects of these policies on charitable activity, resulting in real and tangible barriers to human love and relationship. This article was reprinted with permission from the Acton Institute and was sourced from FEE.org Joseph Sunde is an associate editor and writer for the Acton Institute. His work has appeared in venues such as The Federalist, First Things, Intellectual Takeout, The City, The Christian Post, The Stream, Patheos, LifeSiteNews, Charisma News, The Green Room, Juicy Ecumenism, Ethika Politika, Made to Flourish, and the Center for Faith and Work. Joseph resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife and four children.
|
Activist Post
|
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/01/new-state-regulations-force-a-california-charity-for-the-homeless-to-close-shop.html
|
2019-01-31 13:45:15+00:00
| 1,548,960,315 | 1,567,550,050 |
economy, business and finance
|
business information
|
7,126 |
ageofautism--2019-05-30--Seth Berkley the fattest charity fat cat of them all and the money sloshing behind the Global Heal
| 2019-05-30T00:00:00 |
ageofautism
|
Seth Berkley "the fattest charity fat cat of them all" and the money sloshing behind the Global Health Security Agenda
|
Seth Berkley, the director Gavi, who led the call for a clamp down on vaccine criticism in social media two years ago in the British mainstream journal the Spectator had a few months before been named in the Mail on Sunday as the worst charity fat cat. Ian Birrell had written an article entitled 'The fattest charity fat cat of them all: Foreign aid boss made Millions out £1.5 billion handed to his charity by British taxpayers' (actually nearly £2.5 million, heading for $4million). He reports: "Seth Berkley has taken home more than £2 million over the past four years as chief executive officer of Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), which has been given £1.5 billion by Britain...Another official at the Geneva-based group collects a pay package of more than £500,000 a year...Incredibly, Dr Berkley was given a housing allowance on top of his £623,370 pay package... Like others at Gavi, he is also offered help with school fees and is exempt from paying Swiss income taxes under a deal struck by the organisation." In November 2017 I wrote in evidence to the UK House of Commons media committee (DCMS) inquiry into Fake News: "In this regard it is disquieting to look at the global campaign by vaccine lobbyists which reached these shores this summer advocating compulsory vaccination, having scored recent successes in Australia, Italy, France and parts of the United States. The British Medical Association jettisoned its traditional opposition to compulsory vaccination... – dismissed only a few years ago by a former chairman, Hamish Meldrum, as “Stalinist” ... - and called for the matter to be discussed. Just a few days before an article appeared in the on-line Spectator by the CEO of GAVI, a global agency promoting vaccination, calling for “anti-vaxxers” to be excluded from “social media”... It must be emphasised that anyone remotely critical or informed about the vaccine lobby and its products, is placed under the general pejorative label “anti-vaxxer”: it is the vaccine/pharmaceutical lobby that polarises the debate – anyone who is not in favour of their entire open-ended agenda is subject to opprobrium and ad hominem attack. Complex health issues are being reduced in the mainstream arena to “Four legs good, two legs bad” type arguments." Gavi's partners include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, the WHO, the World Bank and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (notably Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., Novartis, Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis and Pfizer), a network which surely leads back to the Global Health Security Agenda launched in the White House by Barack Obama in September 2014 in the wake of the William Thompson affair. We have to ask whether it was ever the welfare of humanity which was at stake, or just the welfare of a certain class? John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.
|
Age of Autism
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ageofautism/~3/7CUdbvfVHjg/seth-berkley-the-fattest-charity-fat-cat-of-them-all-and-the-money-sloshing-behind-the-global-health.html
|
2019-05-30 10:04:00+00:00
| 1,559,225,040 | 1,567,539,721 |
economy, business and finance
|
business information
|
7,602 |
aljazeera--2019-01-04--Canada charity used donations to fund Israeli army projects CBC
| 2019-01-04T00:00:00 |
aljazeera
|
Canada charity used donations to fund Israeli army projects: CBC
|
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has published an expose on a Jewish charity in Canada, which has been under investigation for using its donations to build infrastructure for the Israeli forces in violation of the country's tax rules. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) of Canada, one of the country's long-established charities, has been the subject of a Canada Revenue Agency audit after a complaint was filed in October 2017. The JNF funds numerous projects in Israel, such as reforestation efforts in areas hit by wildfires but it has also funded infrastructure projects on Israeli army, air and naval bases, the CBC, the country's public broadcaster, reported on Friday. Their activities are in violation of Canadian law which prohibits charitable funds from supporting a foreign army. CBC's article details many troubling aspects of the charity's projects which, along with funding infrastructure on Israeli military bases, it has also contributed directly to the construction of at least one hilltop settler outpost - illegal under international law, and considered illegal by Israel itself. The organisation, which disclosed to donors last year that it has been under audit by the Canada Revenue Agency, said it stopped funding those projects in 2016, according to the CBC. A complaint was submitted in October 2017 with the support of Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV), which presented detailed evidence that JNF Canada works in violation of the Income Tax Act and contravenes Canadian foreign policy in numerous ways. According to CRA guidelines, funding for projects intended to increase the "effectiveness and efficiency" of a foreign military cannot be considered charitable and therefore should not be tax-deductible. "It is unconscionable that Canadians are subsidising an organisation that has used tax-deductible donations to support the Israeli military, especially when that army has killed nearly 200 unarmed protesters in Gaza this past year, including medical personnel, members of the media and children," said Canadian Rabbi David Mivasair, one of four complainants. According to IJV, JNF Canada has funded well over a dozen projects to support the Israeli forces in the last few years alone, and has officially partnered with the Israeli forces and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Its military projects include "the new planned [Irsaeli military] Training Base City in the Negev" desert and "helping the development of the Bat Galim (naval) training base complex area", according to the CBC. In 2014, JNF Edmonton held a Negev Gala dinner, where proceeds were to "develop three areas of the Negev's Tse'elim army base, the largest military training facility in Israel. The project will upgrade and landscape the family visiting area, intake and release facility and the barracks' main plaza. The base is the national centre for ground forces training," its Facebook page read. JNF Canada has also funded security roads along Israel's hostile borders with Lebanon and Gaza, which in the words of JNF Canada, are designed to "enhance military activity" in these border regions, IJV wrote. JNF Canada missions in Israel also have contributed directly to the construction of at least one illegal hilltop settler outpost, CBC reported. Givat Oz VeGaon received and ignored at least 18 demolition orders from the Israeli Ministry of Defense. A JNF Canadian Young Leadership Solidarity Mission visited the site in August-September 2014 and worked with picks and shovels "to prepare the ground for building a residential unit to be used by the security guard". Fifteen million dollars of tax-deductible Canadian funds have also contributed towards building JNF Canada's flagship project, Canada Park, along with a new adjacent Israeli settlement. The park was built on militarily occupied territory, over the ruins of three Palestinian villages which Israeli forces depopulated and demolished in 1967 as well as the lands of a fourth, according to IJV. The organisation gets a mark of zero for financial transparency, according to Kate Bahen, head of Charity Intelligence, a Toronto-based NGO that produces a report rating Canadian charities on their transparency and efficiency in spending donors' money. Bahen said the charity has done the right thing by disclosing to donors that it's being audited, but it is "an utter black box" when it comes to providing a breakdown of how its money is spent. "Any Canadian donor who knows of JNF automatically thinks of planting trees. And there is a lot more to JNF than planting trees," Bahen told CBC. "We have absolutely no information on how much it's spent planting trees, how much goes for irrigation, or education, or how much is diverted to military bases. And that information, I think, is critical, and it's not provided to Canadian donors."
| null |
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/canada-charity-donations-fund-israeli-army-projects-cbc-190104151250262.html
|
2019-01-04 20:30:42+00:00
| 1,546,651,842 | 1,567,553,976 |
economy, business and finance
|
business information
|
8,925 |
aljazeera--2019-01-28--Canadian Jewish groups charity status revoked Report
| 2019-01-28T00:00:00 |
aljazeera
|
Canadian Jewish group's charity status revoked: Report
|
A Canadian Jewish organisation has been stripped of its charity status following a government audit which found it provided support to the Israeli armed forces, Canadian Global News has reported. The Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) found that Beth Oloth Charitable Organisation had been funding activities that aren't charitable under Canadian law, including "increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the Israeli armed forces", the Global News website reported. The Beth Oloth Charitable Organisation based in Toronto had been a registered charity since 1980 and was one of Canada's richest, with more than 60 million Canadian dollars ($45m) in revenues in 2017. According to documents obtained by Global News, federal regulators found many problems, including funding projects totaling 1.2 million Canadian dollars ($905,000) in the occupied Palestinian territories, which it said violated Canada's official policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, the portion listing the projects was blacked out by the CRA. According to the CRA Charities Directorate, the organisation hadn't issued tax receipts properly, lacked "direction and control" over the use of its funds. The programmes provide weapons training, physical and martial arts training, mentoring by Israeli forces officers and visits to army bases and sites of historical battles, the CRA wrote. The CRA released 94 pages of documents regarding the case on Friday following the announcement of the group's charity status revocation on January 12. Global News reported that Beth Oloth has received vast donations - 61 million Canadian dollars ($46,000,000) in 2017, 45 million Canadian dollars ($34m) in 2016 and 42 million Canadian dollars ($32m) in 2015, of which almost all its money went abroad. The CRA said that Beth Oloth was acting as a "conduit" that issued tax receipts to donours in Canada in order to fund programmes of others. Beth Oloth said it only funded teachers to provide religious training at mechinot schools and claimed they provided "stipends to the poor for the observance of religious life" which doesn't interfere with Canada's policy in the region, according to documents seen by Global News. But the CRA rejected their explanation, the Canadian broadcaster reported. "Providing assistance to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories serves to encourage and enhance the permanency of the infrastructure and settlements and therefore is contrary to Canada's public policy and international law on this issue," the agency wrote. Toronto charity lawyer Mark Blumberg told Global News that reading the details of the case was "shocking" and the government should be embarrassed the charity was allowed to operate for so long. "This is an example of the type of 'efficient' charity we don't need in Canada. It is efficient at giving out tax receipts but not effective in making sure that the 200 million Canadian dollars ($151m) of tax-subsidised dollars was spent appropriately," Blumberg said on Sunday. The lawyer called it an example of "very poor governance and compliance" and a wake-up call to donors. He said it highlighted the importance of rules governing charitable work abroad. Earlier in January, Canadian broadcaster CBC reported that the charity Jewish National Fund (JNF) of Canada has likewise been under audit by the CRA for supporting the Israel's armed forces and its illegal settlements. The JNF said it had stopped doing so since 2016 but it still remains a government registered charity. According to Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) Canada, JNF Canada has been the subject of CRA-directed complaints for over four decades and has been violating Canadian tax law for over 50 years. IJV has been campaigning for the JNF to have its charitable status revoked as it supports the Israeli military and settlements, denies access to land for Palestinians and contributes to their displacement. Corey Balsam, IJV's national coordinator, said on Monday that the group is hopeful the "era of impunity for Canadian organisations that support the Israeli occupation is finally coming to an end". "It's about time the CRA cleaned house and applied its own rules to these organisations," Balsam said in a statement released on Monday. "Given the wealth of evidence against it and that it is already under audit, we expect JNF Canada to be next."
| null |
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2019/01/canadian-jewish-group-charity-status-revoked-report-190128183305230.html
|
2019-01-28 21:17:28+00:00
| 1,548,728,248 | 1,567,550,564 |
economy, business and finance
|
business information
|
16,072 |
aljazeera--2019-09-23--Protesters demand Justice for Jamal outside MBS charity event
| 2019-09-23T00:00:00 |
aljazeera
|
Protesters demand 'Justice for Jamal' outside MBS charity event
|
New York City - Protesters rallied outside an event hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's (MBS) charity in New York on Monday, calling for justice for Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi who was killed inside a Saudi consulate almost a year ago. Demonstrators waved placards that read, "Justice for Jamal" outside a luxury venue in downtown Manhattan where MBS's Misk Foundation was holding a workshop for entrepreneurs, called the Misk Youth Forum. Activists blasted the event as an effort to rehabilitate the image of MBS following the October 2, 2018, murder of Khashoggi. "It's not even been a year since a US resident, Saudi dissident and journalist was lured out of the United States and in a premeditated and brazen way, murdered," Rob Berschinski, a policy chief for the campaign group Human Rights First, told Al Jazeera outside the venue. Khashoggi was killed and his body dismembered after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to collect documents related to his planned wedding. After initially offering contradictory statements, Saudi Arabia confirmed its agents killed Khashoggi, but denied its senior leaders were involved. US intelligence agencies have reportedly concluded, however, that MBS ordered the murder, and a UN right expert found "credible evidence" linking the crown prince to the killing, allegations the kingdom denies. "Those who, according to US and UN investigators were behind that murder, should not be allowed to rehabilitate their reputations in the way that this event and others organised by the Misk Foundation are clearly geared towards," Berschinski said. The Misk Foundation declined to comment and did not grant Al Jazeera access to the event. Controversy dogged Monday's event from the outset. More than 7,000 people signed an online petition, calling for the event to be cancelled. "Step by step, we are going to shut down the Saudi dictatorship's propaganda machine in the US," said Sunjeev Bery, director of the anti-autocrat campaign group Freedom Forward, who organised the petition. "No public institution or private business should be helping the Saudi dictatorship in any way with its efforts to wash away its crimes in Yemen, its imprisonment of activists, and its murder of Jamal Khashoggi," he told Al Jazeera. Event planners had to switch venues after the New York Public Library cancelled the foundation's reservation, citing "concerns about possible disruption to Library operations as well as the safety of our patrons". This week, the co-host, United Nations youth envoy Jayathma Wickramanayake, pulled out. "The youth envoy has decided to withdraw because, under the current environment, her participation to the forum would not bring the outcomes we had originally wished for: to bring together young leaders, influencers, creators and innovators to take on the challenge of change and contribute to" UN goals, a UN spokesman told Al Jazeera. Joyce Bukuru, an advocacy officer for the campaign group Human Rights Watch, said that the UN should never have gotten involved with a foundation that is run by MBS. "The UN has made the right call by pulling out of a joint event with the Saudi crown prince's private organization on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Khashoggi's gruesome murder," Bukuru told Al Jazeera. "Next time, it should think twice before agreeing to lend its credibility to the Saudi government's attempts at whitewashing its dismal human rights record." Two speakers originally set to attend - Ann Rosenberg, a technology executive, and Bart Houlahan, a business consultant - also decided they would not take part in the forum, amid concerns over the Misk Foundation. The five-hour workshop for young adults took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and promoted green themes, corporate responsibility and other aspects of the UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda. It remains unclear whether the 300 participants who were originally set to attend made it to the new venue. At the start time, only a small number of guests appeared to be entering the premises. Mohammad Alshatwi, a mechanical engineering student at Bridgeport University, spoke with Al Jazeera briefly outside the venue, saying he had travelled from Connecticut to New York to attend. "I didn't come here to talk about politics," said Alshatwi. "I came here because Misk does valuable work for your people," he told Al Jazeera. "These protesters are not here because of human rights, they are here because somebody paid them to be here," he added, without offering evidence.
| null |
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/protesters-demand-justice-jamal-mbs-charity-event-190923192104316.html
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2019-09-23 20:18:26+00:00
| 1,569,284,306 | 1,570,222,426 |
economy, business and finance
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business information
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17,063 |
aljazeera--2019-11-07--Judge orders Trump to pay $2m for charity foundation misuse
| 2019-11-07T00:00:00 |
aljazeera
|
Judge orders Trump to pay $2m for charity foundation misuse
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A New York judge has ordered US President Donald Trump to pay two million dollars to several charities to resolve a lawsuit alleging he misused his own charitable foundation to further his political and business interests. Judge Saliann Scarpulla said Trump "breached his fiduciary duty" to the Trump Foundation, the relationship with the organisation's trustees, by allowing his campaign staff to plan a fundraiser for veterans' charities in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses before the 2016 presidential election. • New York sues Trump for 'illegal conduct' at family charity That event, which passed money through Trump's non-profit, was designed "to further Mr Trump's political campaign", Scarpulla said. The judge also signed off on agreements reached last month between Trump's lawyers and the New York attorney general's office to close the Trump Foundation and distribute about $1.7m in remaining funds to other nonprofits. In the agreements, Trump admitted to personally misusing Trump Foundation funds and agreed to pay back $11,525 in the organisation's funds he spent on sports memorabilia and champagne at a charity gala. He also agreed to restrictions on his involvement in other charitable organisations. New York Attorney General Letitia James heralded the resolution of the case as a "major victory in our efforts to protect charitable assets and hold accountable those who would abuse charities for personal gain". "No one is above the law - not a businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the president of the United States," said James, a Democrat.
| null |
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/judge-orders-trump-pay-2m-charity-foundation-misuse-191107192828141.html
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Thu, 07 Nov 2019 20:24:57 GMT
| 1,573,176,297 | 1,573,184,086 |
economy, business and finance
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business information
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18,024 |
aljazeera--2019-12-04--US charity building Gaza hospital offers volunteers Israel tour
| 2019-12-04T00:00:00 |
aljazeera
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US charity building Gaza hospital offers volunteers Israel tour
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A US charity building a tent hospital in the Gaza Strip is making Palestinians uneasy by offering foreign medical volunteers the opportunity of weekend tourism in Israel, just across the fence east of Gaza. The facility, to be operated by the US evangelical Christian group FriendShips, had won rare joint support from Gaza's rulers Hamas and Israel, which maintains a blockade along its frontier with the enclave. • New details on covert Israeli operation in Gaza revealed However, a Holy Land pilgrimage pitch on the Louisiana-based organisation's website is raising eyebrows in Gaza. The organisation, which is working to improve health services strained by years of conflict, is setting up a 50-bed encampment hospital in northern Gaza, across from Israel's Erez checkpoint crossing, also known as Beit Hanoon. Volunteers will have "a wonderful opportunity to work in an important and productive project and, at the same time, to see and enjoy the Biblical sites of Israel," the website said. The volunteers at the facility would be expected to work and live onsite Monday through Thursday, but they "will be free to go to Israel and tour" on their days off, it said. Asked about the NGO's tourism perk to volunteers, Hamas official Basim Naeem said: "We are certainly against using our people's suffering to market Israel or attracting employees at our people's expense." There was no suggestion from Hamas that it was about to scrap the project as a result of the sightseeing offer. A de facto truce brokered between Israel and Hamas by Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations after deadly cross-border fighting in May included the mediators' support for the field hospital. Gaza's 13 hospitals often lack equipment for specialised treatments, while its two million residents need hard-to-obtain permits from Israeli authorities to get medical care in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The FriendShips encampment will provide "telemedicine for worldwide consultation with specialists" and eventually offer cancer treatment and PTSD therapy, among other services, the NGO's website says. "It will either be an uplifting humanitarian tool for our people, or it will be asked to leave immediately," senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said. FriendShips, which previously operated a tent hospital along Israel's border with Syria, did not respond to multiple requests for comment and it was not clear when the facility would open. Israel declined to comment on the project. It keeps Gaza under a blockade, citing security concerns posed by Hamas, with which it has fought three wars and waged dozens of other deadly skirmishes over the past decade. The hospital's construction with private US funding drew criticism from Hamas's rivals in the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank. "It will be an American-Israeli military base put forward on the land of the Gaza Strip," said Mai Alkaila, the PA's health minister.
| null |
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/charity-building-gaza-hospital-offers-volunteers-israel-tour-191204060626026.html
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Wed, 04 Dec 2019 08:07:39 GMT
| 1,575,464,859 | 1,575,462,170 |
economy, business and finance
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business information
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18,867 |
aljazeera--2019-12-24--UK homeless charity Crisis reopens Christmas centres
| 2019-12-24T00:00:00 |
aljazeera
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UK homeless charity Crisis reopens Christmas centres
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The UK homelessness charity Crisis has once again opened its annual Christmas centres. Last year, more than 4,500 homeless guests were given shelter across Britain. And this year, the charity is highlighting the hidden homelessness of "sofa surfing".
| null |
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/uk-homeless-charity-crisis-reopens-christmas-centres-191224120759536.html
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Tue, 24 Dec 2019 12:07:59 GMT
| 1,577,207,279 | 1,577,233,365 |
economy, business and finance
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business information
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20,129 |
bbc--2019-01-01--Why wealthy sports stars get passionate about charity
| 2019-01-01T00:00:00 |
bbc
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Why wealthy sports stars get passionate about charity
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New year, new ideas, time to broaden your horizons? For sporting stars, this might involve participating in a high-profile charitable campaign. After all, nothing announces your arrival as a sporting legend quite like attaching your name to a good cause. Former top footballers such as David Beckham and Didier Drogba have been involved in widely publicised ventures in Africa, while boxer Tyson Fury recently vowed to donate his substantial purse from the Deontay Wilder fight to the homeless. "When I go home I'm going to build some homes for the homeless and set up some funds for drug addicts and alcoholics," he said in the US last month. Others, such as athlete Dame Kelly Holmes, have established their own foundation or fund, to assist chosen causes such as social inclusion or literacy. Indeed in the modern world it is hard to find a sporting celebrity - from Cristiano Ronaldo to Serena Williams - who has not dipped into their resources of money or time for charitable causes. The former has helped earthquake victims and the latter has help establish educational centres in east Africa, among their varied philanthropic ventures. But why would high-earning and high-profile sporting names who seem to have it all - jet-set lifestyles, adulation and huge material wealth - choose to get involved with altruistic initiatives? Are they merely PR and brand-building exercises, a means of countering public perceptions that sportspeople are pampered and overpaid? Prof Jen Shang is a philanthropic psychologist at Plymouth University, and says that the reasons for getting involved can be complex, and are not usually driven by cynical concerns such as monetary gains or fame. "Looking at philanthropy in sport, and other professions, one may start out in one's career being motivated by external factors such as money or honours. But after a period of time it is unlikely that people are motivated so much by external rewards, and more by internal drives," she says. "Top sportspeople might say to themselves, 'I am achieving so much in my regular role, I would like to branch out and see what is out there in the wider world.' "And when they become involved in philanthropy, they then find the same sense of reward that they experienced when they started their careers." Prof Shang adds: "The reason people choose to give money to a cause that is not materially benefitting them is because it is meeting some need. "By 'need', in my research I use the definition of psychological wellbeing. One's philanthropy can make a major difference, not just to others but to one's self." Prof Shang says that, if they so desire, sportspeople can eventually become "fluent in philanthropy" by using skills learned in their sporting careers - attributes such as risk management, business management and people skills. She adds: "They are faced by challenges they would not get in their normal environment. Often they have to provide money, time and a lot of tenacity if they are to make their ventures sustainable. "Problems can be more complex, which is why they often need time and space to develop their philanthropic identities." James Milner officially launched his charitable foundation in the 2011-12 season, and since then has donated around half a million pounds to charitable causes including leukaemia organisation Bloodwise, the NSPCC and Help For Heroes. Two recent high-profile events have included a Celtic v Liverpool legends Match for Cancer at Celtic Park in front of 20,000 fans, and the foundation's annual ball, attending by Liverpool teammates and manager Jurgen Klopp. Some £170,000 was raised at each event. "He is fairly quiet and not usually in the news, but it is good to see him now getting some recognition as a model professional and highly respected player," says PFA players' union official John Hudson, a trustee of the player's foundation. "Off the pitch he has been a massive advocate for putting something back. James has been really passionate about wanting to go along this road." Footballers can often set up charities as an after-thought to a benefit year, or as a way of attempting to manage the many charitable requests put to them by different causes. "I get a lot of calls from agents saying, 'My player wants to set up a charity,'" says John Hudson, director of corporate social responsibility at footballers' union the PFA. "I tell them to get the player to call me, and that it is about doing things for the right reason, because you are interested in a cause." But as Mr Hudson, who for the past five years has been offering advice to players about charities and wider social responsibility issues, says, it is not something to be done lightly. "Charitable foundations might not always be the right thing for a player. Often they don't realise it involves trustees, company guidelines, Charity Commission guidelines, financial and legal frameworks. "It is really important that it is set up the right way. We help with funding for players who want to set up a charity, we pay the legal costs to establish the proper regulatory framework. "If they do want to go ahead I tell them they will need the right people as trustees. There then needs to be sustained commitment. There is nothing worse than a charity that is dormant." He points to charitable organisations that are run by footballers doing good work away from the glare of the spotlight, but which have highly committed backers. These include the Russell Martin Foundation run by the Walsall player and former Scotland international, and the Jason Roberts Foundation, run by the ex-Grenada international and West Brom, Portsmouth and Blackburn star. The PFA is now working with former Liverpool, Bradford and Bolton player Stephen Darby, whose career was brought to a halt at the age of 29 after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease. "We are looking to set up a foundation with him, as he wants to raise awareness of the illness," says Mr Hudson. "As well as getting the message out there he wants to do something practical, such as raising money for things like specialist physios."
| null |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46470591
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2019-01-01 00:47:26+00:00
| 1,546,321,646 | 1,567,554,299 |
economy, business and finance
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business information
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21,234 |
bbc--2019-01-18--Nigeria charity Coding Girls gives young girls the chance to learn to code
| 2019-01-18T00:00:00 |
bbc
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Nigeria charity Coding Girls gives young girls the chance to learn to code.
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Coding Girls is giving young girls in Lagos the chance to learn how to code. The technology industry is normally male-dominated, but these classes aim to introduce a younger and more female group to the discipline.
| null |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-46907105
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2019-01-18 00:43:52+00:00
| 1,547,790,232 | 1,567,551,876 |
economy, business and finance
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business information
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26,329 |
bbc--2019-04-24--Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick Opera singer with transplanted lungs dies
| 2019-04-24T00:00:00 |
bbc
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Charity 'Sunshine' Tillemann-Dick: Opera singer with transplanted lungs dies
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Charity "Sunshine" Tillemann-Dick, a venerated American opera singer who survived two double lung transplants, has died at age 35. Tillemann-Dick was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension in 2004, forcing her to undergo two emergency lung transplants needed to save her life. Despite her illness Tillemann-Dick pursued a renowned career, performing her soprano across the world. Her family announced her death on her Facebook page on Wednesday. "This morning, life's curtain closed on one of its consummate heroines", the post said. "Our beloved Charity passed peacefully with her husband, mother, and siblings at her side and sunshine on her face." A cause of death was not immediately clear. Tillemann-Dick lived in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband Yonatan Doron. She performed across the US, Europe and Asia. Her opera roles included Titania in A Midsummer's Night Dream, Gilda in Rigoletto and Violetta in La Traviata. The singer took the stage at storied theatres worldwide, including the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, the John F Kennedy Center in Washington DC and the Palace of the Arts in Budapest. Tillmann-Dick was raised in Denver, Colorado, growing up in a Mormon-Jewish family alongside her 10 siblings. Though she loved to sing from an early age, cherishing family trips to the symphony and opera, Tillemann-Dick initially thought she might pursue a career in politics. She would be following in the footsteps of her grandfather, Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor who served as a Democrat in the House of Representatives for almost 30 years, and an older brother, Tomicah Tillemann, who worked as a speech writer for Hillary Clinton. "That's kind of our family trade I suppose," Tillemann-Dick said of politics in an interview with BBC World Service in 2013. But after graduating from college and spending time on a few political campaigns, she made the choice to return to music. "I decided I could never forgive myself if I didn't try my hand at music", she told the BBC. Tillemann-Dick began an intensive training programme at the renowned Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. At age 20 she was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary hypertension, a rare disease marked by extreme pressure on the heart with no apparent cause. The condition had caused Tillemann-Dick's heart to swell three and a half sizes beyond its normal size. The diagnosis provided an explanation for her recent fainting spells and shortness of breath, and carried a life expectancy of two to five years. Tillemann-Dick had said that one of her doctors told her she should stop singing for her condition. Hoping to avoid a lung transplant, Tillemann-Dick was prescribed Flolan, a liquid medication delivered directly to the heart through a tube in her chest. The pump, along with the necessary ice packs and auxiliary equipment, weighed about 4lbs (2kg), Tillemann-Dick told the BBC. Not wanting to draw attention to her condition as she continued to audition and perform, Tillemann-Dick said she would strap her medication to her thigh. "Sopranos are unpredictable enough, without critical illness," she said, In 2009, five years after the initial diagnosis, Tillemann-Dick received her first double lung transplant at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Though the transplant was life-saving, Tilleman-Dick said she was very concerned about the surgery, particularly its impact on her voice. "I had spent a lifetime training my body and my lungs and my voice to work in sync and I knew I would lose all of that," she told the BBC. The brutal surgery put Tillemann-Dick in a coma for over a month, unable to breathe on her own for almost two months. Eating, walking and talking came next before Tillemann-Dick finally tried to sing again. The first song she tried, she said, was Smile - made famous by Nat King Cole. The average lung transplant lasts for about five years, but Tillemann-Dick's body began to reject the transplanted organs just months after surgery. As she awaited another donor match, doctors told her family that Tillemann-Dick was unlikely to survive, according to the Washington Post. But as she waited, Tillemann-Dick continued to sing. In 2011, still without functioning lungs, she debuted at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater. As she sang, Tilleman-Dick had an oxygen tank and wheelchair waiting in the wings. "I could barely breathe but I could still sing", she told the BBC. "It was a miracle." In January 2012, she underwent her second double-lung transplant, from a middle-aged Honduran American woman. Tillemann-Dick became close friends with her donor's daughter, Esperanza Tufani. Apparently undeterred by her illness, Tillemann-Dick continued to pursue her career, singing with a new pair of lungs. Her debut album, American Grace, reached no 1 on Billboard's traditional classical charts upon its release in 2014. Tillemann-Dick's dedication to music was perhaps matched by her advocacy work. She was a national spokeswoman for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, working to raise awareness, increase federal research funding and promote preventative medicine. Tillemann-Dick also shared her inspiring story with audiences across the US, including at numerous TED Talks. "It was so many miracles that paved this most unexpected of paths", she said to the BBC. In 2015, Tillemann-Dick was confronted with another health problem. She was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive skin cancer, thought to be a result of the anti-rejection drugs she had taken for her lungs. Treatment required chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, including a particular procedure that required cutting a nerve on her face, affecting muscle movement on the right side of her mouth, the Washington Post reported. "Life is full of death. Music, full of sorrow", Tillemann-Dick wrote in her 2017 book, The Encore: A Memoir in Three Acts. "Great artists have always amplified both."
| null |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48043765
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2019-04-24 21:14:05+00:00
| 1,556,154,845 | 1,567,541,908 |
economy, business and finance
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business information
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5,651 |
activistpost--2019-09-21--Our duty is to obey the United Nations Says Pope Francis What Kind Of New World Order Thinking
| 2019-09-21T00:00:00 |
activistpost
|
“Our duty is to obey the United Nations,” Says Pope Francis — What Kind Of New World Order Thinking Is That?
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This article is NOT intended to offend readers of Activist Post.com, nor any platform readers to which it may be reposted. The main purpose for my delving into absurdities the current Roman Catholic Pope Francis expounds is to point out, if Catholics and others have not realized yet, the RC Church probably has been overtaken, if not compromised, with the very antitheses, or contrary opposites, to what apparently logic and ethics cannot defend morally for the church’s more than 1.2 BILLION Catholics in the world, per Vatican figures in March 2013. Pope Francis has an almost unprecedented distinction of being one of very few popes to step in and replace a formerly reigning pope, e.g., Benedict XVI, who, apparently, has become a burr in Francis’ side. One seriously has to question why Benedict XVI voluntarily resigned rather abruptly, since he seems to still be actively defining doctrine and dogma for the RC Church. For those who researched into a rather questionable ‘past’ of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, born December 17, 1936 in Argentina, some unpleasant issues emerge [1], which ought to be factored into why a JESUIT probably was elected to the papacy seemingly at a time when the New World Order (NWO), the Illuminati, and other “key eugenics actors” are involved in an ever-expanding, plus accelerated, implementation of the Hegelian Dialectic [problem, reaction, solution]. Pope Francis probably is, and may be, dowdy or, more likely, is in lock-step with NWO dictates since he’s endorsed a “Leftist” agenda: One would think, based upon the above ‘endorsements’, that Pope Francis seems to be in lock-step with Leftist philosophy, something anathema to the church’s long-held conservative teachings. Is there an intent of creating a new prurient and revolutionary ‘religious culture’, which probably will empty RC Churches’ pews faster than the unfortunate priest pedophile crimes hidden for decades! However, with the introduction of “Transhumanism” I think we could be looking at a future where human higher consciousness is tethered to a “science-made soul, one that displaces Creator’s gifts of Light and Love to us.” The video below explains from a Catholic viewpoint why everyone who values Creator God’s creation, Nature and Natural Law—not fraudulent or consensus science as a ‘god’—ought to be extremely concerned, plus not remain ‘asleep’ at the technology agenda buttons we constantly push. Remnant TV Reporter Michael J Matt Pope Francis: “Our duty is to obey the United Nations!” 27:27 minutes
|
Activist Post
|
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/09/our-duty-is-to-obey-the-united-nations-says-pope-francis-what-kind-of-new-world-order-thinking-is-that.html
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2019-09-21 15:57:08+00:00
| 1,569,095,828 | 1,570,222,524 |
religion and belief
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religious leader
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48,752 |
bigleaguepolitics--2019-12-15--Report: Pope Francis Uses Charity Fund to Paper Over Scandal-Plagued Vatican on Verge of Bankruptcy
| 2019-12-15T00:00:00 |
bigleaguepolitics
|
Report: Pope Francis Uses Charity Fund to Paper Over Scandal-Plagued Vatican on Verge of Bankruptcy
|
Donations collected by Roman Catholics for the poor are being funneled to a cash-strapped Vatican that has spent itself into near insolvency, according to a report published by the Wall Street Journal. Pope Francis’ charitable fund for the poor, which is called Peter’s Pence, is being pilfered to paper over the Vatican’s budget woes. As little as 10 percent of the money is being spent on actually helping the needy while about two-thirds are being used to keep the Vatican afloat, the report claims. The WSJ said that the Vatican’s use of the funds “is raising concern among some Catholic Church leaders that the faithful are being misled about the use of their donations, which could further hurt the credibility of the Vatican’s financial management under Pope Francis.” Trending: Meet the Female Georgia Republican Who Plans to Dismantle Planned Parenthood The website for Peter’s Pence claims that the fund will be used on humanitarian causes, and does not mention administrative fees for the Vatican. take our poll - story continues below “These collections and donations by the individual faithful or entire local churches raise the awareness that all the baptized are called to materially sustain the work of evangelization and at the same time to help the poor in whatever way is possible,” the site says. ″It is an ancient practice which began with the first community of the apostles. It continues to be repeated because charity distinguishes the disciples of Jesus,” the site adds. They use words uttered by Jesus Christ transcribed in the Gospel of John to promote their cause: “From this, they will all know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Pope Francis also offers excuses for the way the money is being spent. “When the money from Peter’s Pence arrives, what do I do? I put it in a drawer? No. This is bad administration,” Francis said. “I try to make an investment, and when I need to give, when there is a need, throughout the year, the money is taken and that capital does not devalue, it stays the same or it increases a bit. This is good administration. “And yes,” Francis added. “One can also purchase a property, rent it and then sell it—but on a sure thing, with all the safety measures for the good of the people and of Peter’s Pence.” The Vatican has been running in the red for quite sometime and even risks defaulting on their debt due to their reckless fiscal policies. They have also been plagued by financial scandal in recent months: The Vatican hasn’t published a budget since 2015 and has been without an in-house auditor or economy minister for more than two years, fueling conspiracies about its financial health. Those conspiracies have only grown following a new financial scandal that erupted this month, after Vatican police raided the secretariat of state and the financial intelligence unit in search of documentation about a problematic 150 million-euro London real estate investment. The search warrant, excerpts of which were published this weekend by L’Espresso magazine, alleges fraud, money laundering and abuse of office connected to the London venture and efforts by the Vatican to renegotiate the terms and identify money managers who were fleecing the Holy See in the deal… The scandal is the latest to draw attention to the opaque finances of the central government of the 1.2-billion strong Catholic Church, which is funded not by taxes but from donations and revenues from the Vatican Museums, real estate and other money-making ventures in the city state. Galantino, head of the APSA administrative office, confirmed the Vatican owned 2,400 apartments and 600 commercial spaces in Rome and nearby, 60% of which are rented to Holy See employees at a reduced rent as part of their benefits. The Catholic Church is going awry under the leadership of Pope Francis, who has pushed globalism while rehabilitating predator priests.
|
Shane Trejo
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https://bigleaguepolitics.com/report-pope-francis-uses-charity-fund-to-paper-over-scandal-plagued-vatican-on-verge-of-bankruptcy/
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Sun, 15 Dec 2019 16:04:31 +0000
| 1,576,443,871 | 1,576,543,878 |
religion and belief
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religious leader
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48,816 |
bigleaguepolitics--2019-12-22--Pope Francis Criticizes Conservative Catholics for ‘Rigid’ Beliefs Preventing the ‘Common Good’
| 2019-12-22T00:00:00 |
bigleaguepolitics
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Pope Francis Criticizes Conservative Catholics for ‘Rigid’ Beliefs Preventing the ‘Common Good’
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Pope Francis delivered a Christmas message at Paul VI Hall in Vatican City on Saturday in which he blamed conservative Catholics for the church becoming less relevant in the West. “Today we are no longer the only ones that produce culture, no longer the first nor the most listened to,” said Francis, who has resided over financial and moral scandals that have shaken the church to its core. “The faith in Europe and in much of the West is no longer an obvious presumption but is often denied, derided, marginalized and ridiculed,” he added. Trending: MUST WATCH: Woman Loses Her Mind, Violently Attacks Reporter Over Impeachment Francis said that conservative Catholics need to get with the times, and those who believed in tradition are getting in the way of the “common good.” Francis has used his position of authority within the church to argue for gun control, a world government to combat climate change, and porous migration policies. take our poll - story continues below “Rigidity that is born from fear of change and ends up disseminating stakes and obstacles in the ground of the common good, turning it into a minefield of misunderstanding and hatred,” Francis said. Francis claimed that conservative Catholics who believe in upholding tradition suffer from “imbalances,” even though he gave no evidence to support his dubious claim. “Rigidity and imbalance fuel one another in a vicious circle,” he said. “And these days, the temptation to rigidity has become so apparent.” Under the influence of Pope Francis, the child sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church has worsened drastically. Big League Politics issued a shocking report earlier this year describing how Pope Francis rehabilitated the career of a church official who the Vatican had known was a serial abuser. Pope Francis allowed defrocked former cardinal Theodore McCarrick to become his “trusted counselor” after knowing that McCarrick preyed upon young children: However, Pope Francis’ record indicates that this summit will be another disingenuous damage control measure. The Catholic Church’s ability to cover-up these scandals has waned in recent years as victims have used the internet to coordinate reform efforts and share their tragic stories with the world. Francis’ own behavior has worsened the problem immeasurably throughout his papacy. Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was defrocked last week after Catholic officials determined that abuse allegations made toward him were credible. The Church determined McCarrick was guilty of “sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.” These allegations had been known by the Church since 2000, before McCarrick was given the title of Cardinal. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano exposed the shocking fact last year that Francis rehabilitated McCarrick after Francis’ predecessor Pope Benedict XVI had sanctioned him for sexual abuse. Although it was widely known that he was a serial abuser of children, Francis made McCarrick his “trusted counselor” sending him throughout the world as a Church ambassador shortly after coming into power in 2013. “Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them,” Vigano said. In another sick and twisted display of apostasy, Francis consoled prominent Chilean survivor Juan Carlos Cruz – who became homosexual after his frequent victimization at the hands of a Catholic priest – by telling him that God created him to be gay. Perhaps if Pope Francis were more “rigid” in his opposition to pedophile predator priests, the Catholic Church would not be in such a dire crisis right now. History will inevitably judge Francis as among the most wicked apostates ever to assume the role of pontiff.
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Shane Trejo
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https://bigleaguepolitics.com/pope-francis-criticizes-conservative-catholics-for-rigid-beliefs-preventing-the-common-good/
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Sun, 22 Dec 2019 15:12:49 +0000
| 1,577,045,569 | 1,577,061,813 |
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bigleaguepolitics--2019-12-26--Pope Francis Unveils Globalist New World Religion at Summit with United Nations Leader
| 2019-12-26T00:00:00 |
bigleaguepolitics
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Pope Francis Unveils Globalist New World Religion at Summit with United Nations Leader
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Pope Francis’ war on traditional Catholicism has been ramping up recently, and he castigated Catholics who believe in tradition and refuse to warp Biblical scripture to appease a godless world for creating a “minefield of misunderstanding and hatred.” “Rigidity and imbalance fuel one another in a vicious circle,” he said. “And these days, the temptation to rigidity has become so apparent.” Latest: WTH: South Dakota is the Next Red State to Take in Refugees Francis revealed the dogma that he intends to replace belief in Christ as savior with last week. He is advocating for Catholics to unite behind a one world government, and surrender their freedom and sovereignty to international interests. take our poll - story continues below “Trust and dialogue between people and between nations, in multilateralism, in the role of international organizations, and in diplomacy as an instrument for appreciation and understanding, is indispensable for building a peaceful world,” Francis claimed. “Your clear moral voice shines through – whether you are speaking out on the plight of the most vulnerable, including refugees and migrants … confronting poverty and inequalities … appealing for disarmament… building bridges between communities … and, of course, highlighting the climate emergency through your historic encyclical, ‘Laudato Si’, and so many other vital efforts,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said during his meeting with the pontiff. The “Laudato Si” was a blasphemous encyclical letter issued by Francis in 2015 calling for world government to solve the supposed global warming crisis. “Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day,” Francis wrote in his second encyclical. Francis added: “Enforceable international agreements are urgently needed, since local authorities are not always capable of effective intervention… International and regional conventions do exist, but fragmentation and the lack of strict mechanisms of regulation, control and penalization end up undermining these efforts… What is needed, in effect, is an agreement on systems of governance for the whole range of so-called ‘global commons.’” Francis made fighting global warming a focal point of his speech while standing next to Guterres in the Vatican last week. “It is necessary to recognize oneself as members of a single humanity and to take care of our land which, generation after generation, has been entrusted to us by God in custody so that we may cultivate it and leave it in inheritance to our children. Commitment to reducing polluting emissions and comprehensive ecology is urgent and necessary: let’s do something before it’s too late,” Francis said. “We cannot – we must not – look the other way at the injustices, the inequalities, the scandal of hunger in the world, of poverty, of children who die because they have no water, food, the necessary care. We can’t look the other way at any kind of abuse against the little ones. We must fight this plague together,” he said. Francis – the protector of pedophile predator priests – is an agent of the new world order, working to subvert authentic Christianity at a time when it is under unprecedented attack.
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Shane Trejo
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https://bigleaguepolitics.com/pope-francis-unveils-globalist-new-world-religion-at-summit-with-united-nations-leader/
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Thu, 26 Dec 2019 16:38:43 +0000
| 1,577,396,323 | 1,577,407,248 |
religion and belief
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71,700 |
breitbart--2019-08-11--Pope Francis Proposes Europe First Against Populist Nationalism
| 2019-08-11T00:00:00 |
breitbart
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Pope Francis Proposes ‘Europe First’ Against Populist Nationalism
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“The thinking must be ‘Europe first, then each one of us,’” the pope said in a wide-ranging interview with the Italian daily La Stampa. “‘Each one of us’ is not secondary, it is important, but Europe counts more.” “Never forget that ‘the whole is greater than the parts.’ Globalization, unity, should not be conceived as a sphere, but as a polyhedron: each people retains its identity in unity with others,” he said. “In the European Union, we must talk to each other, confront each other and get to know each other. Yet sometimes we see only compromise monologues. No: we also need to listen,” he said. The pontiff made no attempt to conceal his contempt for the policies of Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Salvini, whose motto has been “Italians first.” Francis even went so far as to compare Salvini’s speeches to those of Adolph Hitler. “Sovereignism” — the movement spearheaded in Italy by Mr. Salvini — reveals “an attitude toward isolation,” the pope said. “I am concerned because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934. ‘Us first, We…We…’ These are frightening thoughts.” “Sovereignism means being closed,” the pope continued. “A country should be sovereign but not closed. Sovereignty must be defended, but relations with other countries and with the European community must also be protected and promoted.” “Sovereignism is an exaggeration that always ends badly: it leads to war,” he said. When asked about populism, the pope said that it is basically the same thing as sovereignism. “It is one thing is for people to express themselves, and another is to impose a populist attitude on the people,” he said. “The people are sovereign (they have their way of thinking, feeling, evaluating, and expressing themselves), while populist movements lead to forms of sovereignism. That suffix, ‘ism’, is never good.” In his interview, the pope also seemed to embrace popular notions that Europe and the European Union (EU) are virtually the same thing, so that to weaken the EU is to weaken Europe. “Europe cannot and must not break apart. It is a historical, cultural as well as a geographical unity,” Francis said. “The dream of the Founding Fathers had substance because it was an implementation of this unity. Now, we must not lose this heritage.” “This unity has weakened over the years, partly because of administration problems and internal disagreements. But it must be saved. After the elections, I hope that a process to relaunch it begins and continues without interruption,” he said. The pope also expressed his admiration for the new President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, saying he was pleased with the appointment of the former German defense minister to the post. “A woman can be the right person to revive the strength of the Founding Fathers,” the pope said of the Angela Merkel protégée. “Women know how to bring people together, unite.” Von der Leyen sprang into public view in 2016 with her push for European military integration, perceived by many to have been one of the key issues that pushed the British people toward Brexit. Von der Leyen warned the United Kingdom against opposing further military federalization, the establishment of a single EU army, navy, and air force. Earlier this year, she declared that the EU army was “already taking shape.”
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Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/HJPNhxDDZc8/
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2019-08-11 17:38:49+00:00
| 1,565,559,529 | 1,567,534,398 |
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breitbart--2019-10-07--Pope Francis: Church Must Not Try to ‘Tame’ Indigenous Peoples
| 2019-10-07T00:00:00 |
breitbart
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Pope Francis: Church Must Not Try to ‘Tame’ Indigenous Peoples
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ROME — Pope Francis kicked off the long-awaited Vatican synod for the Amazon this weekend, urging in his opening address on Monday greater acceptance of the wisdom and culture of indigenous peoples and cultures. “We approach the Amazonian peoples on tiptoe, respecting their history, their cultures, their style of good living,” the pope said in his morning speech in the synod hall, “because all peoples have their own identity, all peoples have their own wisdom, self-awareness, peoples have a way of feeling, a way of seeing reality, a history, a hermeneutic and tend to be protagonists of their own history with these things, with these qualities.” While not condemning the European colonization and evangelization of the New World outright, Francis distanced himself from colonizing “ideologies” as well as “proselytism.” We approach the Amazonian peoples “far from ideological colonizations that destroy or reduce the idiosyncrasies of peoples,” he said. “Today this ideological colonization is so common.” “We also approach them without the entrepreneurial desire to impose pre-prepared programs on them, to ‘discipline’ the Amazonian peoples, discipline their history, their culture,” the pope said. We must reject the “desire to tame the native peoples,” he added. Historically, Spanish and Portuguese missionaries and colonizers who came to the new world rejected and outlawed many native customs incompatible with Christianity, such as human and child sacrifice, polygamy, idol worship and other rituals practiced by the Aztec, Mayan, Inca, and Moche tribes. The missionaries often saw their work as an effort to “civilize” indigenous peoples. Some reformer missionaries, such as Fra Bartolomé de las Casas, who became the first bishop of Chiapas, advocated for the rights of the native peoples against abuses by European colonizers, arguing for their equal human dignity. In his address Monday, Pope Francis said that in the past, the Church sometimes forgot that its role was not to tame native peoples, and because of this, “it was not inculturized,” but even reached “the point of scorning certain peoples.” “Ideologies are a dangerous weapon,” Francis said. “We always tend to seize an ideology in order to interpret a people. Ideologies are reductive and lead us to exaggerate in our attempt to understand intellectually, but without accepting, understand without admiring, understand without assuming, and then reality is received in categories, the most common of which are the categories of ‘isms.’” Over the past months, a number of prominent Catholic prelates have criticized the working document of the Amazon synod of bishops, in part because of its emphasis on indigenism. In mid-July, for instance, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who has extensive personal experience working in South America, issued a lengthy critique of the document, lamenting its “upside-down hermeneutics” and appeals to a “cosmovision with its myths and the ritual magic of Mother ‘Nature.’” The synod document, in fact, cites the words of the indigenous people in this regard: “We, the indigenous people of Guaviare (Colombia), are part of nature because we are water, air, earth and life of the environment created by God.” “Therefore, we ask that the mistreatment and extermination of ‘Mother Earth’ cease. The earth has blood and is bleeding, the multinationals have cut the veins of our ‘Mother Earth’. We want our indigenous cry to be heard by the whole world,” it reads.
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Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/mK9Uy8QSugs/
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Mon, 07 Oct 2019 17:39:10 +0000
| 1,570,484,350 | 1,570,542,713 |
religion and belief
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breitbart--2019-11-18--Pope Francis Wants to Add ‘Ecological Sin’ to Catechism
| 2019-11-18T00:00:00 |
breitbart
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Pope Francis Wants to Add ‘Ecological Sin’ to Catechism
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ROME — Pope Francis told a group of lawyers that he could like to introduce the category of “ecological sin” into official Catholic teaching. “We must introduce – we are thinking about it – in the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the ecological sin against the common home, because it is a duty,” the pope said Friday in addressing participants in an international conference on penal law. More specifically, Francis said, are all those actions that can be considered as “ecocide,” for instance, “the massive contamination of air, land and water resources, the large-scale destruction of flora and fauna, and any action capable of producing an ecological disaster or destroying an ecosystem.” Ecocide “is to be understood as the loss, damage or destruction of the ecosystems of a given territory, so that its utilization by inhabitants has been or can be seen as severely compromised,” he said, adding that such a sin is “a fifth category of crimes against peace, which should be recognised as such by the international community.” The pontiff said that such actions are “usually” caused by corporations, and “an elementary sense of justice would require” that they be punished for them. An ecological sin is “an action or omission against God, against one’s neighbour, the community and the environment,” Francis said, quoting the Fathers of the recently concluded Pan-Amazon Regional Synod. “It is a sin against future generations and is manifested in acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the harmony of the environment, in transgressions against the principles of interdependence and in the breaking of networks of solidarity between creatures.” Above and beyond its sinfulness, failure to care for the environment is an injustice and a crime, Francis suggested and should be legally enforced. “I would like to appeal to all the leaders and actors in this area to contribute their efforts to ensuring adequate legal protection for our common home,” he said. The pope’s words coincided with the release of a new survey by the Pew Research Center, which found that church-going Americans accept their clergy’s on spiritual matters, but generally distrust their advice on issues such as climate change. Pew found that 68 percent of U.S. adults who attend religious services at least a few times a year say they have “a lot” of confidence in the advice of their clergy on growing closer to God, yet just a small fraction of this number (13 percent) say they have this confidence when the topic is “climate change.” Pope Francis has thrown his moral weight behind the battle against anthropogenic climate change, but has also acknowledged that the Church has no authority on scientific questions. In his 2015 encyclical letter on the environment, Francis urging nations and individuals to exercise more responsible stewardship of the created world, but insisted that he wanted to encourage debate rather than pronounce on environmental issues. “On many concrete questions,” he wrote, “the Church has no reason to offer a definitive opinion; she knows that honest debate must be encouraged among experts, while respecting divergent views.” “Here I would state once more that the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics,” Francis said. “But I am concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good.”
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Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/bTzBhnxpdFA/
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Mon, 18 Nov 2019 17:49:19 +0000
| 1,574,117,359 | 1,574,122,104 |
religion and belief
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breitbart--2019-12-17--Pope Francis Abolishes ‘Pontifical Secret’ for Sex Abuse Cases
| 2019-12-17T00:00:00 |
breitbart
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Pope Francis Abolishes ‘Pontifical Secret’ for Sex Abuse Cases
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ROME — Pope Francis has eliminated the rule of pontifical secrecy for dealings of the Roman Curia in cases involving the sexual abuse of minors. Whereas according to Church law members of the Vatican Curia are obliged to a code of confidentiality concerning information that they come to know through their official work, this code will no longer apply in specific instances concerning abuse, according to changes established by the Vatican Tuesday. According to the archbishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna, the update represents “an epochal decision,” because “the question of transparency now is being implemented at the highest level.” Documents in a penal trial will not become public, Scicluna noted, but they will be available for authorities or interested parties to promote the sharing of information and documentation. The sort of actions no longer covered by the pontifical secret include “cases of violence and sexual acts committed under threat or abuse of authority; cases of the sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable persons; cases of child pornography; cases regarding the lack of reporting and the cover-up of the abusers on the part of bishops and superiors general of religious institutes,” Vatican News reported. Although the Church had already mandated reporting charges of sex abuse to civil authorities where required by law, the new regulations further prohibit imposing an obligation of silence on those who report sex abuse or claim to have been a victim. The definition of child pornography has also been changed from images of children under the age of 14 to those under the age of 18, moving away from a matter of the sexual maturity of the victims to their legal status as minors. The lifting of the pontifical secret does not affect the obligation of keeping the seal of confession for information obtained by priests through the sacrament of penance. The two documents issued Tuesday are known as rescriptums, meaning that the pope has used his authority to tweak or “rewrite” articles of Canon Law or other magisterial texts.
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Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/dYeeG3Q2C04/
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Tue, 17 Dec 2019 17:22:46 +0000
| 1,576,621,366 | 1,576,670,845 |
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clashdaily--2019-11-15--Pope Francis Invokes Hitler, Criticizes Politicians Who Denounce Homosexuality
| 2019-11-15T00:00:00 |
clashdaily
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Pope Francis Invokes Hitler, Criticizes Politicians Who Denounce Homosexuality
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Is he directing this at the West, or at politicians in nations where homosexuals can still be killed? Why does it seem that whenever Pope Francis dips his toes in the waters of politics, it’s to point an angry finger at the West? The Pope used the occasion of a conference on Criminal Law to weigh in on who he would point to as being ‘nazis’. He made the following statement: Trending: Schiff Plays Dirty: Watch Him Ignore House Rules While Showboating Against Trump (Video) “It is not coincidental that at times there is a resurgence of symbols typical of Nazism,” Francis said in an address to participants of an international conference on criminal law. “And I must confess to you that when I hear a speech (by) someone responsible for order or for a government, I think of speeches by Hitler in 1934, 1936,” he said, departing from his prepared address. “With the persecution of Jews, gypsies, and people with homosexual tendencies, today these actions are typical (and) represent ‘par excellence’ a culture of waste and hate. That is what was done in those days and today it is happening again.” During the 1933-45 Nazi regime in Germany, six million Jews were killed and homosexuals and gypsies were among those sent to extermination camps. Source: Canoe This is an interesting point for a Pope to make for a couple of reasons. First, is the Pope’s equating of the denouncing a particular sexual act that is denounced in scripture with hating people on the basis of race, contrary to the explicit command of scripture. He does not explain why he has broken with a 2000-year-old Catholic tradition of affirming that homosexual sex is in conflict with the morality set out by the Triune God of scripture. If opposing an activity as immoral is the same as hating the person who does it, then Jesus himself, who went everywhere calling people to ‘Repent for the kingdom of God has come’, and the apostles who did the same, including Peter and Paul are exactly the kind of hateful people the Pope has opposed. His remarks appear to be directed toward the actions of a politician in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro who reportedly made very inflammatory remarks about his objections to homosexuality. Whether he meant those words literally, or merely for rhetorical effect, they were a statement in the hypothetical about having a gay son. Nobody was imprisoned. Nobody was stoned. Nobody was thrown from a high building or forced to renounce their deeply-held beliefs about religion or anything else. It makes one wonder why when Trump’s administration has been pushing to change worldwide attitudes toward homosexuality — to at minimum decriminalize it — the Pope would pick this particular issue to turn his attention to in his denunciation of bigots. Here is a map of countries in which homosexuality can get you imprisoned or killed. Brazil, our readers will note, is conspicuously NOT on that list. And it seems strange that he passed up an opportunity to shine a light on the insistence of China’s government to overstep its bounds and exert control over what the Church has been doing in China. China can not only exercise a veto in the Bishops Rome appoints in China, but they have bulldozed churches and forced both the removal of Christian art and artifacts and the insistence of posting pictures of China’s President Xi in houses of worship. And in a far more direct resemblance to Hitler, China has imprisoned hundreds of thousands or perhaps more than a million Chinese citizens belonging to a specific ethnic and religious minority. Hey CNN: China Smashes Hundreds of Churches, Seizes Bibles — Is That News? Serious Question: Does China Have ‘Leverage’ Against A Disgraced Ex-Cardinal? WTF: Why Is The World Bank Shoveling Cash Into China’s Uyghur Concentration Camps?
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Wes Walker
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https://clashdaily.com/2019/11/pope-francis-invokes-hitler-criticizes-politicians-who-denounce-homosexuality/
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Fri, 15 Nov 2019 18:58:09 +0000
| 1,573,862,289 | 1,573,862,447 |
religion and belief
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clashdaily--2019-11-18--Pope Francis May Codify A New Kind Of ‘Environmental Sin’
| 2019-11-18T00:00:00 |
clashdaily
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Pope Francis May Codify A New Kind Of ‘Environmental Sin’
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While we still wait for him to sort out the various scandals that have shaken the public trust even in the highest ranks of the clergy, he’s considering the recognition of a new class of environmental sins. It seems like a bad idea to us, but maybe our Catholic readers will see it differently. This came up in the same speech that raised eyebrows for what the Pope said about politicians denouncing homosexuality being like Hitler. Pope Francis, who has made the environment a signature cause of his pontificate, said he was strongly considering adding the category of “ecological sin” to the Catholic Church’s official compendium of teachings. Trending: Hilarious: Anderson Cooper Gets Blasted By Seb Gorka … On His Own Show! (Video) “We must introduce—we are thinking—into the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the ecological sin against the common home, because it’s a duty,” the pope said at the Vatican Friday. He noted that ecological sin would be defined as an “action or omission against God, against others, the community and the environment. It is a sin against future generations and is manifested in the acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the harmony of the environment.” In the same speech he said that developments in politics and business remind him of dark episodes from humanity’s past, including Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. “It is not coincidental that at times there is a resurgence of symbols typical of Nazism,” Francis said as he decried the “culture of waste and hate” represented by contemporary politicians who spew derogatory and racists attacks against homosexuals, gypsies, Jewish people, and others. “I must confess to you,” he continued, “that when I hear a speech (by) someone responsible for order or for a government, I think of speeches by Hitler in 1934, 1936.” Francis also blamed global capitalism for ‘plundering the earth’ at the expense of the poor and future generations. “Global financial capital is at the origin of serious crimes not only against property but also against people and the environment,” Francis said, comparing capitalism to “organized crime” committing “ecocide.” Francis added that such crimes committed by corporations should be punished. Source: SummitNews He’s downplaying, for example, the sexual morality explicitly laid out in scripture, while elevating a new basis of morality that ‘just happens’ to express the very moral values currently on the ascendant in the irreligious left. Watch: Literal Pagan Idols Were Removed From Catholic Church And Chucked Into The Tiber Say WHAT? Pope Opens Amazon Synod With A REALLY Weird Ritual Pope Francis To Gay Man, ‘God Made You Like That’ – The Apostle Paul Disagrees Pope Francis Gives A Friendly Welcome To Bono AFTER His Campaign For Abortion In Ireland
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Wes Walker
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https://clashdaily.com/2019/11/pope-francis-may-codify-a-new-kind-of-environmental-sin/
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Mon, 18 Nov 2019 19:35:53 +0000
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religion and belief
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111,508 |
cnsnews--2019-04-02--Pope Francis to Moroccan Catholics Dont Convert Anyone to Catholicism
| 2019-04-02T00:00:00 |
cnsnews
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Pope Francis to Moroccan Catholics: Don't Convert Anyone to Catholicism!
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While speaking to Catholics at St. Peter's Cathedral in Rabat, Morocco on Sunday, Pope Francis warned the crowd of about 400 people against seeking to convert anyone to Catholicism, stating, "Please, no proselytism!" Trying to convert people to Catholicism "always leads to an impasse," said the head of the 1.3-billion member church, as reported by Agence France-Presse. There are about 30,000 Catholics and 10,000 Protestants in Morocco and they make up less than 1% of the population there. "The Church grows not through proselytism but by attraction,” Francis said, as Reuters reported. “This means, dear friends, that our mission as baptized persons, priests and consecrated men and women, is not really determined by the number or size of spaces that we occupy, but rather by our capacity to generate change and to awaken wonder and compassion." As reported, Pope Francis "has used his two-day trip to stress inter-faith dialogue. He has also backed Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s efforts to spread a form of Islam that promotes inter-religious dialogue and rejects violence in God’s name." "[T]he Pope also stressed the need for inter-religious dialogue, saying people should resist 'classifying ourselves according to different moral, social, ethnic or religious criteria,'" reported Reuters. The U.S. State Department reports, "According to [Morocco's] constitution, the country is a Muslim state, with full sovereignty, and Islam is the religion of the state. ... The law penalizes anyone who 'employs enticements to undermine the faith' or convert a Muslim to another faith, and provides punishments of six months to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 200 to 500 dirhams ($21 to $53). It also provides the right to a court trial for anyone accused of such an offense." "Voluntary conversion is not a crime under the law," according to the State Department. "Sunni Muslims and Jews are the only religious groups recognized in the constitution as native to the country; other faiths are viewed as foreign" in Morrocco, reported the State Department. "Many foreign-resident Christian churches are registered as associations. Registered foreign-resident churches include the Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican Churches, which maintain different forms of official status."
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Michael W. Chapman
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https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/pope-francis-moroccan-catholics-dont-convert-anyone-catholicism
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2019-04-02 16:14:14+00:00
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cnsnews--2019-04-30--Catholic Scholars Pope Francis is Guilty of the Crime of Heresy
| 2019-04-30T00:00:00 |
cnsnews
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Catholic Scholars: 'Pope Francis is Guilty of the Crime of Heresy'
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(CNSNews.com) -- In a detailed, 20-page, "Open Letter" to all the bishops of the Catholic Church, a group of Catholic scholars, theologians, and clergy have declared that Pope Francis is "guilty of the crime of heresy," and have called on the bishops to investigate the case presented in their letter so they might "free the Church from her present distress." The scholars note that this process began in 2016 when a group of Catholics wrote a private letter to the cardinals about Pope Francis' alleged heresies in his document Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love). As scandal continued, a "filial correction" was sent to the Pope, which he did not answer. A second letter and petition was made public in 2017, and now there is the Open Letter. "The present Open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church goes a stage further in claiming that Pope Francis is guilty of the crime of heresy," state the scholars and clergymen. "This crime is committed when a Catholic knowingly and persistently denies something which he knows that the Church teaches to be revealed by God." "Taken together, the words and actions of Pope Francis amount to a comprehensive rejection of Catholic teaching on marriage and sexual activity, on the moral law, and on grace and the forgiveness of sins," the letter reads, as first reported by LifeSiteNews.com. They further state, "The Open letter also indicates the link between this rejection of Catholic teaching and the favour shown by Pope Francis to bishops and other clergy who have either been guilty of sexual sins and crimes, such as former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, or who have protected clergy guilty of sexual sins and crimes, such as the late Cardinal Godfried Danneels." "This protection and promotion of clerics who reject Catholic teaching on marriage, sexual activity, and on the moral law in general, even when these clerics personally violate the moral and civil law in horrendous ways, is consistent enough to be considered a policy on the part of Pope Francis," reads the letter. "At the least it is evidence of disbelief in the truth of Catholic teaching on these subjects." "It also indicates a strategy to impose rejection of these teachings on the Church, by naming to influential posts individuals whose personal lives are based on violation of these truths," state the theologians. A heretical papcy "must be corrected," they write. "The authors respectfully request the bishops of the Church to investigate the accusations contained in the letter, so that if they judge them to be well founded, they may free the Church from her present distress, in accordance with the hallowed adage, Salus animarum prima lex (‘the salvation of souls is the highest law’)," they state in a summary of the letter. "They can do this by admonishing Pope Francis to reject these heresies, and if he should persistently refuse, by declaring that he has freely deprived himself of the papacy." Citing Canon Law, the law that governs the Church, the scholars write, "While this Open letter is an unusual, even historic, document, the Church’s own laws say that 'Christ's faithful have the right, and, indeed, sometimes the duty, according to their knowledge, competence, and dignity, to manifest to the sacred pastors their judgement about those things which pertain to the good of the Church' (Code of Canon Law, canon 212.3)." Two of the letter signers are Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP and Professor John Rist. Fr. Nichols is one of the most respected theologians in the English-speaking world and the author of many books on theology. Prof. Rist is known for his work in classical philosophy and the history of theology; he has taught at the Augustinianum in Rome, the Catholic University of America, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Open Letter can be read here. The summary of the Open Letter can be read here.
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Michael W. Chapman
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https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/catholic-scholars-pope-francis-guilty-crime-heresy
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2019-04-30 15:11:13+00:00
| 1,556,651,473 | 1,567,541,600 |
religion and belief
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religious leader
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115,477 |
cnsnews--2019-09-27--Pope Francis The Church Values Sport in Itself
| 2019-09-27T00:00:00 |
cnsnews
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Pope Francis: ‘The Church Values Sport in Itself’
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(CNSNews.com) - Pope Francis said today that the Catholic Church “values sport in itself” in an address he delivered to participants in the Semi-Annual Congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation. “Sport is a very special channel for the promotion of peace and unity,” said the pope. “Sporting activities are meeting places where people of many different backgrounds come together.” “It is also important to keep in mind that sport has a role to play in our growth and integral development,” he said. “That is why the Church values sport in itself, as an arena of human activity where the virtues of temperance, humility, courage and patience can be fostered, and encounters with beauty, goodness, truth and joy can be witnessed.” Here is the full text of the pope’s remarks: “I am happy to greet and welcome the participants of the International Ice Hockey Federation Semi-Annual Congress. I would like to thank the President of the Federation, Mr. René Fasel, for his kind words of greeting. “Sport is a very special channel for the promotion of peace and unity. Sporting activities are meeting places where people of many different backgrounds come together. Hockey is a good example of how sport can express a sense of community. It is a team game in which each team member has an important role to play. Whenever you take part in the World Championships, you can see how people from many different countries enjoy coming together to experience the beauty of sport. “It is also important to keep in mind that sport has a role to play in our growth and integral development. That is why the Church values sport in itself, as an arena of human activity where the virtues of temperance, humility, courage and patience can be fostered, and encounters with beauty, goodness, truth and joy can be witnessed (cf. Giving the best of yourself, 1 June 2018, 1.3). “As you are the leaders of international ice hockey, it is consoling to know that your goal is not only to control the guidelines and rules of the sport, but also to make it inclusive and available to individuals on a global level. Ice hockey requires unique skills and strength. Players have to master the techniques involved in skating and maintaining their balance on ice, and they also have to keep up with the movement of the puck and be able to get up after a fall. Sports like these require hours of training. As you support the development of this sport worldwide, you are encouraging young and old, men and women, to bring out the best of themselves and to promote friendly relationships on and off the ice rink. “Additionally, I would also like to acknowledge the fact that your organization received approval for its updated statutes and bylaws in May this year, and that a new Ethics Board has been included. Today’s culture may sometimes steer sporting activities down the wrong path, but we must keep in mind that rules are there to serve a specific purpose and to avoid a descent into chaos. Athletes honor fair play when they not only obey the formal rules but also observe justice with respect to their opponents so that all competitors can freely engage in the game (cf. ibid., 3.2). “With all of this in mind, I encourage you and your Federation to go forth and continue your special mission to make this sport inclusive and to ensure a safe community for all who take part. “May the Lord bless you and always give you the joy of sport being played together. Thank you.”
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CNSNews.com Staff
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https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cnsnewscom-staff/pope-francis-church-values-sport-itself
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2019-09-27 19:24:08+00:00
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religion and belief
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125,610 |
dailybeast--2019-11-10--Pope Francis Is Promoting a Debunked 19th Century Tourist Trap Theory
| 2019-11-10T00:00:00 |
dailybeast
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Pope Francis Is Promoting a Debunked 19th Century Tourist Trap Theory
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Last Monday, Pope Francis celebrated the feast of All Soul’s with a Mass held in the ancient catacombs of Priscilla in Rome. It was Francis’ first visit to the underground catacombs and in some unscripted remarks during the mass he said that he was led to think “of the life of those people who had to hide, who had this culture of burying their dead and celebrating the Eucharist inside here.” It’s a lovely sentiment but there’s a small problem: Christians never hid in the catacombs. The idea that they did is an 18th and 19th century myth for tourists. Pope Francis isn’t alone in thinking that persecuted Christians hid from the Romans in the network of 40 or so narrow subterranean tunnels and small chambers that make up the Christian catacombs in the eternal city. The idea that mad emperors and the bloodthirsty Roman people forced the Christians into communicating via the cryptic fish symbol as a way to avoid capture and execution is a fairly common story. To be honest, I heard the same legend in Sunday school and even today if you were to hire a poorly educated tour guide you might well hear this legend too. In the case of the catacombs part of the mythology is related to the tourist practices of the 18th and 19th centuries. Though the catacombs were rediscovered in the 16th century, their excavation has taken hundreds of years, primarily because they weren’t initially structurally sound. When utensils and plates were unearthed in the catacombs, some assumed that Christians had been forced into living and hiding there during the so-called “age of persecution.” This interpretation was influenced by some late antiquity legends. Jessica Dello Russo, director of the International Catacomb Society, told The Daily Beast that a third century story in which Pope Sixtus II was captured in burial grounds and “references to the work and activity of popes in the cemeteries in sources like the Liber Pontificalis (Book of the Popes)” contributed to the idea of Christians living and hiding underground. This interpretation easily became a fact. For example, Rome-based nineteenth century missionary Dr. Wolfred Cote’s wrote in his 1876 Archaeology of Baptism, “During the dark days of imperial persecutions the primitive Christians of Rome found a ready refuge in the Catacombs.” Alarmingly Cote’s statement is still cited in some modern Christian books today. But the mythology was especially appearing in the 18th century because it appealed to the Romantic sensibilities of the era. As a result, tours of the catacombs were incorporated into the Grand Tour of Europe and wealthy young men who wanted to complete their education with travel were sure to visit it during their journeys. The origins of these misconceptions is at least partially due to an exaggerated sense of how extensive the persecution was. When we think of early Christians we tend to imagine that they were under continual and constant attack. Yet for much of the first four centuries of the Common Era, Christians lived and celebrated openly and without fear of arrest or imprisonment. When the fiercest period of persecution—the Great Persecution of Diocletian (303-306)—began, the first act of aggression against the Christians was the destruction of a church in Nicomedia that was built caddy corner across from the imperial palace. Hiding and worshipping in secret? Hardly. In fact, as Dello Russo told me, many ancient catacombs had halls above the crypts for ritual celebrations. If you had wanted to find early Christians, you would not have had to look very far. For Francis, the idea of worshipping in secret does valuable work. He stated that even in the modern day there are some who still practice their Christianity behind closed doors. “It was an ugly moment in history,” he said, “but it has not been overcome.” There are “many c atacombs in other countries where people even have to pretend they are having a party or a birthday in order to celebrate the Eucharist because it is banned.” Given that the pope is trying to help Christians who are being persecuted in the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, surely he can be given a pass here? Well, yes and no; there are three reasons why misinformation should be corrected. The first, though pedantic, is that accuracy matters. In a modern context in which groups want to make claims about truth, it doesn’t look good to continue to peddle long-debunked legends as statements of fact. What other things, a skeptical observer might ask, aren’t quite true? The second reason is that Francis doesn’t have a monopoly on connecting ancient persecution to modern politics. At a talk at Liberty University in January 2016, future president Donald Trump said that “Christianity is under siege” in the United States. Sociologist Andrew Whitehead published a paper in 2018 that showed that “voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage” and a better predictor of voting that any other element of identity. An article in The Christian Post in July 2019 offers predictions that “persecution is coming” to America and explicitly connects that promise of persecution to the early church. It’s not a one-off piece, either. Mike Pence told Liberty University graduates in May that “freedom of religion is under assault” and they should expect to be harassed for their religious beliefs. That some conservative Christians would perceive themselves as under attack during the Obama years makes a certain kind of strange sense. That those same groups would continue to make these claims during the Trump-Pence administration suggests that these conservative American evangelicals have a persecution complex. This complex can be traced back to the 1960s and is rooted in a rather inaccurate understanding of Christian history. The third reason is that, even without the ties to martyrdom, the catacombs have a lot to offer. As a kind of “underground city” they give us access to a part of Christian history that is otherwise hidden from view. How we bury our dead communicates a great deal about our values and our hopes for the future. Some of our earliest Christian art is found in the Roman catacombs. The depiction of biblical scenes of the three young men in the fiery furnace, Daniel in the lion’s den, and Jonah being regurgitated by a large sea creature (I’m sorry the Bible does not say whale) all gesture to the development of early Christian beliefs about the afterlife. For modern Christians, visiting the catacombs can be an enormously emotional experience. Dello Russo told me, “I remember my first trip (to [the catacombs of San] Callisto), and first impressions can be overwhelmed by Christian narrative, because, for many of us (Francis and I are both Americans), we’ve never seen anything quite that old materializing our faith.” Visitors still have to navigate the narrow passages and uneven steps that the ancient Romans used. The physical reality of ancient life surrounds you in ways that it does not in the breezy openness of the Colosseum or the Roman Forum. You don’t need a persecution myth to bring the catacombs to life.
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Candida Moss
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thedailybeast/articles/~3/8GvTmbEkbvI/romes-catacombs-pope-francis-is-promoting-a-debunked-19th-century-tourist-trap-theory
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Sun, 10 Nov 2019 09:41:21 GMT
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eveningstandard--2019-01-24--Pope Francis says a fear of migrants is aposmaking us crazyapos
| 2019-01-24T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
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Pope Francis says a fear of migrants is 'making us crazy'
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Pope Francis has said that a fear of migration is “making us crazy.” The pontiff made the comments as he began a trip to Central America amid President Trump’s standoff over a wall at the border with Mexico. Francis previously denounced anyone who wants to build a wall to keep out migrants as “not Christian.” As he made his way to Panama, the Pope was asked by reporters about the proposed border wall, responding: “it’s the fear that makes us crazy.” Francis, the Roman Catholic Church's first Latin American pope and the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, has made the plight of migrants and refugees a cornerstone of his papacy. He is also expected to offer words of encouragement to young people gathered in Panama for World Youth Day, the church's once-every-three-year rally that aims to invigorate the next generation of Catholics in their faith. Panama Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa said Francis's message is likely to resonate with young Central Americans who see their only future free of violence and poverty in migrating to the US - "young people who often fall into the hands of drug traffickers and so many other realities that our young people face". Francis's trip, the first in a year packed with foreign travel, comes at a critical moment in the papacy as the Catholic hierarchy globally is facing a crisis in credibility for covering up decades of cases of priests molesting young people. The pope is expected to soon rule on the fate of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the high-powered US archbishop accused of molesting minors and adults. And he is hosting church leaders at the Vatican next month to try to chart a way forward for the global church. Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said there were no plans for Francis to meet with abuse survivors in Panama. Central America has not yet seen the explosion of sex abuse cases that have shattered trust in the Catholic hierarchy in Chile, the US and other parts of the world. This is the first papal visit to Panama since St John Paul II was there during a 1983 regional tour. Pope Francis confirmed to reporters aboard the papal plane that he plans to go to Japan in November. The pope also said he wants to visit Iraq, but that local church leaders have told him that the security situation is not yet right. This year, the pontiff has already scheduled trips to the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bulgaria and Macedonia, and a trip to Madagascar is rumoured.
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Sophie Williams
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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/pope-francis-says-a-fear-of-migrants-is-making-us-crazy-a4047491.html
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2019-01-24 10:00:54+00:00
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214,340 |
france24--2019-02-04--Pope Francis visits UAE in historic trip to the Arabian Penninsula
| 2019-02-04T00:00:00 |
france24
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Pope Francis visits UAE in historic trip to the Arabian Penninsula
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Reuters | Pope Francis visits the UAE on February 4, 2019, on his historic visit to the Arabian Penninsula. Pope Francis received a pomp-filled welcome on Monday as he began his historic visit to the Arabian Peninsula by meeting with Emirati rulers in a Muslim region known for its restrictions on religious freedom. Francis arrived at the Abu Dhabi presidential palace in a tiny Kia hatchback, but was greeted with an artillery salute and military flyover by a country now at war. Even for a nation known for its excesses, the Emiratis' red-carpet welcome was remarkable for a pope who prides himself on simplicity. It featured horse-mounted guards escorting the pontiff's motorcade through the palace gardens while the flyover trailed the yellow and white smoke of the Holy See flag. As cannons boomed and a military band played, Francis stood somberly between Abu Dhabi's powerful crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the Emirati vice president and prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, during the presentation of delegations in the courtyard of the domed palace. In a message to the prince, written in the palace book of honor, Francis thanked him for his hospitality and assured the people of the UAE of his prayers and "the divine blessings of peace and fraternal solidarity." Francis gave the crown prince a medal depicting his peace-loving namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, meeting the Egyptian sultan Malek el-Kamel 800 years ago. Sheikh Mohammed, for his part, gave Francis a framed notarized decree from June 22, 1963, in which the then-ruler of Abu Dhabi donated the land for the construction of the first Catholic church in the Emirates. "We discussed enhancing cooperation, consolidating dialogue, tolerance, human coexistence & important initiatives to achieve peace, stability and development for peoples and societies," Sheikh Mohammed tweeted. Francis' speech to the gathering of faith leaders on Monday evening is to be the highlight of his brief, 40-hour visit to Abu Dhabi, the first to the Arabian Peninsula by a pope. His trip culminates on Tuesday with a huge papal Mass at the city's sports stadium expected to draw some 135,000 faithful in a never-before-seen display of public Christian worship here. As Francis began his trip, human rights groups who are banned from the UAE urged him to use his visit to press for accountability by the Emirati leadership for atrocities in the war in Yemen and its repression of dissent at home. "Despite its assertions about tolerance, the UAE government has demonstrated no real interest in improving its human rights record," Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Francis. It was a reference to the UAE's often-stated claims of religious tolerance - it has a minister for tolerance, is hosting the interfaith meeting Francis is attending and has declared 2019 its "Year of Tolerance." That respect for non-Muslim forms of worship, however, runs up against the political reality of media censorship, repression of political dissent and limits placed on religious freedom. Francis had actually made an urgent appeal for an end to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen just before he left the Vatican, calling Sunday for observation of a limited cease-fire so that food and medicine can get to its people, who are suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The UAE has been Saudi Arabia's main ally in the war in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is fighting the country's Houthi rebels. Francis' pre-trip appeal was a way for him to avoid embarrassing his hosts with a public denunciation of the humanitarian costs of the war while in the region. In another sign that regional politics was playing a not-insignificant role in Francis' visit, the papal plane flew north of Qatar and around the peninsular, energy-rich nation on his flight Sunday. Four Arab nations - Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - have been boycotting Qatar since June 2017 as part of a regional political dispute. Tensions are still high between the nations, especially after Qatar's win at the Emirates-hosted Asian Cup soccer tournament this past week. By avoiding Qatari airspace, Francis omitted sending a telegram of greetings to the country's ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, as he would do when flying through the airspace of countries. He sent one when passing by the island nation of Bahrain. Sheikh Tamim traveled Monday to Kuwait, which has been mediating the crisis.
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NEWS WIRES
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https://www.france24.com/en/20190204-pope-francis-uae-historic-trip-arabian-penninsula
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2019-02-04 13:02:44+00:00
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france24--2019-09-06--Pope Francis hails right to peace as he ends Mozambique visit
| 2019-09-06T00:00:00 |
france24
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Pope Francis hails ‘right to peace’ as he ends Mozambique visit
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Yara Nardi, Reuters | Pope Francis kisses a baby at Zimpeto hospital on the outskirts of Maputo, Mozambique Sept. 6, 2019. Pope Francis on Friday told tens of thousands of faithful at a packed stadium not to resort to "vengeance" as he wound up a visit to Mozambique, ravaged by a 16-year civil war and now the target of jihadist attacks. His maiden visit to the poor former Portuguese colony came a month after the government and the former rebel group Renamo, now the main opposition party, signed a historic peace treaty. Brutal jihadist attacks in northern Mozambique have claimed more than 300 lives over two years and forced thousands from their homes. "We cannot think of the future and build a nation" with violence, Pope Francis said in a homily to a crowd of about 60,000 at the Zimpeto stadium in the Mozambican capital Maputo. Speaking in Portuguese, he asked them not to follow the old law of retaliation "an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth. "No family, no group of neighbours or ethnic group and even less no country has a future if the motor that unites them... is composed of vengeance and hatred," he said. Denouncing reprisals cloaked under the guise of legality, the pope warned that violence was "an endless spiral without end with a very high cost. "You have the right to peace!" he said. Mozambique is a mainly Christian country and 28 percent of the population is Catholic. Earlier Friday, the pope visited an AIDS care centre on the outskirts of Maputo, hailing the carers for responding to their "silent cry" for help in a country ravaged by the disease. According to UNAIDS, 2.2 million Mozambicans -- 60 percent of them women -- were HIV positive in 2018 in the southern African nation of 27 million people. There were 150,000 new infections last year and 54,000 AIDS-related deaths. Francis hailed the "compassion" of the health workers for responding to "this silent cry, almost inaudible, of innumerable women and all the people living in shame, marginalised and judged by everybody. Francis thanked workers at the AIDS centre for "restoring the dignity" of women and children suffering from HIV and AIDS and for "hearing their cries and intervening personally." He did not however touch on the delicate subject of prevention -- an issue riddled with minefields given the Catholic Church's stand on contraception -- especially in a largely conservative and traditional continent. Francis is the first pope to visit Mozambique since John Paul II in 1988 and is on a three-nation tour that includes Madagascar and Mauritius. On Thursday, the pontiff visited a brand new hospital in Zimpeto, a poor outlying district of the capital, where 23 percent of adult residents have been hit by HIV. The complex, inaugurated last year, comprises a state-of-the-art laboratory and hosts a programme for HIV-positive and AIDS patients, especially pregnant women. This programme, named "Dream", was launched in 2002 by the Italian lay Catholic association Sant'Egidio which is very close to the Vatican and is dedicated to social service. It runs 13 health centres in the country. The "Dream" project is spread across 11 African countries. Mozambique and Madagascar are among the world's poorest countries and Francis' decision to visit is seen by commentators as an act of solidarity from a cleric who was a frequent presence in the shantytowns of Argentina and is now called the "pope of the poor".
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NEWS WIRES
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https://www.france24.com/en/20190906-pope-francis-mozambique-visit-peace
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2019-09-06 11:26:40+00:00
| 1,567,783,600 | 1,569,331,128 |
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fusion--2019-05-29--Pope Francis willing to face President Trump to talk about the border wall
| 2019-05-29T00:00:00 |
fusion
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Pope Francis willing to face President Trump to talk about the border wall
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Pope Francis says he’s willing to tell President Trump to his face that it’s wrong to build a border wall. The pontiff sat down for a wide ranging interview with Televisa, during which he also talked about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, and the struggles facing Mexico.
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Fusion
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https://fusion.tv/video/594395/pope-francis-willing-to-face-president-trump-to-talk-about-the-border-wall/
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2019-05-29 18:55:08+00:00
| 1,559,170,508 | 1,567,539,849 |
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289,839 |
lifesitenews--2019-10-05--Pope Francis doesn’t understand Islam
| 2019-10-05T00:00:00 |
lifesitenews
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Pope Francis doesn’t understand Islam
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October 4, 2019 (Turning Point Project) — "Is the pope Catholic?" used to be a punch line. Now, sometimes, you almost have to wonder. Of course, I'm not suggesting that Pope Francis is a secret apostate or a Masonic agent. It's just that he seems dissatisfied with certain Church teachings. What apparently rankles him most are Catholic claims to exclusivity. For example, the belief that all men are saved through Christ can be looked upon as an impediment to interreligious harmony. Francis, for whom interreligious harmony is a top priority, seems to see it that way. Many of his statements seem to suggest he has abandoned the idea that Catholics should seek to convert others to the Faith. On one occasion, for example, he referred to proselytism as "solemn nonsense." Francis appears to believe that each religion provides its own path to heaven. If that's so, then people are best served by going deeper into whatever faith they already belong to. Thus, Francis once advised a group of Muslim migrants to read the Koran in order to find direction in their lives. As he wrote in Evangelii Gaudium, Francis believes that all religions have "shared beliefs." Where those beliefs don't overlap so neatly, he seems perfectly happy to blur the lines. A good example is the Abu Dhabi Declaration on "Human Fraternity" signed by Pope Francis and Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, in February. Of particular concern is the statement that "the pluralism and the diversity of religions ... are willed by God." That's quite a concession for Francis to make, as it contradicts Christ's claim that "I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me" (Jn. 14:6). As Swiss bishop Marian Eleganti puts it, "the unique and universal mediation of Jesus Christ is eclipsed in the Abu Dhabi Declaration." Just so. But there are many other problems with the document besides God's supposed endorsement of a variety of contradictory religions. In their commitment to inclusion, the drafters of the document — mostly Catholics, one assumes — end up saying things that are true neither of Catholicism nor Islam. Contrary to the evidence, the Declaration assumes that the one common religion already exists in nascent form, and that the teachings and values of all religions are essentially the same. Thus, "the values of tolerance and fraternity ... are promoted and encouraged by religions." And, therefore: "These tragic realities [hate, extremism, and violence] are the consequence of a deviation from religious teachings." Terrorism for example, "is not due to religion ... it is due rather to an accumulation of incorrect interpretations of religious texts." If that's so, how is it that so many Muslims in so many different parts of the world interpret Koranic texts in exactly the same way — namely, as a justification for jihad? How would you interpret: "Then, when the sacred months are over, kill the idolaters wherever you find them" (Koran 9:5)? There are over a hundred similar texts in the Koran. By contrast, there are very few texts of the love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself variety. In fact, Catholic apologists for Islam are reduced to citing the same three Koranic verses over and over because there just aren't that many to pick from. As it happens, the Document on Human Fraternity begins with a paraphrase of the most frequently cited verse: "Whoever saved a human life shall be regarded as having saved all mankind" (5:32). Unsurprisingly, there's no mention of the very next verse: Pope Francis and other Catholic apologists for Islam claim that terrorist leaders simply misunderstand Islam. If that's the case, then the very first person to misunderstand Islam was Muhammad himself, who commanded that the hand of a thief be cut off. The Life of Muhammad — which, after the Koran and the Hadith, is considered the most important source of Islamic truths — is essentially a record of Muhammad's jihadist exploits. Approximately two-thirds of its 800 pages detail Muhammad's jihad raids, his beheading of captured prisoners, his slave trading, his endorsement of rape and sex slavery, and his use of torture. Did Muhammad misunderstand Islam? For that matter, does Grand Imam el-Tayeb misunderstand Islam? Yes, he did sign the Document on Human Fraternity — but Muhammad signed the Treaty of Hudaibiya with the Meccans, too. That was a great PR stunt, but it wasn't worth the paper it was written on. El-Tayeb doesn't misunderstand Islam, though Francis appears to. He must be acquainted with the darker aspects of Islam, and yet he seems sure that they have nothing to do with "true" Islam. Such an approach helps to burnish Islam's image. But what does it do for Catholics? Primarily, it misinforms them. Readers of the Document on Human Fraternity will be left with a false impression of the Muslim faith. They will come away with the conviction that Islam is a member in good standing of the fraternity of great humanitarian religions. In short, they will conclude that there's nothing to worry about. This impression won't be left to chance. A multi-faith committee has been set up to ensure that the principles of the document will be spread throughout the world. What this means in practice is that Arab leaders will set up a few Potemkin Village–like centers to ostensibly study human fraternity, while the Catholic Church will rush appropriately adapted versions of the one-world religious humanism into every Catholic seminary, university, high school, and kindergarten on the planet. Catholics are already badly misinformed about Islam. The Abu Dhabi statement, once it is widely disseminated, will only serve to reinforce their naïveté. That, in turn, will leave them unprepared for the next step in what has become a predictable progression. The next step is Islamization. That's not a word one hears very often, especially in polite Catholic circles. But some Catholics can't afford to be polite. Fr. Valentine Obinna told Crux that, in Nigeria, Fulani Muslims killed almost 9,000 Christians and other non-Muslims in a recent three-year period, as part of a program for the "Islamization of Nigeria." President Buhari and those in power turn a blind eye to the activities of the Fulani and Boko Haram, he said, because they "want to make sure the whole country becomes a Muslim country." Apparently, President Buhari — a member of the Fulani ethnic group — didn't get the message from Abu Dhabi. Otherwise, he would understand that Islam is a religion of peace, love, and human fraternity. On the other hand, perhaps the elderly president has a firmer grip on Islamic principles than does Pope Francis and his advisors. If so, he would understand that the Islamization of Nigeria is not a deviation from the teachings of Islam; it is very nearly the first principle. As Muhammad said, "I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no God but Allah" (Sahih Muslim 1:33). Indeed, the whole purpose of Islam on earth is to bring the House of War (i.e., non-Muslim territory) under the rule of the House of Islam. Islamic teaching mandates not only that Nigeria be Islamized, but also Europe, Canada, the U.S., and the entire globe. Only at that point, from an Islamic point of view, can peace and human fraternity be achieved. Buhari understands that. El-Tayeb understands it. Catholics can't allow themselves to be misinformed on this point. The astonishing ignorance of these basic teachings on the part of Pope Francis and his advisors doesn't make for a more harmonious world: it makes for a more dangerous one. Those who buy into their fantasy view of Islam are in for a rude surprise when they encounter the real thing. This article originally appeared in the September 25, 2019 edition of Crisis. It is published here with permission from the Turning Point Project.
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/pope-francis-doesnt-understand-islam
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2019-10-05T00:12:00+00:00
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lifesitenews--2019-10-07--Pope Francis creates 13 new cardinals
| 2019-10-07T00:00:00 |
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Pope Francis creates 13 new cardinals
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VATICAN CITY, October 7, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― Loud cheers greeted one of the 13 bishops elevated to the College of Cardinals on Saturday afternoon. Fans of Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, 59, the Archbishop of Kinshasa, enlivened an otherwise solemn Consistory in which bishops from around the world received their red hats from Pope Francis. Many Congolese women present at the ceremony wore colorful dresses emblazoned with Besungu’s image, and crowds cheered when the cardinal elect appeared in St. Peter’s Basilica. When Besungu received his red hat, the Congolese among the congregation cheered again and waved flags vigorously ― even from a press box hovering over the assembled bishops. The other twelve cardinals elect at the ceremony were Michael Czerny, SJ, 73, of Canada; Michael Fitzgerald, 82, of England; Álvero Ramazzini Imeri, 72, the Bishop of Huehuetenango, Guatemala; Cristóbal López Romero, S.D.B., 64, the Spanish-born Archbishop of Rabat, Morocco; Eugenio dal Corso, 80, the Italian Bishop Emeritus of Benguela; Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, 69, the Archbishop of Jakarta; Jean-Claude Hollerich, 61, the Archbishop of Luxembourg; José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça, 53, of Portugal; Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez, 71, the Archbishop of Havana; Matteo Zuppi, 63, the Archbishop of Bologna; Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, 67, of Spain; and Sigitas Tamkevicius, 81, the Archbishop Emeritus of Kaunas, Lithuania. Having attained the age of 80, Cardinals Fitzgerald, Dal Corso, and Tamkevicius are too old to vote in any future conclave. The celebration, which was conducted partly in Latin, ended with the choir and congregation singing “Salve Regina.” After the celebration in St. Peter’s, Pope Francis and the new cardinals took a bus to the Mater Ecclesia Monastery for a meeting with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that Benedict reminded the cardinals of the “value of fidelity to the Pope,” and then “together with Pope Francis,” gave them a blessing. Pope Francis then went home to the Casa Santa Marta, and the new cardinals were taken to the Paul VI Hall and the Apostolic Palace for the “Courtesy Visits.” During these audiences, the press had the opportunity to greet and photograph the new cardinals before their guests arrived. According to Vatican News, the choice of cardinals, eight of whom belong to religious orders, reflects the “missionary vocation of the Church.” However, it also seems to reflect Pope Francis’ interest in migration, Latin America, and interreligious dialogue with Islam. Three of the new cardinals have critics wondering about their orthodoxy. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna, is a well-known “street priest” well-liked for his support for the cause of migrants, the elderly, gypsies, and drug addicts, and the peacemaking Community of Sant’Egidio. News that Zuppi would be getting a red hat caused the Italian Left to cry, “We have a Cardinal!” Meanwhile, Zuppi contributed an essay to the Italian edition of Fr. James Martin’s Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity, a collaboration Fr. Martin has publicized. However, according to Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register, Archbishop Zuppi’s supporters have said “that his position is more nuanced than Father Martin has made it out to be … and that while the archbishop calls for a more sensitive pastoral approach in his foreword, he reasserts the Church’s teaching on the issue and calls faithfully Catholic outreach groups such as Courage ‘instructive.’” Cardinal José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça is an award-winning Portugese poet and essayist. He was appointed Vatican Archivist and Librarian to the Holy See by Pope Francis in 2018. But he too is a controversial figure, having written the introduction to a book on feminist theology by Benedictine Sister Maria Teresa Forcades. Labelled as “Europe’s most radical nun” by the BBC, Sister Forcades is known for promoting “queer theology” and supporting abortion and the morning-after pill. Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot belongs to the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus. He is a renowed expert on Islam and was appointed President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue by Pope Francis this May. Before his appointment as head of the pontifical council, Archbishop Guixot served as president of the Pontifical Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies in Rome. In this role, he was in charge of overseeing the dialogue between the Vatican and the prestigious Al-Azhar mosque and university in Egypt, considered the Vatican of the Sunni Islamic world. Archbishop Ayuso played a key role in drawing up the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” co-signed in early February by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar, in Abu Dhabi. The document has drawn considerable controversy for stating that the “diversity of religions” is “willed by God.” Despite Bishop Athanasius Schneider's appeal to Pope Francis to officially correct the text, last week, the Vatican announced that a “Higher Committee” had been established in the United Arab Emirates to implement the uncorrected document. Members of the seven-member (Catholic and Muslim) commission include Pope Francis’s personal secretary, Fr. Yoannis Lahzi Gaid, and Archbishop Ayuso Giuxot. The other 10 cardinals have not rung the alarm bells of orthodoxy as loudly. Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, came to Canada as a toddler from Communist-era Czechoslovakia. He is under-secretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. He was elevated to the episcopate by Pope Francis on October 4, one day before being created a cardinal. Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald is an expert in Christian-Muslim relations, a former apostolic nuncio to Egypt, and also a former President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Cardinal Álvero Ramazzini Imeri, Bishop of Huehuetenango, has been described as “dedicated to the poorest people” of Guatemala “for decades” and “to migrants and indigenous people in particular.” The Diocese of Huehuetenango covers almost 3,000 square miles is situated in Guatemala’s remote north-west. Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, S.D.B., Archbishop of Rabat, is a Salesian who worked and ministered in Paraguay for decades before moving to Morocco in 2003. During Pope Francis’ 2017 visit, he described his Morroccan archdiocese as multicultural, noting that it serves many migrants from farther south in Africa. Cardinal Eugenio dal Corso belongs to the congregation of the Poor Servants of the Divine and ministered in both Argentina and Angola. In Angolo, Dal Corso served as the Provincial Superior of his order, then as Bishop of Saurimo and finally as Bishop of Benguela. He retired from the latter post at the age of 78. Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, the Archbishop of Jakarta, has spoken up for the rights of Indonesia’s Christian minority and is a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, Archbishop of Luxembourg, is fervently pro-European Union and was elected president of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) in 2018. Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez has been the Archbishop of Havana since 2016. He is on the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Cardinal Sigitas Tamkevicius is the Archbishop Emeritus of Kaunas, Lithuania. He was appointed by St. John Paul II in 1996. Persecuted by the Communist authorities in Cold War-era Lithuania, he was arrested in 1983 and sent to prison camps. In 1988 he was exiled to Siberia. He was allowed to return to Lithuania after the political softening that marked the perestroika period under Mikhail Gorbechev. Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu has been the Bishop of Kinshasa since November 2018. He has spoken out boldly against political and police violence against Catholics and other pro-democracy protesters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-creates-13-new-cardinals
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2019-10-07T16:47:00+00:00
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lifesitenews--2019-10-08--Pope Francis is leading the Church toward a new type of schism: US theologian
| 2019-10-08T00:00:00 |
lifesitenews
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Pope Francis is leading the Church toward a new type of schism: US theologian
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October 8, 2019 (The Catholic Thing) — The Church, in her long history, has never been confronted with the situation like the one in which she now finds herself. Pope Francis recently spoke of a possible schism within the Church, a schism that does not frighten him. We have had many schisms in the past, he says, and there will be schisms in the future. So, there is nothing to fear in the present. However, it is the nature of the present possible schism that is new, and this unprecedented new schism is frightening. One cannot help but think that Francis is referring to members of the Church in the United States. Francis receives, from America, his most theologically challenging and pastorally concerned criticism, which centers on a questionable remaking of the faith and of the Church. Such censure, it is believed by Francis's cohort, originates from within a conservative intellectual elite who are politically motivated, and many of whom are wealthy. Francis thinks that they are unwilling to change, and so refuse to accept the new work of the Spirit in our day. Ultimately, one discerns that he believes his critics are psychologically and emotionally impaired, and so must be dealt with gently (though that gentleness is yet to be experienced by those who fall under his vindictive abuse). He himself has called those who oppose him many insulting names. What Francis does not realize (and his close associates fail to grasp) is that the overwhelming majority of his American critics would never initiate a schism. They recognize that he is the pope and thus the successor of Peter, and that to remain within the Catholic Church is to remain faithful to the pope, even if it entails being critical of the pope in one's faithfulness to him. Some may wish that an actual schism will take place in America in order to get rid of the obdurate conservative element and so demonstrate that they were not really Catholic all along. But that is not going to happen, because those critical bishops, priests, theologians, commentators, and laity (more laity than Francis will admit) know that what they believe and uphold is in accord with Scripture, the Church councils, the ever-living magisterium, and the saints. As has been often noted, Pope Francis and his cohort never engage in theological dialogue, despite their constant claim that such dialogue is necessary. The reason is that they know they cannot win on that front. Thus, they are forced to resort to name-calling, psychological intimidation, and sheer will-to-power. Now, as many commentators have already pointed out, the German church is more likely to go into schism. The German bishops are proposing a two-year "binding" synod that, if what is proposed is enacted, would introduce beliefs and practices contrary to the universal tradition of the Church. I believe, however, that such a German schism will not formally happen either, for two reasons. First, many within the German hierarchy know that by becoming schismatic they would lose their Catholic voice and identity. This they cannot afford. They need to be in fellowship with Pope Francis, for he is the very one who has fostered a notion of synodality that they are now attempting to implement. He, therefore, is their ultimate protector. Second, while Pope Francis may stop them from doing something egregiously contrary to the Church's teaching, he will allow them to do things that are ambiguously contrary, for such ambiguous teaching and pastoral practice would be in accord with Francis' own. It is in this that the Church finds herself in a situation that she never expected. It's important to bear in mind that the German situation must be viewed within a broader context: the theological ambiguity within Amoris Laetitia; the not so subtle advancing of the homosexual agenda; the "re-foundation" of the (Roman) John Paul II Institute on Marriage and Family, i.e., the undermining of the Church's consistent teaching on moral and sacramental absolutes, especially with regard to the indissolubility of marriage, homosexuality, contraception, and abortion. Similarly, there is the Abu Dhabi statement, which directly contradicts the will of the Father and so undermines the primacy of Jesus Christ his Son as the definitive Lord and universal Savior. Moreover, the present Amazon Synod is teeming with participants sympathetic to and supportive of all of the above. One must likewise take into account the many theologically dubious cardinals, bishops, priests, and theologians whom Francis supports and promotes to high ecclesial positions. With all of this in mind, we perceive a situation, ever-growing in intensity, in which on the one hand, a majority of the world's faithful — clergy and laity alike — are loyal and faithful to the pope, for he is their pontiff, while critical of his pontificate, and, on the other hand, a large contingent of the world's faithful — clergy and laity alike — enthusiastically support Francis precisely because he allows and fosters their ambiguous teaching and ecclesial practice. What the Church will end up with, then, is a pope who is the pope of the Catholic Church and, simultaneously, the de facto leader, for all practical purposes, of a schismatic church. Because he is the head of both, the appearance of one church remains, while in fact there are two. The only phrase that I can find to describe this situation is "internal papal schism," for the pope, even as pope, will effectively be the leader of a segment of the Church that through its doctrine, moral teaching, and ecclesial structure, is for all practical purposes schismatic. This is the real schism that is in our midst and must be faced, but I do not believe Pope Francis is in any way afraid of this schism. As long as he is in control, he will, I fear, welcome it, for he sees the schismatic element as the new "paradigm" for the future Church. Thus, in fear and trembling, we need to pray that Jesus, as the head of His body, the Church, will deliver us from this trial. Then again, he may want us to endure it, for it may be that only by enduring it can the Church be freed from all the sin and corruption that now lies within her, and be made holy and pure. On a more hopeful note, I believe it will be the laity who bring about the needed purification. Pope Francis has himself stated that this is the age of the laity. Lay people see themselves as helpless, having no ecclesial power. Yet if the laity raise their voices, they will be heard. More specifically, I believe it will depend mostly on faithful and courageous Catholic women. They are the living icons of the Church, the bride of Christ, and they, in union with Mary, the Mother of God and the Mother of the Church, will birth anew, in the Holy Spirit, a holy Body of Christ. Published with permission from The Catholic Thing.
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/pope-francis-is-leading-the-church-toward-a-new-type-of-schism-us-theologian
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2019-10-08T12:48:00+00:00
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lifesitenews--2019-10-09--Pope Francis: ‘Do I love God or dogmatic formulations?’
| 2019-10-09T00:00:00 |
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Pope Francis: ‘Do I love God or dogmatic formulations?’
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VATICAN CITY, October 9, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – During his weekly general audience, Pope Francis today insinuated that Catholics who hold strongly to the orthodox teachings of the Church are ideologues and, like Saul of Tarsus, are in need of conversion. “Ideologues” who “desire the so-called ‘purity’ of the Church are attacking Christ,” said the pontiff. Pope Francis recounted the story of St. Paul’s conversion in the Acts of the Apostles saying that up until that time, he was an ideologue who persecuted members of the early Church and that “fratricidal fury” compelled him. “The young Saul is portrayed as intransigent, that is, one who shows intolerance towards those who think differently from him,” he said. Saul “absolutizes his political or religious identity and reduces the other to a potential enemy to fight.” “For Saul, religion had turned into ideology: religious ideology, social ideology, political ideology,” he said. “The angry condition – because Saul was angry – and Saul's conflictual situation invites everyone to ask themselves: How do I live my life of faith? Am I going to meet others or am I against others?” asked Pope Francis. “Do I belong to the universal Church – with the good and the bad, all of us – or do I hold a selective ideology?” he continued. “Do I love God or dogmatic formulations?” Pope Francis added, “What is my religious life like? Does professing faith in God make me friendly or hostile towards those who are different from me?” “An attack against a member of the Church is an attack against Christ himself! And those who are ideologues because they desire the so-called ‘purity’ of the Church are attacking Christ himself.” Pope Francis concluded: “Let us ask the Father to let us too, like Saul, experience the impact of his love that can only make a heart of stone a heart of flesh, capable of embracing ‘the same sentiments of Christ Jesus.’” “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” Jesus says in the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John. “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.”
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-do-i-love-god-or-dogmatic-formulations
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2019-10-09T19:06:00+00:00
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lifesitenews--2019-11-08--Pope Francis denounces Amazon Synod critics as racist
| 2019-11-08T00:00:00 |
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Pope Francis denounces Amazon Synod critics as racist
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ROME, November 7, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Offering his thoughts on the Amazon Synod, Pope Francis excoriated certain “circles and sectors” who allegedly consider much of humanity a “lower-class entity” with scant “spiritual and intellectual life.” These unnamed individuals, the pope opined, hope out of racism or bigotry to withhold the Gospel. Pope Francis spoke with Italian journalist Gianni Valente during interviews conducted during the recent Amazon Synod. In talks gathered into a book in Italian titled Without Him We Can Do Nothing, the pontiff described his vision for the Church to embrace a missionary spirit, even while he blasted unnamed groups for mischaracterizing others as “lower-class.” In the interview, the pope said, “There are circles and sectors that present themselves as ilustrados [enlightened] — they sequester the proclamation of the gospel through a distorted reasoning that divides the world between ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism.'” Pope Francis said, “The idea that the Lord has among his favorites many dark-complexioned people irritates them, it puts them in a bad mood. They consider a large part of the human family as a lower-class entity, incapable, according to their standards, of achieving decent levels in spiritual and intellectual life. On this basis, contempt can develop for people considered to be second-rate,” he said, adding that “all this also emerged during the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon.” Perhaps signaling to his native country, the pope referred to “cabecitas negras” (literally, “little black heads”) — an Argentine slang term deriding people of dark complexion. When reports emerged from the synod that there were alleged aspersions cast at the feather headdresses used by some of the indigenous participants in the conference, Pope Francis deplored the “sarcastic words” directed at indigenous people wearing feathers. He said, “Tell me: what’s the difference between having feathers on your head and the three-peaked hat [birettas] worn by certain officials in our dicasteries?” The book was released on November 5 and coincided with the close of Extraordinary Missionary Month in October. During October, the Vatican hosted the Amazon Synod, which had the ostensible goal of discussing how the Gospel can be proclaimed in the remote regions of South America, issues of inculturation, and ordination of mature married men to the priesthood in the Latin Rite. Even before the synod’s outset, controversy was stirred by the instrumentum laboris — the working document that offered points of discussion and goals to be met at the synod. Critics of the document included Cardinals Raymond Burke, Walter Brandmüller, and Gerhard Müller. Cardinal Brandmüller called the document “heretical” and an “apostasy” from Divine Revelation. A tree-planting ceremony attended by Pope Francis at the outset of the synod immediately became controversial because of pagan rituals it incorporated and pagan effigies that were gifted to the pontiff. The very same idols, variously described as “Our Lady of the Amazon” and the “Pachamama” fertility goddess — the latter by the pope himself — showed up at a church not far from the Vatican, causing further controversy and comment. Then, on Oct. 21, a young Austrian entered the church, removed the effigies, and threw them into the Tiber River. His acts were recorded on video, which was then widely circulated on social media. Identifying himself as “Alexander,” the English-speaking Austrian man said in a later video that he was “very upset” when he saw people bowing before the idols at the church in Rome. He explained: “There are some laymen, and we stand up because we don’t want things like that happening in the Catholic Church.” After the incident, Pope Francis apologized to the synod organizers and even suggested that the idols would be returned to the church. Author Valente told Religion News Service that the pope’s interview is a riposte to “to all the closed- and narrow-minded points of view that we witnessed” during the synod. He said “certain powerful ecclesiastical circles” in the United States show hostility toward the pope. Pope Francis advocated for a revival of a missionary spirit in the Church. He said that nowadays, Catholics must “bear in mind that the revealed message is not identified with a particular culture,” the pope said. “And when meeting new cultures, or cultures that have not accepted the Christian proclamation, we must try not to impose a determined cultural form together with the evangelical proposition.” Proselytism “is always violent by nature,” he said, and “cuts out Christ” and grace from the Holy Spirit. Without aid from the Holy Spirit, mission work is but “a religious, or perhaps an ideological conquest, perhaps carried out even with good intentions.” Being moved by the Holy Spirit, said the pope, produces an “attraction” for those who want to follow the path of missionaries. Missionaries should work in “facilitating, making easy, without placing obstacles to Jesus’s desire to embrace everyone, to heal everyone, to save everyone.” They should not be selective, impose “pastoral tariffs,” or be guards who control “who has the right to enter.”
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2019-11-08T00:20:00+00:00
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lifesitenews--2019-11-08--Pope Francis says St. Paul ‘built a bridge’ to the Athens pagans, ignores his condemnation of idols
| 2019-11-08T00:00:00 |
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Pope Francis says St. Paul ‘built a bridge’ to the Athens pagans, ignores his condemnation of idols
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VATICAN CITY, November 7, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― Ignoring Saint Paul’s condemnation of graven images, Pope Francis stated that the saint provided an example of the “inculturation” of the Gospel when he preached in Athens. In a homily during his usual Wednesday audience, the pontiff stated that St. Paul used his encounter with the pagan idols of the ancient city “to build a bridge to dialogue with that culture.” “Paul chose to enter into familiarity with the city and began therefore to frequent the most significant places and people,” Francis said. “He went to the synagogue, symbol of the life of faith; he went to the town square, symbol of urban life, and he went to the Aereopagus, symbol of political and cultural life.” The pontiff noted that St. Paul spoke with judges, philosophers, and “many others,” meeting “all the people” and not “locking himself away.” “In this way Paul observed the culture, observed the environment of Athens,” Pope Francis added, and then quoted from his own Evangelium Gaudium to say that Paul “started from a contemplative gaze” to discover “that God who lives in His houses, in His streets, and in His squares” (EG, 71). In what sounded like an allusion on the expulsion of wooden carvings depicting the pagan fertility goddess Pachamama from a Catholic Church during the recent Synod on the Amazon, Pope Francis stated that St. Paul did not look upon the pagan world with “hostility” but with faith. “Paul did not look at the city of Athens and the pagan world with hostility but with the eyes of faith,” he said. “And this questions our manner of looking at our cities: do we look at them with indifference? With contempt? Or with the faith that recognizes the children of God in the middle of anonymous crowds?” The pontiff stated that Paul had chosen to view the city in a way that led him “to make an opening between the Gospel and the pagan world.” “In the heart of one of the most famous institutions in the ancient world, the Areopagus, he realized an extraordinary example of inculturating the message of faith: he announced Jesus Christ to the adorers of idols, and not by attacking them, but by making himself ‘pontiff, builder of bridges,’” Francis said, quoting a homily he gave in May 2013. Paul did this, Francis said, by noticing an altar the Athenians had set up to “the unknown god” and telling his hearers that he had come to tell them about the unknown god they already adored. “Starting from this ‘devotion’ to the unknown god, to enter into empathy with his [hearers], he proclaimed that God ‘lives among the citydwellers” and “He does not hide Himself from those who seek him with sincere hearts, although they do it gropingly,” Pope Francis said, again quoting from Evangelium Gaudium. “It’s just this presence that Paul seeks to reveal, ‘He who, without knowing him, you adore, I announce Him to you (Acts 17:23),” he continued. However, in describing St. Paul’s homily to the Athenians, the Argentinian pontiff neglected to mention that the great missionary of Tarsus told his hearers that the God who created everything does not live in temples (Acts 17:24) or need offerings (Acts 17:25) and is not like graven images made by human beings (Acts 17:29). “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals,” Paul said. Instead, Pope Francis noted that the majority of Paul’s hearers rejected his message when he announced Christ’s resurrection from the dead — “the stumbling block”― and so his attempt seemed to be a failure. However some do accept the Gospel, “among these a man, Dionigius, a member of the Areopagus, and a woman, Damaris.” Pope Francis found it significant that Damaris is a woman. “Even in Athens, the Gospel can take root and spread by two voices: that of a man and that of a woman!” He concluded, “We ask today of the Holy Spirit to teach us to build bridges with the culture, with those who don’t believe or with those who have a different belief from ours. To always build bridges, always the extended hand, no aggression. We ask Him for the capacity to inculturate with care the message of faith, placing a contemplative gaze on those who are ignorant of Christ, moved by a love that warms even the hardest hearts.” Philosopher Professor Claudio Pierantoni, one of the original signatories of the letter to the world’s bishops accusing Pope Francis of heresy, indicated that the pontiff was both right and wrong in his homily about St. Paul and the Athenians. “It is true that in this episode, Paul takes advantage of some positive elements in the pagan philosophy, such as the approximation to the doctrine of Creation, and to Man’s special relation to God as ‘God’s offspring,’” Pierantoni told LifeSiteNews via email. “That could be correctly described as ‘making bridges.’ But we must be careful not to interpret this as mere ‘dialogue’ between religions that can peacefully coexist on the same level,” he continued. The professor cited verses Acts 29-30 to point out that paganism no longer has reason to exist. “The pagan religion, with its idolatrous cults, had a reason for existing, because of ignorance, until the moment of the positive, historical revelation of God.” Pierantoni noted that Francis’ homily repeatedly speaks of “aggression,” as if it were opposed to the spirit of Paul’s supposed “inculturation” and “dialogue,” and saw in it a reference to “the present controversy about the idolatrous rites recently held in the Vatican Gardens, and to the taking away of the wooden images of the Pachamama from a Church near the Vatican.” “But St. Paul’s evangelization, although it certainly uses the means of dialogue, of course does not have in mind a pacific coexistence of all religions as an ideal,” he continued. “[Paul’s] message is not just about some neutral exchange of opinions among different religious beliefs, but the announcement of something new that terminates the ‘times of ignorance’ and makes idolatry into an abominable sin.” The professor cited verses Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians that also condemn idols: “What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons” (1 Cor. 10:19-21).
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2019-11-08T23:38:00+00:00
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lifesitenews--2019-12-07--Pope Francis nags United Nations to save the poor from climate change
| 2019-12-07T00:00:00 |
lifesitenews
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Pope Francis nags United Nations to save the poor from climate change
|
December 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has sent a message to the participants of the latest United Nations climate conference, which opened in Madrid last Monday, asking whether “there is the political will to allocate with honesty, responsibility and courage, more human, financial and technological resources to mitigate the negative effects of climate change, as well as to help the poorest and most vulnerable populations who suffer from them the most.” In a purely “horizontal” context, in which he spoke neither of God and His rights over Creation nor of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Pope Francis recalled a “growing awareness on the part of the various actors of the international community of the importance and need to ‘work together in building our common home,’” as affirmed in the Paris Agreement adopted by the COP21 in December 2015. The Conference of Parties (COP) is an international body responsible for monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, whose activities rest on the Special Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC claims not only that “global warming” — or, when the weather does not cooperate, “climate change” — is an indisputable scientific fact, but that human activity is responsible for it because of the burning of “fossil energy” (such as petrol, coal, and gas), consumption of meat, deforestation, and other industries produce ever more carbon dioxide (CO ), a “greenhouse gas” that traps the sun’s heat in Earth’s atmosphere. COP has by now reached its 25th edition and takes place this year in Madrid after having been initially scheduled in Santiago de Chile, where social unrest led the organizers to move the event to Spain, albeit under Carolina Schmidt, Chilean environment minister and president of the COP25, to whom Pope Francis addressed his message. Pope Francis, moving clearly out of the spiritual sphere that is the Catholic Church’s domain of action, once again used the prestige of the papal function to put the Vatican’s full moral force behind the aims and objectives of the COP 25 or, to be more precise, behind the paradigm change encouraged by the United Nations through the fight against “global warming”: a change to Western styles of life, redistribution of world riches to the “poor countries” that according to the climate change theory pay the price of the “rich countries’” over-consumption, and stringent measures deemed necessary for the good of “the planet.” Pope Francis deplored in his message that “sadly, after four years, we must admit that this awareness is still rather weak, unable to respond adequately to that strong sense of urgency for rapid action called for by the scientific data at our disposal,” once more speaking as if the conclusions of the IPCC reports are absolutely indisputable regarding both global warming and mankind’s direct responsibility for the innumerable catastrophes that climate alarmists have announced for the near future. This attitude disregards numerous studies on the part of climate and other scientists who have not only challenged the scientific validity of climate models used by the United Nations to justify the change in human habits and way of life, but who also question the exactitude of climate measurements presented in this context and who deplore that other, well known, and far more consequential elements that play a role in Earth’s temperature are neglected — the sun, for instance, whose cyclical activity is known to have a direct impact on the climate of our planet, while the impact of human-produced CO remains marginal in the Earth’s atmosphere. Pope Francis’s message to Carolina Schmidt once more gave witness to the Church’s unquestioning adoption of the U.N. agenda — despite its profoundly anti-human stance and promotion of population control to reduce the so-called effect of human activity on “global warming.” Proponents of population control such as Paul Ehrlich, Joachim Schellnhuber, and Jeffrey Sachs have been repeatedly invited to scientific events at the Vatican, while Sachs was invited to intervene at the recent Amazon Synod, where care for the “common home” took center stage. In his message to the COP25, the pope deplored that “current commitments made by States to mitigate and adapt to climate change are far from those actually needed to achieve the goals set by the Paris Agreement. They demonstrate how far words are from concrete actions!” he wrote. Adopting the alarmist language of the “climate-warmers,” Pope Francis spoke of the “concern about the ability of such processes to respect the timeline required by science, as well as the distribution of the costs they require,” while at the same time insisting that “numerous studies tell us that it is still possible to limit global warming.” “To do this we need a clear, far-sighted and strong political will, set on pursuing a new course that aims at refocusing financial and economic investments toward those areas that truly safeguard the conditions of a life worthy of humanity on a ‘healthy’ planet for today and tomorrow. All this calls us to reflect conscientiously on the significance of our consumption and production models and on the processes of education and awareness to make them consistent with human dignity,” he said. He insisted that young people understand this and added, in substance, that they will hold our generation responsible for the problems we will have refused to solve. All of this is a far cry from the Church’s very reason for existing: to communicate the graces won by the merits of Our Lord’s Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection for the salvation of many, to whom the gates of heaven have been reopened through His work of redemption. In fact, such an alignment on worldly objectives is clearly political in nature, and a corruption of man’s true relationship with nature: according to Catholic doctrine, the Creation must surely be respected and used by man with love and admiration for what God has made, but man is at the summit of the material creation which exists to allow him to achieve his true end as a being both spiritual and material: eternal happiness in the “next” world, living of the very life of God. What would the world look like if the Paris Agreement objectives and further stringent measures touted both by the COP25 and Pope Francis were truly to be implemented? On October 31, the globalist World Economic Forum gave a glimpse into the future it is hoping for in an op-ed signed by Ida Auken, member of the Danish Parliament. Under the title “This is what 2030 could look like if we win the war on climate change,” she wrote: She explained how transport-sharing would become the rule, with private cars banned from cities and more and more people deciding not to own personal cars. “For lunch you can choose from dozens of exciting meals — most of them are plant-based, so you eat more healthily and are more environmentally friendly than when lunch meant choosing between five types of burger,” she continued. Meat is one of the main targets of “warmists,” who say cattle-breeding is one of climate change’s worst culprits. Interestingly, Pope Francis never mentions this, not even in his “green” encyclical Laudato Si’, perhaps because he comes from Argentina, where beef is the staple diet. Ida Auken sees the world as completely connected and managed beyond human error and liberty: in the 2030 U.N. dream, “if your dishwasher is about to break down, it is no longer your problem. The service provider already knows about the problem and has sent someone to fix it. When the machine no longer works, the provider picks up the old machine and installs a new one.” Sober living is no longer associated with the sacrifice of earthly possessions for a higher good or even for the practice of virtue: it is for the planet. The idea goes very far since even private property and family homes are at least partially rejected: Ida Auken explained that in her “CO-topia,” “people are trying out new types of living arrangements with more shared functions and spaces. This means that more people can afford to live in cities.” She concluded her futurist reverie with these words: Or to say things more clearly: human beings will no longer have the freedom to travel as they now are able to, and the anti-CO arrangements will have had the effect of a profound revolution in the economy and in society as a whole — the whole point being that this revolution would not be the effect of a free choice, but imposed in the name of unverifiable future catastrophes and fear. The same Ida Auken, in a particularly revealing piece published by weforum.org in November 2016, was already conjuring up the image of a property-less, communal world in 2030 under the title: “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.” The paper made clear from the start that the true aim of the big climate scare is a new form of communism: She went on to say: But she also realized: “Once in awhile I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. Nowhere I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me.” Mrs. Auken is a former environment minister of Denmark, of the socialist and feminist persuasion. What does she have to do with Pope Francis’s commitment to fighting “climate change”? A lot more than you may think: She is giving a concrete image to the U.N.’s political agenda for climate-fueled socialism and making visible, under the aegis of the powerful World Economic Forum, the face of things to come.
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-nags-united-nations-to-save-the-poor-from-climate-change
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2019-12-07T02:50:00+00:00
| 1,575,705,000 | 1,575,720,141 |
religion and belief
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religious leader
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290,543 |
lifesitenews--2019-12-07--Pope Francis urges United Nations to save the poor from climate change
| 2019-12-07T00:00:00 |
lifesitenews
|
Pope Francis urges United Nations to save the poor from climate change
|
December 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has sent a message to the participants of the latest United Nations climate conference, which opened in Madrid last Monday, asking whether “there is the political will to allocate with honesty, responsibility and courage, more human, financial and technological resources to mitigate the negative effects of climate change, as well as to help the poorest and most vulnerable populations who suffer from them the most.” In a purely “horizontal” context, in which he spoke neither of God and His rights over Creation nor of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Pope Francis recalled a “growing awareness on the part of the various actors of the international community of the importance and need to ‘work together in building our common home,’” as affirmed in the Paris Agreement adopted by the COP21 in December 2015. The Conference of Parties (COP) is an international body responsible for monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, whose activities rest on the Special Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC claims not only that “global warming” — or, when the weather does not cooperate, “climate change” — is an indisputable scientific fact, but that human activity is responsible for it because of the burning of “fossil energy” (such as petrol, coal, and gas), consumption of meat, deforestation, and other industries produce ever more carbon dioxide (CO ), a “greenhouse gas” that traps the sun’s heat in Earth’s atmosphere. COP has by now reached its 25th edition and takes place this year in Madrid after having been initially scheduled in Santiago de Chile, where social unrest led the organizers to move the event to Spain, albeit under Carolina Schmidt, Chilean environment minister and president of the COP25, to whom Pope Francis addressed his message. Pope Francis, moving clearly out of the spiritual sphere that is the Catholic Church’s domain of action, once again used the prestige of the papal function to put the Vatican’s full moral force behind the aims and objectives of the COP 25 or, to be more precise, behind the paradigm change encouraged by the United Nations through the fight against “global warming”: a change to Western styles of life, redistribution of world riches to the “poor countries” that according to the climate change theory pay the price of the “rich countries’” over-consumption, and stringent measures deemed necessary for the good of “the planet.” Pope Francis deplored in his message that “sadly, after four years, we must admit that this awareness is still rather weak, unable to respond adequately to that strong sense of urgency for rapid action called for by the scientific data at our disposal,” once more speaking as if the conclusions of the IPCC reports are absolutely indisputable regarding both global warming and mankind’s direct responsibility for the innumerable catastrophes that climate alarmists have announced for the near future. This attitude disregards numerous studies on the part of climate and other scientists who have not only challenged the scientific validity of climate models used by the United Nations to justify the change in human habits and way of life, but who also question the exactitude of climate measurements presented in this context and who deplore that other, well known, and far more consequential elements that play a role in Earth’s temperature are neglected — the sun, for instance, whose cyclical activity is known to have a direct impact on the climate of our planet, while the impact of human-produced CO remains marginal in the Earth’s atmosphere. Pope Francis’s message to Carolina Schmidt once more gave witness to the Church’s unquestioning adoption of the U.N. agenda — despite its profoundly anti-human stance and promotion of population control to reduce the so-called effect of human activity on “global warming.” Proponents of population control such as Paul Ehrlich, Joachim Schellnhuber, and Jeffrey Sachs have been repeatedly invited to scientific events at the Vatican, while Sachs was invited to intervene at the recent Amazon Synod, where care for the “common home” took center stage. In his message to the COP25, the pope deplored that “current commitments made by States to mitigate and adapt to climate change are far from those actually needed to achieve the goals set by the Paris Agreement. They demonstrate how far words are from concrete actions!” he wrote. Adopting the alarmist language of the “climate-warmers,” Pope Francis spoke of the “concern about the ability of such processes to respect the timeline required by science, as well as the distribution of the costs they require,” while at the same time insisting that “numerous studies tell us that it is still possible to limit global warming.” “To do this we need a clear, far-sighted and strong political will, set on pursuing a new course that aims at refocusing financial and economic investments toward those areas that truly safeguard the conditions of a life worthy of humanity on a ‘healthy’ planet for today and tomorrow. All this calls us to reflect conscientiously on the significance of our consumption and production models and on the processes of education and awareness to make them consistent with human dignity,” he said. He insisted that young people understand this and added, in substance, that they will hold our generation responsible for the problems we will have refused to solve. All of this is a far cry from the Church’s very reason for existing: to communicate the graces won by the merits of Our Lord’s Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection for the salvation of many, to whom the gates of heaven have been reopened through His work of redemption. In fact, such an alignment on worldly objectives is clearly political in nature, and a corruption of man’s true relationship with nature: according to Catholic doctrine, the Creation must surely be respected and used by man with love and admiration for what God has made, but man is at the summit of the material creation which exists to allow him to achieve his true end as a being both spiritual and material: eternal happiness in the “next” world, living of the very life of God. What would the world look like if the Paris Agreement objectives and further stringent measures touted both by the COP25 and Pope Francis were truly to be implemented? On October 31, the globalist World Economic Forum gave a glimpse into the future it is hoping for in an op-ed signed by Ida Auken, member of the Danish Parliament. Under the title “This is what 2030 could look like if we win the war on climate change,” she wrote: She explained how transport-sharing would become the rule, with private cars banned from cities and more and more people deciding not to own personal cars. “For lunch you can choose from dozens of exciting meals — most of them are plant-based, so you eat more healthily and are more environmentally friendly than when lunch meant choosing between five types of burger,” she continued. Meat is one of the main targets of “warmists,” who say cattle-breeding is one of climate change’s worst culprits. Interestingly, Pope Francis never mentions this, not even in his “green” encyclical Laudato Si’, perhaps because he comes from Argentina, where beef is the staple diet. Ida Auken sees the world as completely connected and managed beyond human error and liberty: in the 2030 U.N. dream, “if your dishwasher is about to break down, it is no longer your problem. The service provider already knows about the problem and has sent someone to fix it. When the machine no longer works, the provider picks up the old machine and installs a new one.” Sober living is no longer associated with the sacrifice of earthly possessions for a higher good or even for the practice of virtue: it is for the planet. The idea goes very far since even private property and family homes are at least partially rejected: Ida Auken explained that in her “CO-topia,” “people are trying out new types of living arrangements with more shared functions and spaces. This means that more people can afford to live in cities.” She concluded her futurist reverie with these words: Or to say things more clearly: human beings will no longer have the freedom to travel as they now are able to, and the anti-CO arrangements will have had the effect of a profound revolution in the economy and in society as a whole — the whole point being that this revolution would not be the effect of a free choice, but imposed in the name of unverifiable future catastrophes and fear. The same Ida Auken, in a particularly revealing piece published by weforum.org in November 2016, was already conjuring up the image of a property-less, communal world in 2030 under the title: “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.” The paper made clear from the start that the true aim of the big climate scare is a new form of communism: She went on to say: But she also realized: “Once in awhile I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. Nowhere I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me.” Mrs. Auken is a former environment minister of Denmark, of the socialist and feminist persuasion. What does she have to do with Pope Francis’s commitment to fighting “climate change”? A lot more than you may think: She is giving a concrete image to the U.N.’s political agenda for climate-fueled socialism and making visible, under the aegis of the powerful World Economic Forum, the face of things to come.
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-nags-united-nations-to-save-the-poor-from-climate-change
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2019-12-07T02:50:00+00:00
| 1,575,705,000 | 1,575,763,335 |
religion and belief
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religious leader
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290,544 |
lifesitenews--2019-12-07--Pope Francis: Amoris Laetitia is ‘the Magisterium of the Church’ on divorced and remarried
| 2019-12-07T00:00:00 |
lifesitenews
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Pope Francis: Amoris Laetitia is ‘the Magisterium of the Church’ on divorced and remarried
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BANGKOK, Thailand, December 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― Pope Francis told Jesuits in Thailand that how the Church should behave pastorally to Catholics who are “divorced and remarried” is found in chapter 8 of his controversial 2016 exhortation Amoris Laetitia, a teaching that has been used by bishops around the world to allow Catholics living objectively in adultery to receive Holy Communion. The pope indicated that such teaching is the “Magisterium of the Church.” While meeting with a group of Southeastern Jesuits in Bangkok last month, Pope Francis invited their questions. One stated that they had “divorced and remarried” Catholics in their communities and asked how they are to “behave pastorally with them.” “I could answer you in two ways: in a casuistic way, which however is not Christian, even if it can be ecclesiastical; or according to the Magisterium of the Church as in the eighth chapter of Amoris Laetitia, that is, journey, accompany and discern to find solutions,” the pontiff replied. “And this has nothing to do with situation ethics, but with the great moral tradition of the Church.” Francis did not explain how something that is ecclesiastical could not be Christian, instead moving to a question about his experience of the Church in Thailand. The word “magisterium” has several potential meanings, including the teaching office of a pope or a bishop in union with the pope, or the doctrine being taught. John Zmirak, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism, told LifeSiteNews that the word is typically used two ways: “One, the infallible parts that reflect the Deposit of Faith, either sacred tradition or authoritatively taught Natural Law judgments, and two, whatever some pope said that another pope hasn't contradicted yet.” Zmirak took exception to Pope Francis’s use the words “casuistry” and “Magisterium.” “As usual, Pope Francis is equivocating, using language sloppily, and relying on the anti-Catholic connotations that perfectly innocent words were given by anti-Christian pamphleteers,” he said. “‘Casuistry’ means nothing more or less than the application of general rules to particular cases. It’s a Latinism best translated as ‘case law.’ Imagine a judge denouncing ‘case law.’ That’s how much sense it makes for a moral teacher to denounce casuistry,” he continued. Zmirak also criticized the pope of elevating “his own baseless and un-Catholic opinions, issued in fallible documents, to the level of Magisterium.” “For Francis the Marxist sympathizer, [Magisterium] appears to mean essentially ‘Party Line,’ the author said. “It can shift as the Party leadership does.” “To understand this papacy you don't need to read Francis, but Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon.” Dr. John Rist, professor emeritus of the University of Toronto, told LifeSiteNews that Pope Francis’s answer to the question is a typical example of “Peronism.” “Step one is to deny ‘casuistry,’ apparently understood by [Pope] Bergoglio as some form of consequentialism/situation ethics (which he rightly dubs non-Christian),” Rist stated. “The second step is to try to muddle us by using traditional words like ‘discernment’ but to imply that trying to discern what to do will get you an answer which is non-consequentialist while simultaneously disregarding the norms the Church has traditionally taught, and appealing to the Magisterium, i.e. to himself, to justify this procedure,” the philosopher continued. “What it all amounts to is readmitting consequentialism/situation ethics by the back door and giving it another name (i.e. discernment).” Chapter eight of Amoris Laetitia attracted a torrent of criticism after the apostolic exhortation was published on April 8, 2016 because it allows for interpretations that undermine or even contradict perennial Catholic doctrine. The Catholic Church teaches that sacramental marriages end only by death, and that anyone in such a marriage who divorces and attempts to marry again commits adultery (cf. Matt. 5:31–32; 19:3–12; Mk. 10:2–12; Lk. 16:18; 1 Cor. 7:1–16). As adultery is a mortal sin that cuts off sanctifying grace to one’s soul, Catholics in so-called irregular marriages are not considered in a fit state to receive Holy Communion. Amoris Laetitia was criticized for overturning these teachings in a footnote. Recognizing the post-conciliar explosion in the number of Catholics who have divorced and illicitly remarried despite the doctrine, St. John Paul II taught in Familiaris Consortio that such Catholics may go to confession and receive Holy Communion as long as they live in perfect continence, or, in other words, as “brother and sister”: Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance, which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they “take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples.” [Familiaris Consortio, 180] Amoris Laetitia, however, has been used to permit people who have divorced and “remarried” to receive the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion without a promise to live in continence (footnote 351) and even to suggest that it would be wrong for people in adulterous unions to stop committing adultery. This suggestion, perhaps one of the most explosive innovations of Pope Francis’s pontificate, was all but buried in a footnote, Footnote 329, which misrepresented Gaudium et Spes: Gaudium et Spes was referring not to irregular unions here, but to legitimate marriages in which spouses are abstaining from marital union for a protracted period so as not to engender children. While the confusion and debate over Amoris Laetitia raged, four cardinals followed the normal procedures in sending Pope Francis questions or “dubia” regarding the theological implications of Amoris Laetitia. The pontiff has still not answered the dubia. However, on September 9, 2016, Francis wrote a private letter to the bishops of Argentina, which was leaked to the press, that their interpretation of Amoris Laetitia — i.e. to permit some irregularly married Catholics, even some with no intention of living in continence, to receive the sacraments after a period of penitential preparation — was the correct one.
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-amoris-opening-communion-to-adulterers-is-magisterium-of-the-church
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2019-12-07T00:38:00+00:00
| 1,575,697,080 | 1,575,720,143 |
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religious leader
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290,750 |
lifesitenews--2019-12-24--Rigid Catholics who won’t change are imbalanced, says Pope Francis in Christmas address
| 2019-12-24T00:00:00 |
lifesitenews
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Rigid Catholics who won’t change are imbalanced, says Pope Francis in Christmas address
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VATICAN CITY, December 23, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — In his annual Christmas address, Pope Francis advised the Vatican civil service not to allow “rigidity” to get in the way of “epochal change.” In his Dec. 21 address to the Curia, the Argentinian pontiff discussed the inevitability and necessity of change in the Church, and warned against “rigidity.” In the context of “the temptation to fall back on the past,” Pope Francis said: All of this has particular importance for our time, because what we are experiencing is not simply an epoch of changes, but an epochal change. We find ourselves living at a time when change is no longer linear, but epochal. It entails decisions that rapidly transform our ways of living, of relating to one another, of communicating and thinking, of how different generations relate to one another and how we understand and experience faith and science. Often we approach change as if were a matter of simply putting on new clothes, but remaining exactly as we were before. (...) Brothers and sisters, Christendom no longer exists! Today we are no longer the only ones who create culture, nor are we in the forefront or those most listened to. We need a change in our pastoral mindset, which does not mean moving towards a relativistic pastoral care. (...) Here, there is a need to be wary of the temptation to rigidity. A rigidity born of the fear of change, which ends up erecting fences and obstacles on the terrain of the common good, turning it into a minefield of incomprehension and hatred. Let us always remember that behind every form of rigidity lies some kind of imbalance. Rigidity and imbalance feed one another in a vicious circle. And today this temptation to rigidity has become very real. The pontiff has often preached against “rigidity,” which in his Apostolic Exhortation “Gaudete et exsultate” seems to mean resistance to change. Francis’ critics within the Church fear that this condemnation of rigidity is also reproof of those who adhere too faithfully to certain doctrines of the Church, like the insolubility of marriage. A curial employee who spoke to LifeSiteNews under condition of anonymity said the pope seems not to understand that psychological imbalance is not the only reason why people resist specific changes. “That is, some of his critics might oppose his ideas or plans for religious, academic, or practical reasons,” he said. “They may be right or wrong, but to suggest that anyone and everyone who resists your plans have mental or emotional problems is unfair and unjust,” he continued. “Pope Francis has often spoken of the need for dialogue, and he's right to do so. Presuming your interlocutors are psychologically impaired — or worse, in bad faith — makes dialogue all but impossible.” The Argentinian pontiff offered a quote by the recently canonized St. John Henry Newman to strengthen his argument that the Church must change to meet epochal changes. In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, the great Cardinal wrote “Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” But Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, the editor of Newman on Worship, Reverence, and Ritual: A Selection of Texts, says Newman was not calling for continual change. “It’s a favorite line with modern Jesuits because for them it means progressivism: continual change, evolution, doctrinal creativity,” Kwasniewski told LifeSiteNews via social media. “Ultimately, it means (to them that) we get to think and say things that are contrary to what we used to believe, or act in ways contrary to how we used to act,” he continued. “But that is not Newman's point at this moment in his Essay on the Development of Doctrine. He is talking about how the ‘idea’ (as he calls it) of Christianity expands, develops, diversifies, and enriches itself as it engages and is engaged with the world around it. It becomes more perfect in its self-understanding and self-expression through this interchange. One need only think about how the challenge of heresies brought forth the great Church Fathers to defend the deposit of faith.” Kwasniewski added that Newman had made “heavy use” of St. Vincent of Lerins in this work, and that St. Vincent had argued that this development was only a deepening and an articulation of what was already held before but ineptly expressed. “(St. Vincent) said it was not "mutatio" (substantial change) but "profectus" (growth, as of an acorn into an oak tree),” the author explained. “For example, a living organism grows more into itself, its own species and individual maturity, by consuming food from the outside world; it does not become something else,” he continued. “In that sense, Newman is saying that Catholicism becomes more fully itself by engaging the outer world ― not that it evolves from one kind of thing to another.” Kwaniewski added, “"Whatever inspiration Newman may or may not have contributed to this address, one thing is clear: for Pope Francis, to be perfect is to talk about change often." The pontiff mentioned “change” in his address over 30 times. Francis’ reasons for the need for change in the Vatican’s civil service stemmed from the dramatic demotion of Christianity as a force in Europe and the rest of the world. He noted that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (founded 1542) and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (founded 1622) were first established when there was a “Christian world” and “a world yet to be evangelized.” “Brothers and sisters, Christendom no longer exists,” Francis said. “Today we are no longer the only ones who create culture, nor are we in the forefront or those most listened to,” he continued. “ ... We are no longer living in a Christian world, because faith – especially in Europe, but also in a large part of the West – is no longer an evident presupposition of social life; indeed, faith is often rejected, derided, marginalized and ridiculed.” Pope Francis also quoted novelist Prince Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s famous line in Il Gattopardo (“The Leopard”), a novel that reflected on the decay and inevitable end of aristocratic life in Sicily. “If we want everything to stay the same, then everything has to change,” Francis said, echoing Lampedusa’s fictional character Tancredi Falconeri. The pontiff also quoted a “great man” as saying “tradition is the guarantee of the future and not a container of ashes.” The Vatican glossed this in its record of Pope Francis’ speech as “Gustav Mahler, taking up a metaphor used by Jean Jaurès.” Mahler (1860-1911), an Austrian Jew, was an influential composer of the Romantic era. The sentiment “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire” is often attributed to him. Jaurès (1859-1914) was a leader of the French Socialist Party. He said, “To be faithful to tradition is to be faithful to the flame and not to the ash.” (“Être fidèle à la tradition, c'est être fidèle à la flamme et non à la cendre.") The pontiff has used this reference before, most notably in an interview in Romania this summer, when he confirmed that Benedict XVI, who is nine years his senior, was like a grandfather to him. Francis said then that “... tradition does not preserve ashes; the nostalgia of fundamentalists (is) to return to the ashes.” The context of the pontiff’s latest reference to tradition and ashes was the ongoing reforms he wishes to make to the Curia. More conventionally, Pope Francis cited the words of Coptic Orthodox monk Matta El Meskeen, Clement of Alexandria, Benedict XVI, Paul VI, and the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. Francis’ own works are also cited. Citing Paul VI in the footnotes to his speech, the pontiff wrote, “Saint Paul VI, some 50 years ago, when presenting the new Roman Missal to the faithful, recalled the correspondence between the law of prayer (lex orandi) and the law of faith (lex credendi), and described the Missal as “a demonstration of fidelity and vitality.” Francis continued, “(Paul VI) concluded by saying: ‘So let us not speak of a ‘new Mass,’ but rather of ‘a new age in the life of the Church’ (General Audience, 19 November 1969).” “Analogously, we might also say in this case: not a new Roman Curia, but rather a new age.” Near the end of his speech, the pontiff quoted Cardinal Martini’s lament, spoken a few days before his death, that the Church is “200 years behind the times.”
| null |
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/rigid-catholics-who-wont-change-are-imbalanced-says-pope-francis-in-christmas-address
|
2019-12-24T00:38:00+00:00
| 1,577,165,880 | 1,577,188,916 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
149,776 |
drudgereport--2019-07-02--Dalai Lama sorry for saying female successor would be attractive
| 2019-07-02T00:00:00 |
drudgereport
|
Dalai Lama sorry for saying female successor would be 'attractive'...
|
The Dalai Lama apologized Tuesday for repeating remarks that if the next dalai lama were a woman, she should be "attractive." In an interview with the BBC, published June 27, the Dalai Lama was pressed on a comment he made in 2015 that if he were followed by a female dalai lama, she would need to be physically appealing. "He reaffirmed his belief that beauty matters as much as brains. 'If a female Dalai Lama comes, she should be more attractive,' he told me while laughing," the BBC article said. The Dalai Lama, who will turn 84 this week, told the BBC that inner and outer beauty are important in Buddhist literature, and stressed that he supported women's rights. A statement posted to the Dalai Lama's website Tuesday acknowledged that the comments had "caused disquiet." "His Holiness genuinely meant no offense. He is deeply sorry that people have been hurt by what he said and offers his sincere apologies," the statement said. "His Holiness consistently emphasizes the need for people to connect with each other on a deeper human level, rather than getting caught up in preconceptions based on superficial appearances," the statement said. "This is something everyone who has the chance to meet with him recognizes and appreciates." The Dalai Lama first made the remark about a woman dalai lama "as a joke" to the editor of Paris Vogue in 1992 because he was "working with a team whose prime focus was the world of high fashion," according to the statement. "It sometimes happens that off-the-cuff remarks, which might be amusing in one cultural context, lose their humor in translation when brought into another." "For all his long life, His Holiness has opposed the objectification of women, has supported women and their rights and celebrated the growing international consensus in support of gender equality and respect for women," the statement said. "His Holiness has frequently suggested that if we had more women leaders, the world would be a more peaceful place." The spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, who in 1959 fled to India, where he lives as a refugee, also drew criticism for his comments to the BBC about migrants and refugees, but the statement on his website said he was "misinterpreted." "European countries should take these refugees and give them education and training, and the aim is return to their own land with certain skills," the Dalai Lama said during the interview. "A limited number is OK, but the whole of Europe [will] eventually become Muslim country, African country — impossible." The statement released Tuesday said the Dalai Lama "appreciates that many of those who leave their countries may not wish or be able to return," and "also understands the uncertainties and difficulties of those in countries where refugees and migrants make their new homes." As a refugee himself, the Dalai Lama believes the ultimate goal for most refugees is to return to their home countries. During the BBC interview, the Dalai Lama also shared his strong opinion of President Donald Trump, saying the president's time in office has been marred by a "lack of moral principle." Still, the Dalai Lama, who has met with every president since George H.W. Bush, said he would be open to meeting with Trump, but he has never been asked.
| null |
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/dp5VE5hpAao/dalai-lama-sorry-saying-female-successor-would-have-be-attractive-n1025756
|
2019-07-02 22:58:39+00:00
| 1,562,122,719 | 1,567,537,274 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
171,254 |
eveningstandard--2019-04-10--Dalai Lama rushed to hospital in India for chest infection
| 2019-04-10T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
|
Dalai Lama rushed to hospital in India for chest infection
|
The Dalai Lama has been rushed to hospital in India with a chest infection, his private aide has said. The 83-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader flew from Dharmsala on Tuesday for a consultation with his doctors and was hospitalised. He is likely to spend a day or two in hospital, Tenzin Taklha said. Mr Taklha added that the Dalai Lama is feeling better and has cut down on travel in the past year to take care of his health. The Nobel peace laureate usually spends several months a year travelling the world to teach Buddhism and highlight the Tibetans' struggle for greater freedom in China. "Long-distance travelling is tiresome. Generally, he is in very good health. But he is taking precautions," he told The Associated Press. The Dalai Lama addressed a conference of educators and students in New Delhi last week. Answering a question related to Tibet's future with China, he reiterated that he is not seeking independence for Tibet, but would prefer a "reunion" with China under mutually acceptable terms. China took control of Tibet in 1950 and sees the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist. It is unclear and remains a contentious who will succeed the Dalai Lama when he dies. Who will succeed the Dalai Lama when he dies remains both unclear and contentious. He has reiterated that any leader named by China would not be accepted by Tibetans.
|
Bonnie Christian
|
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dalai-lama-rushed-to-hospital-in-india-for-chest-infection-a4113761.html
|
2019-04-10 06:08:36+00:00
| 1,554,890,916 | 1,567,543,289 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
178,210 |
eveningstandard--2019-06-27--Dalai Lama shares his views on Brexit saying UK should have voted Remain
| 2019-06-27T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
|
Dalai Lama shares his views on Brexit, saying UK should have voted Remain
|
The Dalai Lama has delivered his opinion on Brexit, saying he believes the UK should have voted to remain in Europe. In an interview with the BBC's South Asia Correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan at the Dalai Lama's residence in northern India, the spiritual leader was asked his views on the EU referendum. Sharing his opinion on Brexit, he said that despite being an outsider, he believed that it is better to remain in the European Union as he was an admirer of the bloc's "spirit." He said: “I am one admirer of the spirit of the European Union. "I’m an outsider, but I feel it is better to remain in the union. He had previously distanced himself from the Leave campaign after they used one of his quotes on a poster. It said: “The goal should be that migrants return and help rebuild their countries. “You have to be practical. It’s impossible for everyone to come.” When quizzed about the poster, which he did not give permission for and previously distanced himself from, he responded: “The European countries should take these refugees and give them an education and training, and then aiming to return to their own land. He said a “limited number” should be able to stay in Europe but added “the whole of Europe become a Muslim country? Impossible. Or African country, also impossible. “They themselves I think better to their own land. Keep Europe for Europeans.” Last September, the Dalai Lama said Europe was "morally responsible" to help refugees facing danger. But he sparked anger when he said they should return home to "develop their own country." He was speaking at a conference in Malmo, Sweden, when he made the controversial comments. In 2016, he told a German newspaper that there were "too many refugees" in Europe, adding "Germany cannot become an Arab country." In the BBC interview, he also said Donald Trump showed a "lack of moral principle." The 14th Dalai Lama spoke about President Trump, saying America should take “global responsibility.” He added: “His emotions are a little bit too complicated. “One day he says something, another day he says something, but I think there’s a lack of moral principle. “When he became president, he expressed ‘America first’ – that is wrong.” Traditionally the spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama has lived in India since China occupied the Himalayan state in 1950.
|
Megan White
|
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dalai-lama-shares-his-views-on-brexit-saying-uk-should-have-voted-remain-a4177026.html
|
2019-06-27 07:49:00+00:00
| 1,561,636,140 | 1,567,537,833 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
178,406 |
eveningstandard--2019-06-28--Dalai Lama faces criticism as he reaffirms belief that female successor must be aposattractiveapo
| 2019-06-28T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
|
Dalai Lama faces criticism as he reaffirms belief that female successor must be 'attractive'
|
The Dalai Lama has been criticised as holding up a "double standard" after he reiterated his belief that a female successor would have to be “attractive”. The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism has said that people would not want to look at a female Dalai Lama’s face if she was not attractive. Speaking during a recent BBC interview at his residence in Himachal Pradesh in northern India, he said: “"If female Dalai Lama comes, then she should be more attractive." The 83-year-old made the comments in a response to being questioned on comments he made in 2015, when he said that a female successor would need to be “very, very attractive” or she would be “not much use”. BBC News South Asia correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan had asked him if he understood that his comments could be perceived as objectification or offensive to women. She continued to ask whether the mantle of the Dalai Lama should be about who a person is on the inside. Many people around the world took to social media to express their disappointment at the spiritual leader’s statement. "Sounds like the same old double standard that's been in place for centuries. Males can rise to power as ugly toads, but a woman must possess beauty and charm," one person wrote. But some Twitter users also argued that his response may have been misinterpreted. One commenter tweeted: “I think by attractive he means happy, smiling, kind, not looks. "If you are those things you would be beautiful on the inside and it would radiate outwardly." In his interview, the Dalai lama also criticised US President Donald Trump for his “lack of moral principle”. He said that he felt “sad” when he saw photographs of young children at the US-Mexico border, being treated badly by the administration.
|
Rebecca Speare-Cole
|
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dalai-lama-faces-criticism-as-he-reaffirms-belief-that-female-successor-must-be-attractive-a4178451.html
|
2019-06-28 15:29:45+00:00
| 1,561,750,185 | 1,567,537,674 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
179,068 |
eveningstandard--2019-07-03--Dalai Lama aposdeeply sorryapos over comments about aposattractiveapos female successor
| 2019-07-03T00:00:00 |
eveningstandard
|
Dalai Lama 'deeply sorry' over comments about 'attractive' female successor
|
The Dalai Lama has apologised for saying any woman succeeding him would have to be “attractive”. The Tibetan spiritual leader faced sharp criticism after he suggested people would not want to look at a female Dalai Lama’s face if she was not good-looking. A statement from his office apologised for the remarks and insisted the Buddhist teacher had simply made a poorly judged joke. It read: "He is deeply sorry that people have been hurt by what he said and offers his sincere apologies.” “It sometimes happens that off the cuff remarks, which might be amusing in one cultural context, lose their humour in translation when brought into another. “He regrets any offence that may have been given." It added that the Dalai Lama had always opposed the objectification of women and supported gender equality. The spiritual leader, who turns 84 this week, made the controversial statement during an interview at his residence in Himachal Pradesh, northern India. BBC News South Asia correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan questioned him about comments he made in 2015, when he said that a female successor would need to be “very, very attractive” or she would be “not much use”. Responding in English, he reiterated his previous suggestions, laughing: “If a female Dalai Lama comes, she should be more attractive.” In the rest of the interview, the 83-year-old touched on topics including his dreams of returning to Tibet, US President Donald Trump, and refugees seeking asylum in countries across the world. He said that he felt “sad” when he saw photographs of young children at the US-Mexico border being treated badly by the administration and criticised the president for his “lack of moral principle”. His office issued no apology for these comments on Mr Trump.
|
Harriet Brewis
|
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dalai-lama-apology-attractive-female-successor-a4181191.html
|
2019-07-03 10:39:41+00:00
| 1,562,164,781 | 1,567,537,021 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
348,923 |
newspunch--2019-06-27--Keep Europe For Europeans Says Dalai Lama
| 2019-06-27T00:00:00 |
newspunch
|
“Keep Europe For Europeans” Says Dalai Lama
|
The Dalai Lama does not want to see Europe become “Muslim” or “African” saying it must be kept for Europeans. During an interview with the BBC the Dalai Lama also said he believed the UK would be better to remain part of the EU and that the US President Donald Trump is lacking in moral principle MSN reports: Asked about the US president, whom the Tibetan spiritual leader has previously unflatteringly impersonated, he said: “His emotions [are] also a little bit,” and made a gesture waggling his finger near his temple. “One day he says something, another day he says something. But I think [there is a] lack of moral principle. When he became president, he expressed America first. That is wrong. America, they should take the global responsibility.” The Dalai Lama was asked about the EU, of which he said he was an admirer: “I am [an] outsider, but I feel better [to] remain in the European Union.” The interviewer, the BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan, pointed out the campaign for Britain to leave the EU used one of the Dalai Lama’s quotes about migration to Europe as part of its campaign. “The goal should be that migrants return and help rebuild their countries. You have to be practical. It’s impossible for everyone to come,” he had said. The Dalai Lama reiterated this position, saying that while European countries should take in refugees and educate and train them, the aim should be to return them to their home countries. Asked if refugees should be allowed to stay in Europe if they wished to, he said only a limited number ought to be able to remain. “But [for the] whole [of] Europe [to] eventually become [a] Muslim country? Impossible. Or [an] African country, also impossible,” he said while laughing, adding: “Keep Europe for Europeans.” The Dalai Lama was also asked about comments he made in 2015 that if a female Dalai Lama were to replace him then she must be “very attractive, otherwise not much use”. He laughed when asked if he understood why the response had offended women, saying: “If [a] female Dalai Lama comes then she should be more attractive. If [a] female Dalai Lama,” before pulling a face, “I think, [people would] prefer not [to] see her, that face.” The Dalai Lama also said he had not given up hope of returning to Tibet, from which he has been exiled since 1959, and that he has been in contact with senior retired Chinese officials. He said he thought the Chinese people were changing their attitudes.
|
Niamh Harris
|
https://newspunch.com/keep-europe-for-europeans-says-dalai-lama/
|
2019-06-27 14:17:04+00:00
| 1,561,659,424 | 1,567,537,854 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
377,703 |
newyorkpost--2019-06-28--Dalai Lama still thinks a female successor must be attractive
| 2019-06-28T00:00:00 |
newyorkpost
|
Dalai Lama still thinks a female successor must be ‘attractive’
|
The Dalai Lama has reiterated his desire that if a woman succeeds him, she better be good looking. “If [a] female Dalai Lama comes, then she should be more attractive,” the 83-year-old spiritual guru told BBC News in a wide-ranging interview that aired Wednesday. BBC reporter Rajini Vaidyanathan pressed him on his original comments from 2015, in which he said that his female successor “must be attractive, otherwise it is not much use.” “If [a] female Dalai Lama comes, then she should be more attractive. If [a] female Dalai Lama — ” he told Vaidyanathan, while scrunching his face up, “then people I think prefer not [to] see that face.” Vaidyanathan asked whether he understood why his remarks sparked outrage. “There’s an opportunity to ask whether they spent some money for makeup,” he replied. “I think they must do something.”
|
Lia Eustachewich
|
https://nypost.com/2019/06/28/dalai-lama-still-thinks-a-female-successor-must-be-attractive/
|
2019-06-28 14:59:07+00:00
| 1,561,748,347 | 1,567,537,747 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
478,623 |
russiainsider--2019-07-05--Dalai Lama Doubles Down Insists That Europe Should Send Migrants Home
| 2019-07-05T00:00:00 |
russiainsider
|
Dalai Lama Doubles Down, Insists That Europe Should Send Migrants Home
|
In September 2018 Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, sent many leftist-liberal deviants into meltdown mode by stating that Europe belongs to Europeans and that refugees should return to their home countries in order to rebuild them. It was a fantastic quote because usually when people say things like this, they are called a racist or a Nazi or a white supremacist. But the Dalai Lama is a wise, much-respected man, who has dedicated his life towards helping humanity. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for being A Buddhist Advocate for Peace and Freedom, and here he was, saying that Europe belongs to Europeans. There were quite a few left-wing types who tied themselves in knots while trying to string together a response. Fail: The majority of level-headed people, however, responded by saying something along the lines of “The Dalai Lama seems like a reasonable guy. Maybe that’s a reasonable suggestion too.” The British Bias Corporation (BBC) were clearly displeased with what the Dalai Lama had said due to the fact that they chose not to report on it. The only article the BBC did publish during his September 2018 European tour was an article about him meeting some alleged victims of religious abuse. More recently, the Dalai Lama was interviewed by BBC Correspondent, Rajini Vaidyanathan, who couldn’t wait to quiz him on his “controversial” comments. The Dalai Lama was impudently quizzed by the BBC’s sanctimonious presenter about his comments on refugees and migration where he’d said Europe is for Europeans. His answer was surprising. The Dalai Lama only went and doubled down; the absolute legend that he is. According to the BBC, the Dalai Lama gave the wrong answer. Vaidyanathan tweeted after her interview that she found the idea of Europe being for Europeans controversial and she found the Dalai Lama’s answer “surprising”. How detached must you be from reality and majority thinking to find the idea of Europe remaining European controversial? Or morally corrupt. Ethnic-Europeans and indeed all ethnic groups who value their culture were taken aback at the nerve of her question: “There’s nothing wrong with (Europe) becoming African or Muslim, is there? You yourself are a refugee.” Yes, Rajini Vaidyanathan. There is something wrong with that. And you shouldn’t have to ask why. But since you did: How about, because Europe will no longer be European, it will just be Africa or somewhere else? How about, because we’ll no longer have a place to call home, where our people and culture can thrive? How about, because we don’t want to live under Sharia law? How about, because the rose-tinted picture that you multicultural-fetishists paint isn’t grounded in reality, and instead we’ll just end up being hated minorities in our own countries? It turns out that Rajini Vaidyanathan isn’t a multicultural-fetishist after all. Or perhaps she is, but only for other people’s homes. Vaidyanathan wrote an article for the BBC in 2011 called “Why I came ‘home’ to India”, in which she revealed that, even though she was born in England, she always “felt a strong connection to India and its culture and customs.” After a trip to India when she was 10-years-old, a place that she describes as her “motherland”, she recalls landing back in Heathrow, London, with her father: “I recall landing back at Heathrow, holding my dad’s hand as we walked through immigration. “Dad, I have just realised that everyone looks different again.”, a place where everyone had the same skin tone and cultural mannerisms, continued to bug me. He laughed, but the naïve realisation that I also ‘belonged’ somewhere else This realisation bugged Vaidyanathan so much that she chose to move to India. What was it about a piece of land 4-and-a-half thousand miles away that she considered home? Of course, it was the people, the culture, the history, the language, the customs, and the traditions. How would Vaidyanathan feel if an ethnic-European had said to her “What’s wrong with India becoming African or Muslim?” Rajini Vaidyanathan wrote that her parents moved to England because they “saw far more opportunity in the UK” than what was available in India. Yet despite Brtish hospitality, she insults and undermines the very culture that offered her family these chances. Europeans too feel at home among our own people, our own culture, our own language, and our own traditions, and she has no right to attempt to diminish what’s so important to us, while at the same cherishing the same thing for her own. Those of us who aren’t massive hypocrites, those of us who don’t support the demographic replacement of one group while denying the same for our own, realise, that the Dalai Lama of all people, will understand the massive damage that demographic replacement entails. Michael Walsh was awarded ‘Writer of the Year 2011’. With 60 books bearing his name, thousands of new stories and columns, Michael is arguably Britain and Europe’s most prolific author of multi-topic books none of which have been ghost-written. MICHAEL WALSH is a journalist, broadcaster and the author of RISE OF THE SUN WEEL, EUROPE ARISE, TROTSKY’S WHITE NEGROES, MEGACAUST, THE ALLIED INVASION. DEATH OF A CITY, WITNESS TO HISTORY, THE BUSINESS BOOSTER and THE FIFTH COLUMN VOLUME I and II, and other book titles.
|
Mike Walsh
|
https://russia-insider.com/en/dalai-lama-doubles-down-insists-europe-should-send-migrants-home/ri27384
|
2019-07-05 08:07:00+00:00
| 1,562,328,420 | 1,567,536,717 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
530,797 |
sputnik--2019-04-10--Dalai Lama Hospitalized with Chest Infection - Reports
| 2019-04-10T00:00:00 |
sputnik
|
Dalai Lama Hospitalized with Chest Infection - Reports
|
"Today [Tuesday] morning his holiness felt some discomfort, and he was flown to Delhi for [a] checkup … Doctors have diagnosed him with chest infection, and he is being treated for that. His condition is stable now. He will be treated for two [to] three days here", Tenzin Taklha told Reuters. The Tibetan spiritual leader has been living in exile in India since China formally took over Tibet in 1959. Beijing has demanded that India stop using the Dalai Lama, who visited the Arunachal Pradesh, India's northeastern-most state, which borders Tibet, six times between 1983 and 2009, to undermine China’s interests and focus on deescalating tensions between the two powers. Tibet is an autonomous region that seeks independence from China. Relations between the region and Beijing are tense, as many Tibetans accuse Chinese authorities of suppressing Tibetan culture, as well as freedom of expression and worship. Tibet's government-in-exile is based in India.
| null |
https://sputniknews.com/world/201904101073977834-dalai-lama-chest-infection/
|
2019-04-10 00:12:00+00:00
| 1,554,869,520 | 1,567,543,371 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
531,115 |
sputnik--2019-04-12--Dalai Lama Discharged from Indian Hospital After 3-Day Treatment - Report
| 2019-04-12T00:00:00 |
sputnik
|
Dalai Lama Discharged from Indian Hospital After 3-Day Treatment - Report
|
New Delhi (Sputnik): The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, Dalai Lama, was discharged from a private hospital in New Delhi on Friday morning where he was admitted three days earlier due to a chest infection, reported AFP news agency. The 83-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader was admitted to Max Hospital in New Delhi on Tuesday. He had been diagnosed with an infection in his respiratory system. He had returned to his abode at Dharamshala in the state of Himachal Pradesh a day earlier on Monday, and had to be rushed back to Delhi on the next day due to a "light cough", his personal secretary and spokesperson Tenzin Taklha was quoted as saying by media reports. Apprising AFP of the Dalai Lama's recovery, Taklha said that the spiritual leader was back to his normal routine and was doing some exercises. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is expected to remain in New Delhi for some time. He will eventually return to Dharamshala where he has been living in exile for the last six decades after fleeing the Chinese takeover of the Tibetan capital Lhasa in 1959.
| null |
https://sputniknews.com/asia/201904121074060994-dalai-lama-discharged-hospital/
|
2019-04-12 06:38:00+00:00
| 1,555,065,480 | 1,567,543,103 |
religion and belief
|
religious leader
|
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