The Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF)

The worthy cause of air transport

At the news of the AF 447 air crash I was having a conversation with my good friend who had sojourned in Papua New Guinea for 2 years where he had at times had to travel to the most remote areas not reachable with regular means of transport.

He told me of MAF, the Mission Aviation Fellowship [1] which offers much needed transport to remote unprofitable areas in uncharted regions all around the world, in Papua New Guinea he found the lifeline of the services invaluable both to himself and the communities he liaised with.

I found their website and just from the first page was immediately inspired to instinctively support their efforts with a small donation.

Not trendy but essential

This afternoon, I received an acknowledgement of my small gift and more information about the work they are doing and how it is affecting people’s lives.

Now, the work of MAF is not pop star celebrity stuff, it would probably not attract the proponents or Live or Dead Aid but their selfless charitable service which is of the highest professional order with their scarce resources is more than commendable and should be supported by well-meaning people of the world.

That it is a Christian charity is beside the point though it presents a basis for the work they do in saving lives, bringing help, facilitating communication and engendering healthy existence with rural and sometime far-off communities, and obviously, there is a missionary component to these efforts.

I publish here, the thank you letter I received from them and urge you to consider the Mission Aviation Fellowship as part of your charitable giving portfolio.

Thanks.

The appreciation

Thank you indeed for your kind gift of £___ via our website. We receive so many calls to help make a significant difference to isolated men, women and children in all kinds of need, and we are so glad you are part of our team.

While the thought of catching any kind of ’flu worries people in our own country, imagine what it must be like to live with almost no healthcare. That’s why, at Madundas in Tanzania, 224 children were presented to doctors and nurses on a flying visit with our Mbeya Safari.

Almost 200 of the children were given vaccinations against at least one of polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis and measles. Give thanks that doubtless that day means more young children will now go on to live healthier lives.

We have taken delivery of our first new Kodiak 100 aircraft in the USA. The Kodiak operates on jet fuel rather than Avgas which is more expensive and scarce. Please pray that God will provide the resources for us to be able to upgrade our fleet with more Kodiaks.

The first Kodiak is expected to enter service soon in mountainous Papua, Indonesia, where there is a tremendous need for aircraft. In the past few weeks, our current planes there have carried a patient with a broken back, an unconscious pregnant lady, a teenager with a broken arm and leg, a lady needing a Caesarean section, another pregnant lady with an enlarged spleen and liver, and a man whose hand had been cut in machinery.

Also, a load of Dani Bibles was delivered to Mulia. Pray that those who read these Bibles will have their eyes opened to spiritual truth.

Once again, thank you for your practical partnership.

Yours sincerely,

(Name Supplied, Supporter Relations)

Sources

[1] MAF-UK Flying for Life

[2] MAF to Dedicate First KODIAK 100 - Mission Aviation Fellowship

Home - Mission Aviation Fellowship – International web site

Archbishop thought child sexual abuse was not criminal

A moral evil of no criminal import

Just a week ago I wrote about how the trust parents and society reposed in institutions that care for or educate children was betrayed and how children became victims of abuse with no means of being heard out and helped.

The strength of feeling presented in that blog had not begun to ebb when I came across a comment made by a one-time American Catholic Archbishop thus [1], “We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature.”

My blood boiled like I had just unfortunately fallen out of the pincer-grip of a giant man-eating crab into the gaping fire and brimstone of hell and my skin crawled like a million scorpions had awakened under my epidermis.

The clergy beyond the law

Somehow, Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland [2] had weakly found a way of splitting hairs between the moral evil and criminal act of abusing children.

It is strange that if a child were abused by the non-clergy, the abuser would be a paedophile but by this definition as espoused by a person of the Catholic Church hierarchy, it is just a moral evil – if I may add of self-gratification where innocent children are conscripted into pederasty and made catamites for inordinate desire of evil people pretending to be holy and consecrated to the service of God.

Most revered and respected

The Most Reverend Rembert George Weakland who apparently belongs to the Order of Saint Benedict [3] and thereby is a Benedictine monk under the Rule of Saint Benedict [4] “resigned” his Archbishopric in 2002 when it was revealed that he paid $450,000 of diocesan fund to a man who accused him of date rape in 1998, however, that was also the year he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75, the coincidence making his retirement rather ignominious at the time.

Weakland is in the process of writing his memoirs and in it he gives insight into his complicity in reassigning known priest abusers to other parishes without informing parishioners.

In civil society, a known sex offender in the US or the UK would be on a sex offender’s register having probably served time for their offences and key members of the community would know of that offender’s presence in order to prevent a situation where children can be groomed and preyed on.

Growing out of it

Obviously, these are recent developments, in the Catholic Church the archbishop avers without much conviction or empathy but with breathataking naivety that “My general reasoning was that there were probably some kids who 'grew out of it,' and then some who were deeply disturbed for life.”

We thank God for those who presumable “grew out of it”, but for those who were deeply disturbed for life, I do wonder for the kind of eternal retribution that awaits the priests who stole their childhoods and sentenced the children to an unimaginably dark life whilst they walked away scot free, free of blame, free of sanction and free to take tribute as holy men.

It beggars belief that this kind of thinking prevailed in the mind of very religious and erudite senior members of the clergy who had the power to change things and ensure the abuse stopped forthwith.

As the Archbishop of Milwaukee for 25 years from 1977 to 2002, he presided over a diocese where a chronicle of 800 pages titled The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee [5] highlights the systematic management, toleration and rotation of child sexual abusers in the diocese.

Rotating the abusers

It would appear that the Catholic Church did know about these abuses and the re-assignment of suspect priests from as far back as 1985 but very little was done as Father Thomas Brundage stated as the beginning of that chronicle – “After 1985, all churches in the United States were on notice that they cannot put priests who have had incidents of having sexual abuse in parishes or any setting where they would have access to children. For the church authorities to have allowed this to happen was sinful, more than negligent, and I believe they should be held accountable.”

The Most Reverend Weakland’s humiliation would have been complete with the deposition [6] he gave on the 5^th and 6^th of June that ran into 312 pages, fully transcribed and highlighting the activities of 13 named priests.

From America to Ireland

But this is just one diocese in America, in 2007, the Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles paid child abuse claims of $660 million [7] and in the Republic of Ireland where Colm O’Gorman [8] became of the first of many to report abuse to the civil authorities and hold the church and its hierarchy accountable [9] for abuse, he was awarded EUR 300,000 in damages in 2003.

Colm O’Gorman has just published a book, Beyond Belief [10], where he highlights the reality for many an abused child “I was living in a world where a priest who spoke the words of God used me for sex, and there was no-one to tell.”, for “priest who spoke the words of God”, consider father, brother, uncle, sister, mother, aunt, teacher, pastor, person of authority, respected community figure, the list is endless.

Colm O’Gorman was on BBC HardTalk [11] last week where the questions were hard to ask, harder to respond to and almost too hard to comprehend in hearing that any of this could really have happened on God’s own earth and Ireland in particular, but the publication of The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse [12] was a revelation that turned the stomach with unprecedented revulsion.

Is the abuse in Africa too?

The next big question then is, is all this institutionalised child sexual abuse only in America and Ireland or is the current revelation the tip of the iceberg of atrocious moral evils that might be taking place in South America, Africa and Asia?

Places where people in religious authority are held in high esteem, where child sexual abuse could be seen as the collateral taking of spoils for the greater good that these institutions bring to society. Thereby, the end satisfactory justifies the means.

Where the child abused sees it as part of the sacrifice for a better life in the future, where even if parents or the authorities knew of all this abuse the child would be berated, scolded and threatened into absolute silent and pliancy.

Until people start to speak up about familial and institutional abuse in these places rather than allowing the fear of shame to perpetuate an unspeakable evil, the abuse would continue and abusers would congregate to take their sexual favours off our children – IT MUST STOP!, but it can only stop when people start to speak up.

Sources

[1] ‘We did not know that child abuse was a crime,’ says retired Catholic archbishop

[2] Rembert Weakland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] Order of Saint Benedict - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Rule of Saint Benedict - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee

[6] Deposition of Archbishop Rembert Weakland

[7] Catholic Church pays off paedophile accusers [akin.blog-city.com]

[8] Colm O'Gorman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[9] BBC NEWS | Programmes | Correspondent | Suing the Pope - Colm's story

[10] Beyond Belief by Colm O’Gorman

[11] BBC iPlayer - HARDtalk: Colm O'Gorman – Only playable for UK residents, this iPlayerList might eventually work sometime in the future, it is under development.

[12] The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse

Child sexual abuse requires greater parental indignation

Where is the outrage?

Words have begun to fail me before I have finished the first paragraph but I will not relent until what is to be written is written.

I cannot muster enough righteous indignation to the lack of boiling outrage to the report about the abuse of children in Ireland and the implications to abuse all around the world vested in the bosom of the Catholic Church.

I know some abuse

My interest is simple; I was first sexually abused at 7 and then even though we lead a seemingly privileged life by Nigerian standards of having servants, cooks, gardeners, security men and drivers, that in itself bought other issues.

These were people employed by my parents or the companies my father worked for who were trusted by my parents to ensure that we were well cared for, safe and out of harm’s way.

Some of these people were sponsored even up to tertiary education level by my parents, but behind the scenes at least 3 of the male servants took sexual favours by inducement, enticement and veiled threats – between the ages of 7 and 11, I do wonder if I was a sexual deviant, a willing participant in games or an abused child in sexual activity with people at least in their 20s.

Tough but bearable

I cannot say any of the abuse was systematic, persistent or violent, but it was sustained, I welcomed my parents home, they none the wiser, the servants expressed their loyalties and things just happened.

I went to a co-educational boarding school, it was tough in terms of discipline and the regimented lifestyle, I was at one time bullied but the whole experience was hardly indelible to the extent of leaving psychological scars, I was fortunate, I was lucky.

I talk about it for the hopeful benefit of helping others walk away from those nasty events of their past but nothing I went through can compare in any manner to the things other children went through as revealed in the reports of The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse [1].

A charity camp in a church

It is sorrowfully and painfully heartrending to read of the sustained, systematic and endemic abuse [2] in Catholic-run children’s institutions in Ireland, it has taken over 8 years to fully compile this report but it has done little to assuage the pain of the victims.

I am compelled to put Concentration Camp, Christian Charity and Catholic Church side by side as synonyms of each other and until much is done to bring the perpetrators to justice, I hope that this alignment gains more momentum.

It is societal compassion that compels us to seek ways of caring for children who are orphans or seriously underprivileged and somehow in our naivety we believed that Christian Charities had volumes of the milk of human kindness to care and cater for the wellbeing of these children.

Our faith and trust in them

Even parents thought these Catholic institutions would instil both discipline and Christian conduct in their children such that many sent their children to these places.

For those children with parents, they probably suffered less but those for whom society had bequeathed the trust of parenthood and guardianship to the agents of the Catholic Church seemed to have been sentenced to hell on earth and here we were thinking they were been brought up as goodly Christian ladies and gentlemen.

The nuns and the priests terrorised the children, raped and molested many, these places were residential homes to society but the reality for the children who lived in these places was akin to concentration camps.

The children were not gassed but what they suffered is heinously unspeakable, and unfortunately, I do not see enough indignation and outrage to bring the perpetrators to justice.

This was a Christian Charity running Concentration Camps supported by the Catholic Church; reprehensible does not begin to help appreciate the situation, when shall we really lose faith and exact judgement?

Secrecy and succour to the perpetrators

These were children who had no voice, who when they spoke suffered more privation and violence than we can ever imagine and now that the atrocious acts have been exposed it is unfortunate that we see the faces of the damaged children now adults but those holy priests and nuns are given succour within the church.

Like concentration camp commandants and guards, when they have done their evil in one place and they were at the risk of exposure, the church moved them to another concentration camp where they had new children to abuse and gratify their sadistic perversion in the light of their vows of celibacy.

The Catholic Church is complicit in the abuse of the children and paying up for the abuse does not half address the way our trust, hope and faith in Christian Charity has been dashed, shattered and damaged.

Suffer the children not make the children suffer

If we as a society will do nothing about this, I would go back to where the idea of real Christian Charity to children began.

The parents brought their children to Jesus, he touched them and blessed them and the disciples saw this and began to rebuke the parents, it is there that Jesus then said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” [Luke 18:16 KJV]

The idea here is than a child enters a Christian situation to be blessed and their character, implicit trust and faith in the people who care for them is characteristic of those of seek the kingdom of God. Where a child has had this trust breached by adults gratifying their inordinate and despicable desires through persistent and systematic abuse, what we have is children made to suffer rather than children suffered to see Christian goodness.

Millstones and necks in the sea

To those people who have damaged the children, Jesus had one message to whoever has the authority to carry out the right and just action. “These little ones believe in me. It would be best for the person who causes one of them to lose faith to be drowned in the sea with a large stone hung around his neck.” [Matthew 18:6 GWT]

I find no ambiguity or equivocation in that statement, these children arrived in these residential homes with the hope that they would find succour and preparation for worthwhile lives, they found hell meted out by trusted religious figures given the responsibility for their care.

They caused these children to lose faith, in other translations, they offended the children, they caused them to stumble, they caused them to sin – for all the heinous acts committed against the children, if the least is to cause them to lose faith – lose faith in society, in Christian Charity, in mentoring, in hope and the will to live, the statement is the same.

Put a weighty millstone around their necks as one translation says and drown them in the sea. These abusers by the basic invocation of Jesus Christ do not deserve another day of oxygen, they were not to be hanged or crucified which is the punishment of the day but thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around their necks.

Only the severest punishments should suffice

It calls on any form of justice that we might have in our seemingly civilised world to address this abuse in the most exacting way, the severest punishment we can find in our law books without any recourse parole, rehabilitation or reconsideration.

I am no death penalty advocate, but if that be on the books of the countries in which the act was perpetrated then that should be the just punishment. However, I see no necks to put weighty millstones around and there is no sea in sight.

Where is the honour in the Catholic Church?

It is incumbent on the church not only to apologise and show contrition through condemnation of the acts, they should follow the Christ-like idea to its conclusion – expose these vermin and have the law take its full course.

We still hunt after Nazi criminals, more so should be hunt down child abusers, I would dare to equate their acts with those of the Nazi regime, in fact, their acts for the way it has affected the victims is probably worse.

The church must be compelled to cooperate in exposing all those involved in serious criminal activity; society must not be complacent with being blindsided by the religious entities when they harbour criminals.

Parents must speak up

Most of all, if you are a parent and are not already filled with outrage about this, I do wonder.

The children once had parents, I do not think it was the wish of their parents to leave their children orphans and in the least if they had any choice in the matter, they would have liked for society to care for their children in some loving and caring way.

If I were a parent I would want to know that if I expressly left my child in the care of anyone they were really being cared for in the way I would where I also have a choice in choosing the carer and where I can make none of the choices, I will still have those expectations.

Where children have no parents, I would be hopeful that other parents in society would offer the blanket of parent care or at least parental oversight to ensure the children are not used and abused. What has been exposed is bad enough, their sure is much abuse going on still somewhere in our neighbourhoods and it all should stop.

The children lost their childhood, it was taken from them by people we trusted would do a good job on behalf of society under the auspices of the church – if this matter ends here, we have done our humanity a great injustice and the victims a second injustice – we should be bold enough to take the scare out care.

Sources

[1] BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Abuse report - at a glance

[2] Sex abuse 'endemic' in Catholic institutions - Telegraph

A OneWorld garland on the Gates

Agreeing to disagree

Somehow, it would appear that on some issues that pertain to corporate social responsibility and really getting things done to bring that into sharp focus, I would be at variance with my fellow blogger at Black Looks.

Like the subject of my last entry, Bill and Melinda Gates are back in the fray having been nominated by OneWorld.net as Persons of the Year 2006 – as it were, in the piece One world sycophants, not only does the proponent castigate the award on the displeasure of the news that the foundation that the Gates’ founded invests in companies that have poor corporate social responsibility ratings, this investment exposé is now becoming the measure by which all other good works of this foundation is viewed and by that, negatively.

The advocacy goes on to encourage readers to challenge the nomination on the basis of their investing in these companies without any regard for what good work they are involved in.

The rise of philanthro-phobia

Unfortunately, I do not share the views on this matter as we now see with celebrity adoptions, Oprah’s school, voices against poverty, war and genocide; there is a swell of philanthro-phobia where an activism of seeming to know what is best, how best, who best, where best, if best, whether better – of qualified and charlatan anthropologists who crystal ball the effects of every good deed that should come to nought because it does not fit into a some pre-conceived concept of giving and saintly sinlessness.

Carlos Slim who is from Mexico where his people are crossing the border to the north in droves is the 3rd richest man in the world behind Bill and Warren.

He must be glad that he is not directly involved in the kind of philanthropy that his other rich peers have engaged in.

Having been stung for being tight-fisted and parsimonious, he offered to match dollar for dollar every charitable donation made in Mexico; however, all this bad press that some philanthropists are receiving because, we are beginning to burden them with responsibilities that other legitimate organs have failed to implement as their fiduciary and appointed duties, might have some generous hearts thinking twice.

What do we expect from philanthropists?

I use the word burden with conviction because it is not the responsibility of philanthropists to take on functions of government and legislature, even in areas of full social responsibility, and though some have espoused those causes, real change would only come with a concerted international agreement of binding standards as we are beginning to see with the issue of global warming issues.

Philanthropists are going from the usual "write a cheque and walk away" approach into an involved and participatory occupation of giving with good sense; however, it would seem they have walked into a sociological minefield and come against the meanness of left-wing activism.

Oprah exemplifies that situation when the government, the architects and the people could not latch onto her vision for an exclusive school for would-be leaders who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Typical anthropologists could not see the good fortune that would befall the girls, rather, more were concerned that such poor girls must not be served up this quality of life – I really find that outlook utterly, utterly deplorable.

Maybe all these foundations should withdraw into a hands-off situation where they supervise nothing but throw money at inefficient, bureaucracy-laden NGOs and corrupt governments.

Activism versus persuasive dialogue

This crusade for corporate responsibility and full social responsibility has to be tempered with the fact that these people are within their rights not to give any of their money if all this activism goes on denigrating and antagonising their philanthropism - then what?

Definitely, we should bring issues to the attention of these philanthropists, if our arguments are compelling enough, indeed, they would take these burning issues on board than if we congregated outside their gates in civil disturbance with placards of unhelpful platitudes and abuse or what is now the Internet equivalent of activism through blogs and similar outlets. I don’t do marches and I don’t do protests, I do negotiations, agreements and settlements.

I would be writing to support the award from One World as I believe that the march to social responsibility is on-going - if with our democracies, our liberties and our freedoms and most especially our governments and international agencies we have not been able to enforce this drive for full social responsibility - why pick on philanthropists to enforce issues we have failed to garner support for through what should be the appropriate channels?

A self-defeating crusade

This crusade is wrong-headed, poorly-argued and radically mis-directed - for all intents and purposes - that One World nomination for Bill and Melinda Gates is well deserved in my humble opinion, in the light of the good they have done and brought to people who need help.

One other thing is persuasion through dialogue can reach further than when activists dig trenches, because of the disordered representation, lobbyists are engaged to infiltrate their ranks and the discredit their stance – this kind of activism seizes the headlines but in achieving its goals there is a seething atmosphere of animosity – No, definitely not my thing.