Pedophiles tempted by Satan..!.[ 738 ]

Top Catholic exorcist: Pedophiles tempted by Satan, not possessed

From Morgan Neill and Hada Messia, CNN

Exorcist: Pedophiles 'tempted'

Rome, Italy (CNN) -March 17, 2010 8:55 a.m. EDT-

"The devil tempts everyone -- people in politics, in economics, in sport. And naturally, he tempts, above all, the religious leaders, so you shouldn't be surprised if the devil tempts those in the Vatican. That's his job."

Father Gabriele Amorth isn't speaking metaphorically when he says that. The 85-year-old priest means people can be tempted and literally possessed by Satan.

"It's not my opinion: I'm saying that if you believe in the Gospels, you believe in the existence of the devil, in the devil's power to possess people," he said in an interview with CNN.

The faithful believe "that there are people possessed by the devil, and ... in the power of exorcism to liberate from the devil," he said.

And as the chief exorcist of the Roman Catholic Church, it's his job to expel the devil when someone is possessed. Amorth, the founder of the International Association of Exorcists, has performed more than 70,000 exorcisms in his career, he estimates.

But there is a difference between possession -- where the devil takes hold of someone's body and actions -- and temptation, where Satan lures a person into doing evil, he said.

As a child abuse scandal sweeps across Europe, with accusations being made against priests in Ireland, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, Amorth said the pedophiles are tempted, not possessed.

He has never done an exorcism on a child molester, he said.

"I have carried out exorcisms on some priests who had been molested by the devil," he said, without going into details.

"But cases of pedophilia exorcised, no. ... Pedophiles are not possessed by the devil, they are tempted by the devil," he said.

"They don't need exorcism, they need to be converted, to be converted to God, that's what they need. They need to confess, they need true penitence, true repentance, that's what they need. They're not possessed."

But no one is too strong a believer to be possessed, said Amorth, who is employed by the Roman diocese.

"Nothing occurs without the permission of God, and he allows even holy people, even saints, to be possessed by the devil," he said.

But, he added, he sees no evil in the Vatican today: "I just see good people in the Vatican. People of prayer, holy people, I don't see any evil."

NASA March 17,latest "Image of the Day"..[ 737 ]

NASA image of the day of March 17

Mars Express Images Phobos
This image of Mars' moon Phobos was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on Mars Express, a mission operated by the German Aerospace Center. The HRSC took this image using the nadir channel on March 7, 2010, on HRSC Orbit 7915.

The image has been enhanced to bring out the features in the less illuminated areas. Visit the German Aerospace Center page for 3-D and other imagery of Phobos. Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Τετάρτη, 17 Μάρτιος 2010 6:00:00 πμ

Baghdatis takes out Federer[ 736 ]

Marcos Baghdatis takes out Roger Federer in three sets

By Diane Pucin / Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - Added 4h ago

Photo by AP

Marcos Baghdatis, of Cyprus, returns a shot to Roger Federer, of Switzerland, during their match at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament in Indian Wells, Calif., Tuesday.

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Roger Federer does this. He hits a crosscourt forehand that seems headed for out of bounds until it touches the sideline. The shot comes all of a sudden just when the opponent, say, Marcos Baghdatis on a Tuesday night in the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, thinks he might have a chance to trouble the world’s top-ranked player before a tournament gets to its biggest moments.

Federer usually doesn’t do this though. He doesn’t usually win a set then throw in huge handfuls of unforced errors. He doesn’t usually give himself extra work. He doesn’t usually lose.

On Tuesday night, though, Federer let his game go away for a set against Baghdatis and he couldn’t get it back. With a monstrous service winner and on his first match point, Baghdatis took out the tournament’s top-seeded player, 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), in 2 hours 22 minutes.

Federer walked off the court with a stunned look on his face while Baghdatis sent happily hit tennis balls to the crowd.

This win had seemed unlikely in the fourth game of the third set when, with a flick of Federer’s racket, he broke Baghdatis’s serve to go up, 4-1. With that little edge, Federer regained control of his shots for awhile but not for long enough. Federer gave back the break and then played an uncertain tiebreak, unable to hit the ball past the constantly moving Baghdatis.

It was unexpected to see Federer’s nonchalant brilliance disappear with a bundling of unforced errors, 44 for the match.

Federer could never quite corral his forehand or harness that signature one-handed backhand .

The stylish Baghdatis wouldn’t go away, even after Federer went ahead, 4-1, in the third set. In the seventh game Baghdatis brought the crowd to its feet with a wicked backhand winner to get back on serve, 4-3.

Baghdatis had saved two match points in the second set and had seemed destined for a loss when Federer broke first in the third.

By the eighth game of the final set, when it was tied, 4-4, Baghdatis had gained such confidence that he would bend over and yell at himself after he was unable to retrieve an acrobatic volley from Federer.

The biggest name left in the women’s draw also had a hiccup of her own.

Second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki said she felt as if her legs were moving in slow motion in the second set. But those weary legs went back to work after Wozniacki said she talked to them. The Danish teenager stayed around with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-0 win over Nadia Petrova.

Wozniacki’s win was a boost for a women’s draw that is already without its top-seeded player (Svetlana Kuznetsova), its third-seeded player (Victoria Azarenka) and its two biggest draws (Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin).

It was also an uneventful day for the top American left in the draw, man or woman. Seventh-seeded Andy Roddick was hardly tested in a 6-3, 6-4 win over Thiemo De Bakker of the Netherlands. There was so little of note in the win that Roddick was asked more about what sports he likes to watch outside of tennis. Whatever is in season, Roddick said, and the season now is NCAA basketball.

Fourth-seeded Andy Murray ran into the net post while trying to retrieve a Michael Russell drop shot and gave himself a black-and-blue toe, but Murray advanced with a 6-3, 7-5 win and sixth-seeded Robin Soderling also moved along without a hitch, beating Spain’s Feliciano Lopez 7-6 (7-3), 6-4.

Ninth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga did have some moments of doubt. His head was hanging after one set but with a raucous crowd cheering him on, Tsonga moved on, winning, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, over Albert Montanes of Spain.

(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

(0) Comments | Post / Read Comments

Next Article in Tennis:
Hits keep on coming for Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi

dvertisement

Airplane evacuated in Romania... [ 735 ]

London-bound plane evacuated in Romania after bomb threat

A London-bound plane was forced to return to a Romanian airport after a bomb scare.

By Ben Leach
Telegraph co.uk.,Published: 9:53AM GMT 17 Mar 2010

Wizz Air, a Hungarian airline which offers low-cost services across Europe, operates between Timisoara and London Luton Photo: Gary Dawson

All 165 passengers on board the Wizzair flight from the Romanian city of Timisoara had to be evacuated.

The airport received an anonymous phone call 15 minutes after the 6.20am take off and had to perform a U-turn.

"The 165 passengers have been evacuated and they are safe. The security forces are currently checking the aeroplane", said Corina Lupulescu, a spokeswoman for Timisoara airport.

No other flights at the airport were affected, the spokeswoman said. Flights to Romania from the UK have also not been affected by the incident.

On Luton airport's website on Wednesday, flight W6703 from Timisoara, which was scheduled to land at 7.20am, was listed as delayed until 1.15pm.

Wizz Air, a Hungarian airline which offers low-cost services across Europe, operates between Timisoara and London Luton in Bedfordshire three days a week.

Nord Stream, Russia- Baltic pipeline...[ 734 ]

Nord Stream secures funding for Russia-backed Baltic pipeline

More on this topic

Related News

• France's GDF Suez to join Nord Stream gas pipeline project
• Experts: Russia to set up telecom cable alongside Nord Stream’s gas pipeline in Baltic Sea
• Nord Stream gets approval for gas pipe link to European network
• Nord Stream pipeline to pump gas to EU from fall 2011 - Putin
• What difference would Nord Stream mean to European energy supply?

RIA NOVOSTI, 12:12,, 16/03/2010

Nord Stream has secured 3.9 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in financing allowing it to start building a pipeline to pump Russian natural gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea, The Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The funds will come from 26 banks with loan guarantees secured for 80% of the financing from the Italian and German credit agencies Sace and Hermes, the paper said.

Paul Corcoran, Nord Stream's chief financial officer, told the paper the pipeline now had everything in place to begin construction next month.

"Three years ago we had banks very prepared to loan 1bn or 1.5bn euros and to take the underwriting risk," he said, adding that today banks had to be much more careful with the little liquidity left to them.

The 1,220 km-long (758-mile) Nord Stream pipeline will eventually pump 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Western Europe, bypassing traditional transit nations.

Nord Stream will have two pipelines, each with a capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters a year, on the Baltic Sea floor stretching from Russia's Vyborg near the Finnish border to Greifswald on Germany's coast.

The amount of 3.9 billion euros represents 70% of the cost of the project's first phase, which should see the first gas being transported along the line by the end of next year, helping Russia avoid Ukraine, the transit country with which it has had fierce pricing disputes over the past several winters, the paper said.

The remaining 30% of the costs, some 800 million euros ($1.1 billion), will be financed by the partners in Nord Stream's shareholders, which are Russian energy giant Gazprom with a 51% stake, German chemical group BASF/Winterhshall and utility E.ON Ruhrgas each controlling 20% and the Dutch energy group Gasunie with 9%, the paper said.

The project's total cost is estimated at 7.4 billion euros ($10.1 billion). Nord Stream intends later this year to seek financing for the second phase, which will double the pipeline's capacity to 55 bln cu m, the paper said.

MOSCOW, March 16 (RIA Novosti)