Man Fires Pepper Spray On Protesters Outside Marine's Funeral
A motorist fired pepper spray Saturday at a group of demonstrators and counter-protesters outside a funeral for a U.S. Marine in Omaha, Nebraska, police said.
The incident occurred shortly before 10 a.m. (11 a.m. ET) as members of a small Kansas church that protests at military funerals and counter-protesters stood nearly a block away from First United Methodist Church during services for Staff Sgt. Michael Bock, 26, who died August 13 in Afghanistan's Helmand province.
A man in a Ford-150 pickup truck drove by, extended his arm and sprayed with a large can, police said. His vehicle was stopped a few minutes later.
"Initial indications are he was probably targeting the Westboro Baptist Church" protesters, said officer Michael Pecha, a spokesman for Omaha police.
George Vogel, 62, who lives just north of Omaha, was booked for 16 counts of misdemeanor assault and one count of felony assault on a police officer for the pepper-spray exposure, police said. Vogel also faces one count of child neglect because his child was in the truck, Pecha told CNN.
Westboro members, led by pastor Fred Phelps, believe God is punishing the United States for "the sin of homosexuality" through events including soldiers' deaths. Members have traveled the country, shouting at grieving family members at funerals and displaying such signs as "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "God Blew Up the Troops" and "AIDS Cures Fags."
A 2005 protest by church members at the funeral of a Missouri soldier prompted state lawmakers to pass legislation criminalizing picketing "in front or about" a funeral location or procession. A federal judge earlier this month rejected Missouri's tight restrictions, saying they violated the free speech clause of the First Amendment.
It was unclear Saturday evening exactly who had been pepper sprayed, but a Westboro member said no one in her group was affected.
The incident occurred during the funeral and while nearly 600 members of the Patriot Guard Riders ringed the church and stood vigil, the group's state leader said.
Scott Knudsen, Patriot Guard Riders captain for Nebraska, said no members of the Patriot Guard had any interaction with the church members or counter-protesters, which he numbered Saturday at about 12.
"We don't get close to them," Knudsen said of the Westboro members. "We have our backs to them."
Patriot Guard members, who come when they are invited by families, shield families from distraction, Knudsen said.
"We don't condone counter-protesters," said Knudsen, adding he was troubled by Saturday's incident.
"It's inappropriate," he said. "It's a funeral service."
Pecha also said that there were no altercations between Westboro members and the Patriot Guard.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, a member of Westboro Baptist Church, said Omaha police did not adequately control roughly 30 counter-protesters, who she said jostled with church members. She also challenged Knudsen's and Pecha's account, saying a few Patriot Guard members were among the counter-protesters.
The group was about 1,000 feet from the church when the driver came by. "Of course it was directed at us," Phelps-Roper, who is Fred Phelps' daughter, said of the pepper spray.
None of the 16 Westboro members on the corner were affected because they raised signs to shield themselves or turned away, Phelps-Roper said. The group returned home shortly afterward.
Extra officers were on hand for any possible altercations, but there were only verbal exchanges before the truck drove up, police said. –CNN Justice
A motorist fired pepper spray Saturday at a group of demonstrators and counter-protesters outside a funeral for a U.S. Marine in Omaha, Nebraska, police said.
The incident occurred shortly before 10 a.m. (11 a.m. ET) as members of a small Kansas church that protests at military funerals and counter-protesters stood nearly a block away from First United Methodist Church during services for Staff Sgt. Michael Bock, 26, who died August 13 in Afghanistan's Helmand province.
A man in a Ford-150 pickup truck drove by, extended his arm and sprayed with a large can, police said. His vehicle was stopped a few minutes later.
"Initial indications are he was probably targeting the Westboro Baptist Church" protesters, said officer Michael Pecha, a spokesman for Omaha police.
George Vogel, 62, who lives just north of Omaha, was booked for 16 counts of misdemeanor assault and one count of felony assault on a police officer for the pepper-spray exposure, police said. Vogel also faces one count of child neglect because his child was in the truck, Pecha told CNN.
Westboro members, led by pastor Fred Phelps, believe God is punishing the United States for "the sin of homosexuality" through events including soldiers' deaths. Members have traveled the country, shouting at grieving family members at funerals and displaying such signs as "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "God Blew Up the Troops" and "AIDS Cures Fags."
A 2005 protest by church members at the funeral of a Missouri soldier prompted state lawmakers to pass legislation criminalizing picketing "in front or about" a funeral location or procession. A federal judge earlier this month rejected Missouri's tight restrictions, saying they violated the free speech clause of the First Amendment.
It was unclear Saturday evening exactly who had been pepper sprayed, but a Westboro member said no one in her group was affected.
The incident occurred during the funeral and while nearly 600 members of the Patriot Guard Riders ringed the church and stood vigil, the group's state leader said.
Scott Knudsen, Patriot Guard Riders captain for Nebraska, said no members of the Patriot Guard had any interaction with the church members or counter-protesters, which he numbered Saturday at about 12.
"We don't get close to them," Knudsen said of the Westboro members. "We have our backs to them."
Patriot Guard members, who come when they are invited by families, shield families from distraction, Knudsen said.
"We don't condone counter-protesters," said Knudsen, adding he was troubled by Saturday's incident.
"It's inappropriate," he said. "It's a funeral service."
Pecha also said that there were no altercations between Westboro members and the Patriot Guard.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, a member of Westboro Baptist Church, said Omaha police did not adequately control roughly 30 counter-protesters, who she said jostled with church members. She also challenged Knudsen's and Pecha's account, saying a few Patriot Guard members were among the counter-protesters.
The group was about 1,000 feet from the church when the driver came by. "Of course it was directed at us," Phelps-Roper, who is Fred Phelps' daughter, said of the pepper spray.
None of the 16 Westboro members on the corner were affected because they raised signs to shield themselves or turned away, Phelps-Roper said. The group returned home shortly afterward.
Extra officers were on hand for any possible altercations, but there were only verbal exchanges before the truck drove up, police said. –CNN Justice
<><><>*<><><>
New US Catholic Missal To Debut In November 2011
Catholics in the United States will begin using a long-awaited English translation of the Roman Missal on the first Sunday of Advent next year, a leading American cardinal announced Friday.
Setting the missal's debut for Nov. 27, 2011, gives publishers more than 15 months to prepare texts, and allows American dioceses and parishes to educate members in the meantime, said Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The new text for the missal, which guides Catholics through the prayers of the Mass, was approved by the Vatican in June. In July, additional prayers were approved for certain rites, such as the renewal of baptismal promises on Easter, and celebrations specific to the United States including Thanksgiving, Independence Day and the feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Pope John Paul II announced the new missal in 2000 and it was first published in Latin in 2002.
It's the first significant change in the English translation since the Mass was first celebrated in English after Vatican II in the 1960s, said the Rev. Thomas Reese of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.
"It will impact every Catholic in every parish because they will have to learn new responses in place of the ones they have been using since Vatican II," Reese said. "I believe that the new translations are a step backwards and confusing to the people in the pews."
Proponents of the new missal's translation into English have said its language is more poetic and true to the spirit of the original Latin. Critics contend the translation is too literal and includes too many theologically complex terms.
Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pa., who formerly ran the U.S. bishops liturgy committee, criticized the new translation as "slavishly literal" during a lecture last year at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Those who have reviewed the translation say it requires new responses from church members in about a dozen places in the Mass. Generally, those responses are relatively simple, as when members will respond "And with your spirit" after the celebrant says, "The Lord be with you." The current response is, "And also with you."
Currently, priests dismisses the congregation by saying, "The Mass is ended; go in peace." Priests will now have four more specific options, including two suggested by Pope Benedict XVI: "Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord" and "Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life."
Prayers offered by the priest will include more complex terms such as "consubstantial," "inviolate," "oblation," "ignominy" and "suffused."
Critics like Bishop Trautman argue that Jesus Christ taught in the language of the common man and, further, that Vatican II reforms that first allowed the Mass to be translated from Latin to the vernacular are being unraveled by the more complicated words used in the new translation.
Those who favor the new version say the original translation to English brought about by Vatican II was rushed and that the new version merely restores some of the richness of the terms used in the original Latin.
The first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the liturgical year for Roman Catholic, and is always four Sundays before Christmas. –The Sun News
<><><>*<><><>
Muslims Have Highest Obama Approval; Mormons Lowest
President Barack Obama gets his highest approval rating among religious groups from Muslims and his lowest from Mormons, according to a newly released national poll.
A Gallup survey indicates that in the first half of this year, 78 percent of Muslims approved of the job the president's doing in the White House, while just 24 percent of Mormons give Obama a thumbs up. According to the poll, the president's approval rating among Protestants and other Christians was 43 percent, it stood at 50 percent for Catholics, 61 percent among Jews, 63 percent for Atheists, Agnostics and those with no religion, and 64 percent for those from other non-Christian religions. The president's approval among all Americans stood at 48 percent.
The survey indicates that Obama has lost 15 points on his overall approval rating from the first half of 2009 to the first half of this year, and that he has lost slightly more ground than average among Mormons and has receded the least among Muslims.
"The differences in Obama's approval ratings across the religious groups included in this analysis have held fairly constant across time, even as Obama's overall rating has fallen by 15 points between the first half of 2009 and the first seven months of this year," says a release by Gallup.
American Muslims have been in the headlines over the past few weeks, thanks to the controversy over a proposal to build an Islamic center, that would include a mosque, near ground zero in New York City. The president has spoken out in support of the legal rights for the Islamic center to be built. But the polling in this survey was conducted before the controversy made national headlines.
The findings of the Gallup poll are based on interviews with more than 275,00 adult Americans conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking from Jan. 21, 2009, through July 31, 2010. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus one percentage point. –CNN Politics
No comments:
Post a Comment