Kenny & Gilmore begin coalition goernment talks after Irish election

From www.rte.ie/news

It is understood Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore have begun their meeting in Leinster House.
Subsequent meetings this evening or tomorrow will see the negotiating teams sit down across the table.
However, a number of senior Fine Gael and Labour deputies are already in Leinster House - including Fine Gael's Phil Hogan and Michael Noonan and Labour's Ruairi Quinn.
The expectation is that a deal will be done in time for a special Labour conference next weekend. Taoiseach Brian Cowen has wished the leaders of Fine Gael and Labour well in their talks on forming a coalition government.
Speaking in Roscrea, Mr Cowen also said his office was available to both leaders to make the transition of power as smooth as possible.
Mr Cowen said the election results were very difficult for Fianna Fáil.
He wished party leader Micheál Martin well in the task of re-building the party, defining its policy and being a constructive opposition.
Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore spoke on the telephone earlier today.
After some confusion about a missed telephone message, both men spoke for a few minutes at around 10am this morning and they agreed to meet for the preliminary talks.
The real business of forming the next Government will get under way this evening or tomorrow, with an effective deadline of the weekend.
Some Labour backbenchers urged their party to play hardball in the talks over the weekend and there are differences between the parties.
However, the expectation is that a deal will be done in time for a special Labour conference next weekend.
Elsewhere, Independent Shane Ross said he has not been contacted by anyone in Fine Gael to discuss supporting that party.
Mr Ross says he believes a deal between Fine Gael and Labour will be done very quickly.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland Peter Robinson telephoned Mr Kenny this morning to congratulate him on his suscess in the election.
Mr Robinson said he hoped to meet Mr Kenny soon after he is elected Taoiseach and said he expected to have a good relationship with the incoming Government in Dublin.
Recounts have resumed in Galway West and Laois-Offaly this morning.
A recheck is ongoing in Wicklow. The recheck was requested by Fianna Fáil's Dick Roche.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Mr Roche said there had been many errors in the Wicklow count - at no fault of the count staff - and it was increasingly likely there will be a full recount.
Mr Roche's request has been criticised by his running-mate Pat Fitzgerald.
Mr Fitzgerald said neither of the Fianna Fáil candidates had a chance of picking up a seat and that the Europe Minister should have 'let it lie'.
Of the 154 seats in the Dáil now filled, Fine Gael has 70, the Labour Party has 36, Fianna Fáil has 18, Sinn Féin has 13, and Independents and others have 17.
During the counts, Fianna Fáil saw its first preference vote more than halved, down to just over 17%, with candidates failing to secure significant transfers.
There are now no Fianna Fáil TDs in Meath, Tipperary, Sligo, Kerry, Leitrim or Roscommon.
The Green Party saw all six TDs lose their seats.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said he is not concerned that his party will be drowned out in opposition in the Dáil by Sinn Féin and Independents.
Speaking on The Week in Politics, Mr Martin said his party would now be focusing on renewal.

Irish people among dead and missing in New Zealand earthquake

From www.rte.ie/news

The Department of Foreign Affairs says it has strong concerns for the safety of two Irish people in New Zealand following the confirmation that one Irishman died in yesterday's earthquake.
The DFA has been unable to contact a total of nine Irish people in Christchuch, with two of those being of particular concern.
75 people are confirmed to have died in the 6.3 magnitude earthquake and over 300 others remain missing.
The Irishman who died has been named as Owen McKenna. He was in his early 40s and from Co Monaghan.
He was married to a woman from New Zealand and had been living there for several years. He had two children.
It is understood the hospital where Mr McKenna worked contacted his family in the Emyvale area of Monaghan to say he had not arrived for work after the earthquake struck.
Mr McKenna's car was crushed by falling debris.
The DFA is also providing consular assistance to an Irish woman whose husband, who held a British passport, was killed in the earthquake.
He had also been living in New Zealand for some time.
There are approximately 200 Irish people registered in Christchurch.
Hopes of finding more survivors of the earthquake are beginning to fade as rescue staff sift through the rubble in Christchurch.
Hundreds of foreign rescuers are joining exhausted New Zealand teams in an increasingly desperate search of quake-shattered buildings in the central part of the city.
Officials have abandoned hope of finding anyone alive in the collapsed Canterbury Television (CTV) building in the city centre. Those missing inside the collapsed building include foreign students at a third-floor language school.
Of the 300 people still missing, up to 100 are thought to be in the CTV building.
Police are also warning about the possible collapse of a 26-story hotel, which would unleash a 'domino effect' on surrounding structures.
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said the quake-prone city now faced hard decisions on rebuilding its heart.
'We are not going to walk away from this place,' Mr Parker told New Zealand television. 'We may have to level entire blocks in some places.'
The Director of New Zealand's Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, John Hamilton, has warned that rescue teams have a window of only two or three days to find people alive after the quake

Chart-topping Confession app draws Catholic and non-Catholic interest

South Bend, Ind., Feb 15, 2011 (Catholic News Agency).

Sales of Little iApps' new iPhone “Confession” application have exceeded the developers' expectations, with the program rising to the top of Apple's “Lifestyle” application charts, and even drawing the interest of those outside of the Catholic Church.
“Several Protestant ministers have recommended our app,” Little iApps' co-founder and developer Ryan Kreager told CNA on Feb. 14.
Those recommendations may have played a part in raising “Confession: A Roman Catholic App” to the number 1 spot in the “Lifestyle” section of the Apple's app store, a position it has held since Feb. 9. The program, which also runs on an iPad or an internet-enabled iPod, is currently among Apple's top 100 total applications.
“The response that we've gotten from non-Catholics – from our Protestant brothers in Christ, as well as those outside the Christian faith – has been largely positive,” said Kreager.
Some of that outside interest comes from a desire to understand what Catholics believe and practice. But Kreager noted that non-Catholics may find its moral evaluation personally useful. “The Examination of Conscience' portion gives anyone an opportunity to consider: 'How am I doing in my walk with God?'”
Catholics believe that seriously immoral acts must be confessed to a priest, in accordance with Jesus' granting his Apostles the power to forgive or retain sins on his behalf. However, the Church also acknowledges the genuine value of sincere repentance, even among those who do not accept this important teaching.
Initially, some media reports on Little iApps' product created confusion about this teaching by giving the impression that the app was a substitute for confessing to a priest. On Feb. 9, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi clarified what the developers had always made clear – that the program was intended for use in the context of a proper sacramental confession, with priestly absolution.
That misunderstanding, Kreager said, had actually provided a further opportunity to explain the sacrament of Confession to non-Catholics. The clarification has also served to help lapsed or confused members of the Church understand the value of going to Confession.
“We think that the statement by the Vatican – which we stand 100 percent behind – is great,” Kreager stated. “It gives people an opportunity to talk about Confession in a public forum. That's always a great thing, and a teaching moment.”
Plenty of Catholics are hearing the message, and realizing they are long overdue for a visit.
“People have emailed us saying they hadn't been to Confession in 20 or 30 years, and were afraid to go back. But then, they went – because our app made it a less 'scary' experience.” Kreager said he and his fellow developers, Patrick and Chip Leinen, were “extremely humbled” by these reports.
“Confession: A Roman Catholic App” is the first iPhone app to receive an “imprimatur,” signifying the official approval from a Catholic bishop – in this case, Bishop Kevin C. Rhodes of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind. Although this step seems unusual, Kreager considers it in keeping with Catholic tradition.
“If you think back to the first book ever printed on a printing press, by Gutenberg, it was a Bible,” he noted. “The Church has had a long and rich history of embracing technologies for deepening of spiritual life and evangelization.”
He hopes that Little iApps' future products will help to “bring all of the beauty and richness of the Catholic faith into this new and very interactive world of technology.”

Feb 11th: Our Lady of Lourdes

Feb 11th: Our Lady of LOURDES

Has Revelation's 'pale rider' shown up in Egypt?

From http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=260049

By Drew Zahn
WorldNetDaily

Is this the "pale rider" from Revelation?
A mysterious, pale green figure seen in televised news coverage of the Egyptian riots has prompted some viewers to ask, "Could this be the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse?"
The footage, provided by Euronews and subsequently seen on MSNBC, CNN and uploaded over a dozen times to the popular video sharing site YouTube, captures the fiery, violent protests in Cairo this past week … and something else.
Between the crowds of protesters and barricades, the video shows a flowing, pale green image that resembles an erect rider atop a horse in Medieval-like barding. The ethereal figure remains for a few moments before floating over protesters' heads and off the screen.
The last of the biblical Book of Revelation's Four Horseman of the Apocalyse, the "pale rider" is said to be the bringer of death and the forerunner of "hell" on earth.
The Book of Revelation refers to a time when "the Lamb" – usually understood to be the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ – opens the seven seals of a scroll of judgment. Each of the first four seals is accompanied by a horseman of a different color, each bringing a separate calamity.
When the fourth seal is opened, Revelation 6:8 records, "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."
Is the image from Egypt a fulfillment of Revelation's prophecy?
Comments from the tens of thousands of viewers who have watched the video on YouTube express a wide array of opinion.
Some claim the video's "pale rider" is a sign and the greenish tint is somehow symbolic of Islam, while others insist the image has been added to the footage by editing technolgy. Still others point to three, trailing points of light in the footage that move away from the crowds at the same time and speed as the "horseman," indicating that both the "rider" and the lights are merely smudges or reflections cast on the lens of a moving camera.
One comment, from a viewer calling himself TheRhythmhawk, also tried to explain the "pale rider" and the trailing lights as simply lens reflections, but eventually concluded, "The image of the horseman leaves more questions than answers."
The original video can also be viewed in even higher resolution at the Euronews website.

No ‘moral certainty’ that brain death is really death

ROME February 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)

A prominent American professor of Catholic medical ethics has said that in “brain death” criteria there is no “moral certitude” that a patient is really dead, a condition laid out by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI as necessary for removing organs.
The available evidence, he said, “raises a reasonable doubt that excludes ‘moral certitude’ that ventilator-sustained brain dead bodies are corpses.”
Professor E. Christian Brugger, a Senior Fellow of Ethics at the Culture of Life Foundation gave this judgment in a question and answer article published today by the Rome-based news agency Zenit.
Brugger quoted Pope John Paul II, who told a congress on organ transplants that death is “a single event consisting in the total disintegration of that unity and integrated whole that is the personal self.”
“Although we cannot identify the event directly, we can identify biological signs consequent upon the loss of that unity,” said Brugger. But according to many experts, those biological signs are not present in “brain death” cases.
In his address to the 2000 organ transplant conference, Pope John Paul II had said that when “rigorously applied” brain death criteria “does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology” but that this judgment must reach “moral certainty.”
Brugger suggests, however, that this statement does not “properly speaking” qualify as an authoritative statement of the magisterium, since the Church’s authority extends to matters of faith and morals. The validity of “brain death,” however, is based upon a “scientific premise that such and such empirical indicators correspond to an absence of human life.”
“This is a technical matter bearing on the adequacy of those indicators for accurately signifying that death has occurred,” he pointed out.
Brugger references the research of D. Alan Shewmon, which, he says, “demonstrates conclusively that the bodies of some who are rightly diagnosed as suffering whole brain death express integrative bodily unity to a fairly high degree.”
In fact, he says, “brain dead” patients on ventilator support “have been shown to undergo respiration at the cellular level … assimilate nutrients … fight infection and foreign bodies … maintain homeostasis … eliminate, detoxify and recycle cell waste throughout the body; maintain body temperature; grow proportionately; heal wounds … exhibit cardiovascular and hormonal stress responses to noxious stimuli such as incisions; gestate a fetus … and even undergo puberty.”
All of this, says Brugger, would seem to indicate that “brain death” fails to meet Pope John Paul’s definition of death as “the total disintegration of that unity and integrated whole that is the personal self.”
The controversy over organ transplants stems from the widespread application of various “brain death” criteria, as well as so-called “non-heart beating” death criteria to determine whether organs can be removed from a patient on life support. Physicians, eager to obtain organs, are routinely removing organs from patients whose vital signs are still strong, while family members frequently report being placed under heavy pressure to consent to organ “harvesting.”
This problem, however, has yet to be thoroughly addressed by the various relevant Vatican offices, with a strong trend among officials in favor of brain death criteria.
In November 2009, Pope Benedict XVI gave an address to a prestigious international conference on organ transplants in which he warned that the principle of moral certainty in determining death must be the highest priority of doctors. In its roster of speakers, that conference, partially sponsored by the Vatican’s own Pontifical Academy for Life, did not address the moral issue that is at the heart of the controversy over organ transplants.
The pope said, however, that donation of organs can only be licit if it does not “create a serious danger” to the health of the donor.
“There must not be the slightest suspicion of arbitrariness. Where certainty cannot be achieved, the principle of precaution must prevail,” he warned. Benedict added, “Informed consent is the precondition of freedom, so that the transplant has the characteristic of a gift and cannot be interpreted as an act of coercion or exploitation.”
Despite the uniformly positive approach of conference attendees towards brain death criteria, the pope’s statement was taken by many as a ringing warning.
The following February, at a separate conference on “brain death,” an international gathering of medical, neurological and philosophical experts roundly condemned the criteria, saying that they result in the deaths of patients by premature removal of organs.