Pope decries slaughter of 'defenseless' in Syria and Nigeria

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI wished Christmas peace to the world Tuesday, decrying the slaughter of the "defenseless" in Syria, urging Israelis and Palestinians to find the courage to negotiate and encouraging China's new leaders to allow more religious freedom.

Delivering the Vatican's traditional Christmas day message from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, Benedict also encouraged Arab spring nations, especially Egypt, to build just and respectful societies.

May China's new leadership "esteem the contribution of the religions, in respect for each other" to help build a "fraternal society for the benefit of that noble people," the pope prayed.
It was a clear reference to the Chinese government's often harsh treatment of Catholics loyal to the pontiff instead of to the state-sanctioned church. Earlier this month, the Vatican refused to accept the decision by Chinese authorities to revoke the title of a Shanghai bishop, who had been appointed in a rare show of consensus between the Holy See and China.
As the 85-year-old pontiff, bundled up in an ermine-trimmed red cape, gingerly stepped foot on the balcony, the pilgrims, tourists and Romans below backing St. Peter's Square erupted in cheers.
Less than 12 hours earlier, Benedict had led a two-hour long Christmas Eve ceremony in the basilica. He sounded hoarse and looked weary as he read his Christmas message and then holiday greetings in 65 languages.
In his "Urbi et Orbi" speech, which traditionally reviews world events and global challenges, Benedict prayed that "peace spring up for the people of Syria, deeply wounded and divided by a conflict that does not spare even the defenseless and reaps innocent victims."
He called for easier access to help refugees and for "dialogue in the pursuit of a political solution to the conflict."
Benedict prayed that God "grant Israelis and Palestinians courage to end long years of conflict and division, and to embark resolutely on the path to negotiation."
Israel, backed by the United States, opposed the Palestinian statehood bid, saying it was a ploy to bypass negotiations, something the Palestinians deny. Talks stalled four years ago.

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said that in a meeting with the pope last week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "emphasized our total readiness to resume negotiations." The Palestinians have not dropped their demand that Israel first stop settlement activities before returning to the negotiating table.


Benedict prayed for the return of peace in Mali and harmony in Nigeria, where, he recalled "savage acts of terrorism continue to reap victims, particularly among Christians."
The Vatican for decades has been worried about the well-being of its flock in China, who are loyal to the pope in defiance of the communist's government support of an officially sponsored church, and relations between Beijing and the Holy See are often tense.

Speaking about China's newly installed regime leaders, Benedict expressed hope that "they will esteem the contribution of the religions, in respect for each other, in such a way that they can help to build a fraternal society for the benefit of that noble people and of the whole world."
Acknowledging Latin America's predominant Christian population, he urged government leaders to carry out commitments to development and to fighting organized crime.

In Britain, the royal family was attending Christmas Day church services at St. Mary Magdelene Church on Queen Elizabeth II's sprawling Sandringham estate, though there were a few notable absences. Prince William is spending the holiday with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury, while Prince Harry is serving with British troops in Afghanistan.
Later Tuesday, the queen delivered her traditional, prerecorded Christmas message, which for the first time was broadcast in 3D.
At Canterbury cathedral, Anglican leader Rowan Williams delivered his final Christmas day sermon as archbishop of Canterbury. He acknowledged how the church's General Synod's vote against allowing women to become bishops had cost credibility and said the faithful felt a "real sense of loss" over the decision.
From AP

Christmas Day carnage: Three killed in motorway crash horror

Two children and a woman died in a Christmas Day horror crash on one of Britain's busiest motorways.

Two women are in a serious condition in hospital when their car overturned on the M6 at around 11.25am today.
They were travelling in a car going northbound near junction 15 when it crashed and overturned.
The women were rushed to University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke where they are in a serious condition.
Three ambulances, three paramedic officers, a doctor Doctor and two Midland Air Ambulances attended the scene.
However, the three victims suffered serious injuries and could not be saved, a West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said.

The boys are aged 4 and 10 and the dead woman 32 years old.

Originally, authorities reported the three victims were all children, but have since issued a correction.
A WMAS spokesman said: "Two adult women travelling in the car, both received emergency treatment at the scene for their injuries and were transferred by land ambulances to University Hospital North Staffordshire on blue lights for further treatment.
"All emergency services personnel worked seamlessly together at the scene in exceptionally difficult circumstances.
"Unfortunately, the outcome was not the one everyone would have hoped for."

The motorway was closed in both directions following the incident and traffic was diverted to other routes adding 30 minutes to journeys.

Families of the victims are being informed.
Police are appealing for witnesses to contact the Central Motorway Police Group on 101.
Earlier, a driver was rushed to hospital after he split his car into THREE pieces crashing into road signs and a bridge on the toll stretch of the same motorway.
The driver, aged in his mid 20s, ploughed into the signs between junctions five and six on the eastbound carriageway in the early hours of the morning.
Remarkably, he only suffered multiple minor injuries and was taken to the University Hospital North Staffordshire by ambulance.

Kate Moss' Beach Day Gets Photobombed

Photobomb alert! Kate Moss' beach holiday with husband Jamie Hince was interrupted when a bather in his birthday suit walked onto the scene. X17 captured the moment.

Saint Peter’s Memo To Jonathan: Take A Retreat

Dear President Jonathan: You’re not the first Nigerian public official to receive a letter from heaven, but I hope you will be the last. I have God’s instructions to write this letter to you, and to make it as plain as possible.
You recently said you were entrusting Nigeria in God’s hands. The theme of this letter is simple: God says no! You and your bunch of Nigerian politicians (with a lot of help from many citizens) have made a mess of your country. God’s reply is, keep your organized scam of a country. No, God wants no part of the confusion that Nigeria has become.
Look at all the gifts God bestowed on your country. He put massive reserves of oil, tin, coal, bauxite, iron – to name a few – in the depths of the Nigeria land. All Nigerians needed was a bit of imagination, intelligence, prudence, restraint and vision – and your country would be one of the best addresses on earth. Alas, Nigerians (especially “leaders” like yourself) have left most of the resources untapped. And you have all squandered the fortune from oil. You’ve wasted your oil riches through greed, in pursuit of frippery and frivolity.
Here in heaven, Nigerian politicians are regarded as a pathetic, comedic bunch. You’re all notorious for hypocritical or misconceived statements. Most of you rig elections, for example, and then proclaim that your power came from God. You all loot the treasury – and claim that God blessed you with wealth. You all let Nigerian roads deteriorate to a terrible state. Then, when horrible accidents occur on these roads, presto, you blame the deaths and injuries on some faceless demon.
Nigerian public officials are laughable. You fly to German, British, American, Saudi Arabian, French and Indian hospitals whenever you or members of your immediate family have a health scare – or, sometimes, just a headache. You forget that true leaders work to develop their own countries. Nelson Mandela, one of the noblest leaders in the world, doesn’t ever leave South Africa for medical treatment abroad. It was South Africans, not God, who built their country’s healthcare system. You and your associates have done nothing to lift Nigeria’s healthcare system from its squalid state. That’s one reason millions of Nigerians die needlessly.
Nigerian “leaders” spend long hours, day and night, carting away their country’s resources to private bank accounts all over the world. Then, as your country gets more mired in misery, you shout that God is in control. God says, “Tufia!” God has no part in decadence and corruption. You and your associates admonish the victims of corruption to pray and fast, to importune heaven for solutions to their manifold problems. You award national honors to certified criminals, and then wonder that terrorists and kidnappers prowl the land. With a straight face, you sell a lie to Nigerians: that it’s God’s job to pronounce a halt to the spree of suicide bombings and other forms of violence.
I’m going to be blunt. God is not amused a bit about the way Nigerian officials abuse His name. Your appalling habit causes a lot of head-shaking, and even the occasional fury, in heaven.
You must be aware that I rebuked your predecessors for making light of God’s name. You must know that I sternly warned them to leave God out of their sinister plots and diabolical schemes. Yet you, President Jonathan, have chosen to carry on in the manner of previous occupants of Aso Rock. That’s why this letter became not only necessary but also urgent.

Recently, you attended a congress of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. The caption of one newspaper report said it all: “RCCG Congress: Jonathan Entrusts Nigeria to God.” The report’s opening paragraph stated: “President Goodluck Jonathan has entrusted the nation’s future into God’s care. On Friday, Jonathan told the teeming congregation at this year’s Holy Ghost Congress organized by the Redeemed Christian Church of God that prayer is the panacea to the country’s present challenges.”
The report continued: “Jonathan assured the congregation that he will not give up on doing what was right, adding, with optimism, ‘I have a strong conviction that we shall all overcome our present challenges.’”
You were quoted as claiming that your 2011 election owed to “the efforts of the General Overseer of RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, and the innumerable members of the church, who overwhelmingly supported him.” In your own words, “Two years ago, I was here to seek the face of God and ask for your prayers for the last presidential election. I want to thank God that the victory was made possible through the prayers of Pastor Adeboye and the church.” And the paper quoted more of your words, remarkable (above all) for the misalliance between expression and reality. For example, you boasted: “I am guided by biblical principles of transparency in leadership; government is pursuing the agenda of regaining the trust of the people to foster unity and peace.”
You had come to this year’s congress, you told the congregation, “to pray for signs and wonders in government.” And, lo and behold, one such verbal “wonder” came as you “knelt down before the whole congregation” for a “prayer session.” Pastor Adeboye was apparently so carried away by your presidential aura that he went into rhetorical overdrive. “He is the God of wonders who turns impossibilities to possibilities,” said the good preacher. He continued: “Our concerted prayers for the country and her president will surely turn the tide and restore the country’s lost glory. With our leaders turning to God for wisdom and sense of direction in prayers, God’s mighty hand that delivered Israelites from Egypt and brought water out of the rock would change our misfortunes.”

It was all theater, President Jonathan. And God wants you and others like you to know that Pastor Adeboye was speaking for himself. God is not impressed in the least. Look at the countries that are doing well today; you won’t find their leaders – true leaders, by the way – kneeling before any pastor to hand over their countries to God. Such false, showy piety is the recourse of hypocrites and clueless leaders. Again, God is not impressed.
At any rate, if you were guided by biblical principles, then you would act compassionately towards the teeming populace of Nigerians who – like you in the past – are shoeless, foodless, bookless – and close to hopeless. You would not be spending more than two billion naira building a banquet hall for your Olympian feasts when tens of millions of Nigerian children go to bed each night with hunger ringing rude bells in their empty stomachs. There’s nothing in the Bible that justifies the president feting himself with more than a billion naira in a country where the minimum wage is a crime against the humanity of its recipients.
Those of us in heaven thought we had heard everything – until you claimed to be a practitioner of “transparency in leadership.” We immediately summoned Saint Paul, the resident language expert around here, but he couldn't decipher your words. Or rather, he couldn't find anything in your record to justify the phrase. In the end, in his characteristic sense of humor, he concluded that you must be drawing attention to your transparent disdain for Nigerians. Remember how you responded to cheeky Nigerians who demanded that you – permit me to use your words – display “transparency in leadership” by openly declaring your assets? You hectored, “I don’t give a damn!”
To return to a serious vein, here’s the message, President Jonathan. There are no signs or wonders coming your way anytime soon. You want signs and wonders? Make it happen! Create some. Fire the really, really sleazy ministers in your cabinet and hand them over to serious prosecutors. Do it today, not tomorrow, and there would be a nice sign. Slough off the obscene privileges and trappings of your office, roll up your sleeves, and go meet Nigerians in the hovels and shacks where they reside in extreme privation. If you really intend to elevate their condition, go to them and excite them with the zeal of your dream. Inspire them with a vision of real, meaningful change.
Your countrymen and women desire and deserve real leadership; cease serving them the pablum of divine providence. Here are some of the things that your people need and yearn for: good roads, regular, dependable power supply, an excellent educational system, an effective healthcare program, good jobs, the institution of sound moral and ethical values, and a legal system that does not spare the mighty, the wealthy or the connected.
Let me make clear: God is not in the business of building roads, hospitals or schools. He doesn't build electric power plants. He doesn't sweep dirt from streets or act as a prosecuting attorney. These jobs are competently handled every day by humans – and in many nations, including those that officially don’t believe in God.
In the coming year, I suggest that you and other Nigerian officials take a retreat. Set aside one week, travel to a secluded location (without cell phones, TV or any other distractions), and meditate. Ask yourself if you have what it takes to be a real leader, not just a self-aggrandized copy. In the end, if you find that you don’t have a clue how to lead, that you must throw your hands up and raise your head to the sky, gazing for signs and wonders, then may I suggest, simply, that you declare yourself ill-equipped for the office you hold? Yes, do for yourself what a boxer’s handlers do when their man is being battered in the ring: throw in the towel.

By Okey Ndibe