ROME — The Pope is considering a dramatic overhaul of the Vatican in order to force a return to traditional sacred music. After reintroducing the Latin Tridentine Mass, the Pope wants to widen the use of Gregorian chant and baroque sacred music. In an address to the bishops and priests of St Peter’s Basilica, he said that there needed to be ‘continuity with tradition’ in their prayers and music. He referred pointedly to ‘the time of St Gregory the Great’, the pope who gave his name to Gregorian chant. Gregorian chant has been reinstituted as the primary form of singing by the new choir director of St Peter’s, Father Pierre Paul. advertisement He has also broken with the tradition set up by John Paul II of having a rotating choir, drawn from churches all over the world, to sing Mass in St Peter’s. The Pope has recently replaced the director of pontifical liturgical celebrations, Archbishop Piero Marini, with a man closer to his heart, Mgr Guido Marini. It is now thought he may replace the head of the Sistine Chapel choir, Giuseppe Liberto. The International Church Music Review recently criticised the choir, saying: […]
When the new American Embassy in Baghdad entered the planning stage, more than three years ago, U.S. officials inside the Green Zone were still insisting that great progress was being made in the construction of a new Iraq. I remember a surreal press conference in which a U.S. spokesman named Dan Senor, full of governmental conceits, described the marvelous developments he personally had observed during a recent sortie (under heavy escort) into the city. His idea now was to set the press straight on realities outside the Green Zone gates. Senor was well groomed and precocious, fresh into the world, and he had acquired a taste for appearing on TV. The assembled reporters were by contrast a disheveled and unwashed lot, but they included serious people of deep experience, many of whom lived fully exposed to Iraq, and knew that society there was unraveling fast. Some realized already that the war had been lost, though such were the attitudes of the citizenry back home that they could not yet even imply this in print. Now they listened to Senor as they increasingly did, setting aside their professional skepticism for attitudes closer to fascination and wonder. Senor’s view of Baghdad […]
BAGHDAD — Iraqis are returning to their homeland by the hundreds each day, by bus, car and plane, encouraged by weeks of decreased violence and increased security, or compelled by visa and residency restrictions in neighboring countries and the depletion of their savings. Those returning make up only a tiny fraction of the 2.2 million Iraqis who have fled Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. But they represent the largest number of returnees since February 2006, when sectarian violence began to rise dramatically, speeding the exodus from Iraq. Many find a Baghdad they no longer recognize, a city altered by blast walls and sectarian rifts. Under the improved security, Iraqis are gingerly testing how far their new liberties allow them to go. But they are also facing many barriers, geographical and psychological, hardened by violence and mistrust. Days after she returned from Syria, 23-year-old Melal al-Zubaidi and a friend went to the market on a pleasant night to eat ice cream. It was a short walk, yet unthinkable only a month ago for a woman in the capital. Still, her parents were nervous, and Zubaidi wore a head scarf and an ankle-length skirt to avoid angering […]
China has accused Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of violating the religious rituals and historical conventions of Tibetan Buddhism by suggesting he might appoint a successor before his death instead of relying on reincarnation. Beijing’s latest broadside against the Dalai Lama is a sign of heightening tensions between the central government and the man Tibetans see as a god-king. While reincarnation sounds like an esoteric concept to those of other belief systems, it is a deeply political issue in the isolated Himalayan enclave. The Dalai Lama said Tibetans would not accept a successor who was selected by China after his death, prompting an angry response from Beijing. ‘The reincarnation of the living Buddha is a unique way of succession of Tibetan Buddhism and follows relatively complete religious rituals and historical conventions,’ said Liu Jianchao, a Foreign Ministry spokesman . ‘Dalai’s remarks obviously violated the religious rituals and historical conventions.’ The Chinese see the Dalai Lama, 72, as a dangerous separatist. They accuse him of continuing to inspire demands for independence among the 2.7 million Tibetans living in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and refuse to allow him back inside its borders. The Tibetan leader, who won […]
WASHINGTON — The number of people in U.S. prisons has risen eight-fold since 1970, with little impact on crime but at great cost to taxpayers and society, researchers said in a report calling for a major justice-system overhaul. The report on Monday cites examples ranging from former vice-presidential aide Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby to a Florida woman’s two-year sentence for throwing a cup of coffee to make its case for reducing the U.S. prison population of 2.2 million — nearly one-fourth of the world’s total. It recommends shorter sentences and parole terms, alternative punishments, more help for released inmates and decriminalizing recreational drugs. It said the steps would cut the prison population in half, save $20 billion a year and ease social inequality without endangering the public. But the recommendations run counter to decades of broad U.S. public and political support for getting tough on criminals through longer, harsher prison terms and to the Bush administration’s anti-drug and strict-sentencing policies. ‘President (George W.) Bush was right,’ in commuting Libby’s perjury sentence this year as excessive, the report said. But he should also have commuted the sentences of hundreds of thousands of other Americans, it said. ‘Our […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
