Latest news with #AmericanChristian
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Plane carrying six crashes off San Diego coast
Six people are feared dead after a light aircraft plummeted into the Pacific Ocean three miles south-west of San Diego, California. The twin-engined Cessna 414 crashed on Sunday at lunchtime. It was the second accident involving a private plane in the area within a matter of weeks. According to the US coastguard, which sent a helicopter, two rescue boats and a light aircraft to the scene, there was no sign of survivors. The seven-seat Cessna took off from San Diego for Phoenix, Arizona and crashed less than 30 minutes later. Local reports said the pilot told air traffic controllers that the plane was struggling to maintain its altitude before plunging into the ocean. 'A debris field has been located, but I do not currently have the size of it,' coastguard Petty Officer Ryan Graves told NBC 7. 'I saw him come down at an angle. He wasn't flying straight to the ground,' Tyson Wislofsky, a witness, told the station. 'The next time he came out of the clouds, he went straight into the water. But after I saw this splash, about six seconds later, it was dead silent. I knew that they went in the water, nose first, at a high speed.' The first Cessna 414 entered service in 1968, and an updated version was introduced in 1978. 'This is a twin-engine turbo, a piston airplane, that can fly on one of the two engines. So you could lose an engine,' Jim Kidrick, chief executive of the San Diego Air and Space museum, told ABC7. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are examining the cause of the accident. The worst crash involving a Cessna 414 took place in July 1982 when 12 people, including American Christian singer Keith Green, died shortly after taking off from a small airport in Texas. Investigations blamed the accident on the plane being overloaded. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hindustan Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
The queer flock of Pope Leo XIV
On May 8, over 1.3 billion Catholics around the world watched with rapt attention as the burgundy drapes on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City opened to reveal a new Supreme Pontiff. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, now elected by a conclave of his brother cardinals as Pope Leo XIV, walked out smiling and waving to the crowds below, wearing the regalia eschewed by his immediate, unassuming predecessor, Pope Francis. The hopes of queer Catholics were shattered soon after, however, when it became apparent that some of his past views on our lives didn't quite merit the labels centrist and moderate, which the international media adopted to describe him. Two distinct assertions from the Holy Father, made at previous junctures in his long ministry, indicated conservative opinions on the place that gender and sexuality must hold in social life. In 2012, while Prior General of the Augustinian Order, then Father Prevost lamented to the World Synod of Bishops that the media was 'extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that [were] at odds with the Gospel.' Prevost listed the 'homosexual lifestyle' as a 'choice' that was particularly susceptible to such inordinate compassion. In a video produced by the Catholic News Service, interspersed with images from the TV shows Modern Family and The New Normal, which depict ordinary queer families, Prevost emphasised that 'alternative families comprised same-sex partners and their adopted children [were] so benignly and sympathetically portrayed in television programmes and cinema' within a larger spectrum of 'mass-media produced distortions of religious and ethical reality.' Also Read: Did Pope Leo XIV intentionally ignore an LGBTQ flag? Internet sleuths unearth 'truth' In 2017, after being appointed head of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, then Bishop Prevost objected to a government plan to upgrade the school curriculum to teach gender and sexuality. He advanced the case against 'the promotion of gender ideology', a shorthand for a range of reactionary fears in a world that increasingly did not view gender as binary. Such instruction, he argued, was confusing, 'because it [sought] to create genders that don't exist,' and leapt 'towards the ideology that [aimed] to eliminate all biological differences between male and female.' The severity of these pronouncements filled queer Catholics with a sense of dread. Apart from referring to us in language brimming with indignity, the new Pope appeared convinced that living the mundane routine of our daily lives openly constituted an ideological enterprise. This harked back to the spectre of the gay agenda, a pejorative, and damaging trope deployed by the American Christian right at one point, to view the queer community with alarm and suspicion. Also Read: Dalai Lama extends wishes to Pope Leo XIV Were Pope Leo XIV to continue this earlier approach into his papacy, it would reverse the remarkable progress made by the Catholic Church's public emphasis on empathy, inclusivity, and compassion under Pope Francis. The implications for queer Catholics in India could not be more striking. Dr Andy Silveira, a queer Catholic from Goa, maintains, 'For far too long, under the pretext of doctrine, inconsiderate words uttered by those on the pulpit have resulted in violence and even suicide. We desperately need to be open to the possibility of accepting two human beings, irrespective of their gender, choosing to love and commit themselves to each other.' On the line is Pope Francis' Fiducia Supplicans declaration, which, beginning in 2023 allowed priests to bless couples in 'irregular situations', including unmarried heterosexual and queer couples, as long as such blessings did not offer the impression of a marriage ceremony. Pope Leo XIV has taken a step back from his precursor: neither endorsing nor rejecting the declaration, holding that due to cultural differences, national bishops' conferences should have the authority to allow or disallow these blessings in their local contexts. Whether this approach may be viewed as withdrawing autonomy from ordained ministers, who may have performed such blessings without requiring further approval from the local hierarchy, remains to be seen. Also Read: Pope Leo XIV's first general audience date determined; Vatican releases complete schedule Given these explicit positions, the queer Catholics hope that Pope Leo XIV's ministry does not witness the absence of ecclesiastical embrace, of the kind they had grown to be used under Pope Francis' pontificate. Prior to the Conclave, the official College of Cardinals report noted, tactlessly, that Cardinal Prevost was 'somewhat less favourable to currying favour with the LGBTQ lobby than Francis was.' It also noted that he was being promoted as a potential compromise papabile, if leading conservative or progressive candidates were unable to garner enough votes. This report listed the blessing of queer couples as one of the 10 schismatic issues the Church confronted today, ranking second only to the ordination of women. While this grading suggests how central gender and sexuality are to Catholic identity in the 21st century, it also signifies that queer people still enjoy sufficient support within the hierarchy, just perhaps not enough to push an enlightened contender past the two-thirds majority required to become Pope. Propping up the reluctant optimism that many queer Catholics feel is the knowledge that Pope Francis' own receptiveness towards the queer community came largely after his election to the papacy. Back in 2013, in his first interaction with the media as Pope, he had said, 'If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?' Queer Catholics yearn for a similar orientation with the new Pope. 'I'm hopeful with Pope Leo XIV that there might deeper work done to embrace LGBT Catholics within the church,' remarked Dr. Silveira. Rachael Alphonso, an ally of the community from Mumbai, said that in spite of her initial disappointment, she now holds 'a renewed hope' for the Pope to see that queer people 'are equally beloved children of the Creator, and are inherently deserving of justice and full equality within our Church.' Also Read: Pope Leo XIV: Revisiting Cardinal Robert Prevost's two trips to Kochi Perhaps the pleas of queer Catholics will be heard, after all. After Pope Leo XIV's election, Catholic News Service made public a previously unreleased 2023 video interview with then Cardinal Prevost, in which he appears to have recalibrated his views on the 'homosexual lifestyle', under Pope Francis' influence. 'Given many things that have changed, I would say there's been a development in the sense of the need for the Church to open and to be welcoming,' Prevost said, 'and on that level, I think Pope Francis made it very clear that he doesn't want people to be excluded simply on the basis of choices that they make, whether it be lifestyle, work, way to dress, or whatever. Doctrine hasn't changed, and people haven't said, yet, you know, we're looking for that kind of change, but we are looking to be more welcoming and more open, and to say all people are welcome in the church.' While it doesn't refer to queerness directly, this statement has gone some way in quelling the anxiety many queer Catholics had initially experienced. Upon taking office, Pope Leo XIV has also emphatically insisted on promoting a 'Synodal Church', i.e. a church whose structures are more inclusive and participatory. This appeal leaves the door open for us, queer Catholics to participate courageously within its structures, and make the case, parish by parish, diocese by diocese, for our lives to acknowledged and recognised by the wider Catholic community. Only through such grassroots efforts during this pontificate can we hope to keep our dreams of a just and all-encompassing Catholicism alive. Mario da Penha is a doctoral candidate in History at Rutgers University, and leads work on LGBTQIA+ issues within the Professionals' Congress. While raised Catholic, and grounded in the Church, he is a freewheeling person of faith without a fixed creed. The views expressed are personal. Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
NZ Herald
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Russell Brand faces court over sexual offence charges in UK
He added: 'I am absolutely open to and welcome the opportunity to defend myself because my innocence is indefatigable.' He said that 'fingers crossed', he would be back livestreaming his daily show on Monday. Brand was charged last month with one count of rape, indecent assault and oral rape, as well as two counts of sexual assault, relating to four women. He was also issued with a court summons. Court documents that lay out the details of the charges show Brand is accused of indecently assaulting a woman in 2001 by 'grabbing her arm and dragging her towards a male toilet'. He is also alleged to have sexually assaulted another woman in Westminster, London in 2004 by touching her breasts without her consent. He is also accused of orally raping the woman that same year. The comedian is further alleged to have raped a woman in 1999 in the Bournemouth area, and to have sexually assaulted another woman between 2004 and 2005 in Westminster. The police began an investigation into Brand's alleged wrongdoing in September 2023 after the Sunday Times and Channel 4's non-consensual published an investigation into allegations about his treatment of women. Addressing his 11.3 million followers on X after the charges were revealed last month, Brand rejected the allegations, saying he was 'never a rapist', and that he has 'never engaged in non-consensual activity'. He said: 'I've always told you guys that when I was young and single, before I had a wife and family… I was a fool, man. 'I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord... I have never engaged in non-consensual activity, I pray you can see that by looking in my eyes.' Last month, he was seen on the stage of a music event hosted by Brandon Lake, an American Christian singer, at the Riviera Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina. He moved his family to a $1 million bungalow in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida in 2024 and is regularly seen at the weekend farmer's market, near the beach and in the town square. The beach town, nicknamed 'The Hamptons of the South', is a popular choice for celebrities, with its 300-plus homes, lush gardens and sugar-white beaches. Brand emerged as a break-out television personality in the mid-2000s and became one of the most popular comedy stars on Channel 4. In April 2006, he was given his own show on BBC Radio 2 that attracted a listenership of 400,000 people. Two years later, he was forced to resign after he and Jonathan Ross, the BBC presenter, recorded live on air a series of lewd phone messages for the Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, then aged 78, about his granddaughter. In recent years, he has reinvented himself as an anti-woke political podcaster, amassing millions of online followers tuning in to hear his conspiracy theories on the alternative video platform Rumble. Last year, Brand announced that he had been baptised and had embraced Christianity. Before moving to the US, Brand lived in a £3.3 million house on the banks of the Thames with his wife, Laura Gallacher, 37, and their three children. He had travelled regularly to the US while building an online following among supporters of Donald Trump. Brand has endorsed Trump in videos on his social media platforms and was pictured attending the US President's inauguration in January.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Most US Christian leaders believe climate change is real: Study
A mammoth 90 percent of American Christian leaders — from Catholics to evangelicals — believe in the reality of human-induced climate change, a new study has found. However, these same leaders are typically silent in their beliefs and fail to share that understanding with their congregants, according to the study, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 'Because of leadership's silence on the matter, rank-and-file Christians think most of their leaders do not believe,' senior author Gregg Sparkman, an assistant professor at Boston College, said in a statement. As a result, Sparkman explained, those same congregants 'feel hesitant to even discuss climate change with their fellow churchgoers.' Sparkman and author Stylianos Syropoulos, now an assistant professor at Arizona State University, drew their conclusions based on a survey of 1,600 Christian leaders across the country. Of these leaders, they found that nearly 90 percent said they believed in anthropogenic climate change to at least some degree. Some 60 percent of the leaders replied that humans play a major role, while 30 percent said they felt that people have had more minor impacts, according to the survey. Breaking the data down further, the researchers observed that more than 80 percent of evangelical or fundamentalist Christian leaders believe that humans have contributed to climate change. Nonetheless, the authors also found that about half of the respondents have never discussed this issue with their congregants — and that only a quarter have mentioned it more than once or twice. A second survey included in the study showed that U.S. Christians broadly underestimate the prevalence of their leaders who believe in climate change. Although these participants guessed that about half of their leaders were climate-change deniers, only about 10 percent truly fell into that category, per the study. In a third set of survey results, about half of 1,000 respondents were informed that 90 percent of Christian leaders believe in manmade climate change. That newfound awareness then increased their perception that other church members believe in or are opening to discussing this fraught issue. As such, more respondents answered that taking climate action would be consistent with church values, while voting for politicians who oppose doing so is not, according to the findings. 'We find that informing Christians that the majority of their religious leaders believe in man-made climate change leads them to realize that climate action is in line with their morals, and voting for politicians who deny climate change may be at odds with their faith,' Sparkman said. Noting that every year, droughts, fires, floods and other extreme weather events become more common, he stressed that 9 out of 10 Christian leaders already believe that humans have a role to play in these phenomena. 'If this truth gets out and they break their silence, it will help Christian Americans come to faith on this dire issue,' Sparkman added. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
07-04-2025
- Science
- The Hill
Most US Christian leaders believe climate change is real: Study
A mammoth 90 percent of American Christian leaders — from Catholics to Evangelicals — believe in the reality of human-induced climate change, a new study has found. However, these same leaders are typically silent in their beliefs and fail to share that understanding with their congregants, according to the study, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 'Because of leadership's silence on the matter, rank-and-file Christians think most of their leaders do not believe,' senior author Gregg Sparkman, an assistant professor at Boston College, said in a statement. As a result, Sparkman explained, those same congregants 'feel hesitant to even discuss climate change with their fellow churchgoers.' Sparkman and first author Stylianos Syropoulos, now an assistant professor at Arizona State University, drew their conclusions based on a survey of 1,600 Christian leaders across the country. Of these leaders, they found that nearly 90 percent said they believed in anthropogenic climate change to at least some degree. Some 60 percent of the leaders replied that humans play a major role, while 30 percent said they felt that people have had more minor impacts, according to the survey. Breaking the data down further, the researchers observed that more than 80 percent of Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christian leaders believe that humans have contributed to climate change. Nonetheless, the authors also found that about half of the respondents have never discussed this issue with their congregants, and that only a quarter have mentioned it more than once or twice. A second survey included in the study showed that U.S. Christians broadly underestimate the prevalence of their leaders who believe in climate change. Although these participants guessed that about half of their leaders were climate-change deniers, only about 10 percent truly fell into that category, per the study. In a third set of survey results, about half of 1,000 respondents were informed that 90 percent of Christian leaders believe in manmade climate change. That newfound awareness then increased their perception that other church members believe in or are opening to discussing this fraught issue. As such, more respondents answered that taking climate action would be consistent with church values, while voting for politicians who oppose doing so is not, according to the findings. 'We find that informing Christians that the majority of their religious leaders believe in man-made climate change leads them to realize that climate action is in line with their morals, and voting for politicians who deny climate change may be at odds with their faith,' Sparkman said. Noting that every year, droughts, fires, floods and other extreme weather events become more common, he stressed that nine out of ten Christian leaders already believe that humans have a role to play in these phenomena. 'If this truth gets out and they break their silence, it will help Christian Americans come to faith on this dire issue,' Sparkman added.
