Free Republic

For the record this is an AIDS Benefit Ball promoted by among others UNAIDS- see their full press release below.   Cathcon has every sympathy with combating AIDS and know of the magnificent work done by the Knights of Malta, especially in South Africa, but how do they think their cause is served by insulting the faith of every right believing Catholic in the entire world that just beggars belief.   Will the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna speak up in protest?  - I doubt it.  UNAIDS joins 20th Anniversary Life Ball in Vienna 21 May 2012  UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director,...

Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter dismissed as "nonsense" French President François Hollande's approach to resolving the eurozone debt crisis and insisted, in a newspaper interview, on financial discipline. "Growth financed by debt? Those are the recipes from the day before yesterday. The arguments that France's new president François Hollande is putting forward again are nonsense and got us into this whole mess in the first place," the Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten paper quoted her as saying. Hollande has focused on boosting growth and employment in Europe and said on Monday all options must be on the table at an informal EU summit...

Brothel visits revealed as confirmation gifts in Austria following police investigation. 162 charges made

Son of Austrian Chancellor shares fascinating perspective of events in When Hitler Took Austria SAN FRANCISCO, April 12, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- In March 1938, Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg found himself under house arrest by invading German troops who stormed the country as part of the Nazi takeover of Europe. Chancellor von Schuschnigg spent time in Gestapo prisons from May 1938 to December 1941, when his wife Vera and daughter Sissi joined him in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Ignatius Press has published the gripping true story of von Schuschnigg as told by his son, who came of age during these...

A 26-year-old regularly preaches in a mosque in Solingen - Cologne City Superintendent: His theses are an "impertinence", Representatives of Muslim organizations distance themselves Anti-Christian expressions of a radical Islamic preacher concern the Protestant Church Association of Cologne City. The 26-year-old Austrian Mohamed Mahmoud was released in September 2011 after a four-year prison sentence in a Vienna prison on charges of forming and promoting a terrorist organization . After a short stay in Berlin, he moved at the end of 2011 to Solingen, near Düsseldorf. Currently he is living in Erbach in Hessen(Odenwald).

Peter Paul Kaspar, Academic Chaplain in Linz, author, musician, executive member of the Parish Priest Initiative helped to formulate the "Call to Disobedience" and now writes an open letter to Cardinal Christoph Schönborn THE OPEN LETTER Dear Cardinal! We - the executive of the Parish Priest Initiative - have issued at Pentecost 2011 a "Call to Disobedience," because we wanted our urgent demands for reform to be made public. This has succeeded worldwide even being cited in the Holy Thursday homily of the Pope. The decades-long internal proposals and suggestions put forward were so far always put politely in the...

A BRITISH scientist may have fathered 600 children after making donations to a fertility programme he ran with his wife. And one of his biological children has suggested the number may even be as high as ONE THOUSAND. Bertold Wiesner - who was born in Austria - ran the Barton Clinic in London which helped more than 1,500 women conceive. Barry Stevens, a film-maker from Canada, was concieved using Wiesner's donated sperm and said the number could be much higher. He said last night: "He was the one that found the donors so it's possible he didn't tell his wife...

Jaw dropping, high-speed, brakeless journey down the mountain. Austrian downhill coaster is nevertheless terrifying.” The coaster located Mieders, Austria, starts at the top of a mountain, reachable by a cable car.

PITTSBURGH — Wednesday night the 14th, 15th and 16th bomb threats were reported at different buildings on the University of Pittsburgh campus. School officials sent out the following alert to students and staff just after 5 p.m., "A general bomb threat has been received for the Cathedral of Learning, Posvar Hall and Litchfield Tower C. Please evacuate these buildings. If safe to do so please tell others of this message." Wedneday morning a 13th bomb threat was reported at a building on the University of Pittsburgh's campus. The threat was reported at Thackeray Hall around 10:30 a.m. University officials increased...

Delicts include the desecration of the confessional and sexual abuse of people in confession. When I think we are grouped with the abusers, I wonder how much all of this is upside down. They say we seek to fit ourselves into a role we are not entitled to. We say: the question is whether the clergy are not being presumptious when they take the distribution of the Sacrament on themselves. In addition, we will soon no longer have enough clerics. At that stage, we will have had to have thought about how we should deal with the problem. derStandard.at: The...

At Easter, the theologian Martha Heizer returns to committing a "delictum gravis" and will hold a Eucharistic celebration in the "domestic church" – under the threat of excommunication. The Tyrolean church theologian and critic Martha Heizer has drawn the ire of many religious leaders. She and four colleagues are accused of imitating Eucharistic celebrations without a priest. In the ecclesiastical world, this is a "delictum gravis", ie a "serious offense", which may lead to the excommunication. The local clergy has now launched investigations into the case. An opinion of the Bishop, Manfred Scheuer should be be presented "in the coming...

There are two major trends taking place that are shaping up as a recipe for disaster. On the one hand, we have massively indebted governments around the world desperate for tax revenues and, on the other, steadily growing multi-trillion underground economies whose main goal is to avoid paying them. According to a recent study, the amount of uncollected tax revenues in the U.S. is estimated around a whopping 500 billion dollars per year1—enough money to bailout most of Europe. At 8 percent of GDP, the underground or shadow economy in the U.S. is much smaller percentage-wise than other nations like...

"Whether or not you want us in the European Union, our influence in Europe is growing. We are more numerous. We are younger. We are stronger." A second-generation Muslim immigrant in Austria has authored a provocative new book in which he argues that Europe's future is Turkish, whether Europeans like it or not. The book's short, sharp and confrontational title says it all: "We are Coming." The thesis is: "Regardless of whether or not you [Europeans] like us [Turks], whether or not you integrate us, whether or not you want us in the European Union, our influence in Europe is...

"Senate Hs Committee Report Finds Online Jihadist 'Activity' Leads To Violent Islamist Extremism" by Anthony Kimery 02/28/2012 ( 9:12am) SNIPPET: "Violent Islamist extremists use the Internet to recruit, radicalize and mobilize individuals -- including Americans -- and “the threat of violent Islamist extremism has become increasingly decentralized and its messaging has followed that same trajectory,” according to a report issued Monday by both the majority and minority staff of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs." SNIPPET: "The report concluded that “the United States currently has a haphazard approach to dealing with global Internet radicalization and propaganda,” and...

Ötzi the ice mummy may have met his death in the Alps some 5300 years ago, but his descendants live on – on the Mediterranean islands of Corsica and Sardinia. The finding comes from an analysis of Ötzi's DNA, which also reveals he had brown eyes and hair, and was lactose intolerant. The ice mummy was found in 1991 on an Alpine glacier between Austria and Italy, where he met a violent end in the Neolithic.....

Once again the world economy has proved the naysayers wrong and there's been a "real rebound" so far this year, Barclays CEO Robert Diamond told CNBC Wednesday. "One of the lessons we’ve learned in the last couple of years is every time it’s doom and gloom ... the economy is far more resilient," he said. "We see China at 8 percent to 9 percent growth, and reduction in unemployment [cnbc explains] in the U.S. So we’ve seen a real rebound." That even extends to Europe, which was stabilized by the European Central Bank's [cnbc explains] second liquidity injection. President Mario...

“The relentless decline of Capitalism has begun. The time has come to fight against poverty. Time to obliterate the injustices. Time for the correct system.” So declares a video promoting the global “Caliphate Conference 2012” next month in Austria, suggesting the “correct system” is an international Islamic-based one replacing capitalism, which the video blames for catastrophe, civil war, and never-ending poverty. Organized by the fundamentalist Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, the conference will take place on March 10th south of Vienna. ... a similar conference scheduled for March 4th in Belgium was cancelled after local opposition. The Blaze reported on the...

Euro zone finance ministers inched towards approving a second bailout for debt-laden Greece on Monday that would resolve Athens' immediate repayment needs but seems unlikely to revive the nation's shattered economy. Agreement on a 130-billion-euro rescue package on strict conditions would draw a line under months of uncertainty that has shaken the currency bloc, and avert an imminent bankruptcy. As the ministers met, officials were struggling to make the numbers add up. EU sources said they had to find a further 6 billion euros, via various options, to make the financing work, and private investors might have to take bigger...

European powers struggled to agree a Greek rescue deal on Monday night as politicians doggedly refused to either lower Athens' debt targets or boost the €130bn (£108bn) bail-out fund. Members of the eurogroup promised a deal would be done but the talks ran into the night in a tug-of-war battle over the yawning gap in Greece's finances. There were violent protests in Athens as Greek democracy and sovereignty appeared to be being carved up by demands from individual European countries. Northern European "hardliners" - including Holland, Germany, Austria and Finland - demanded a "permanent representation" of the troika in Athens...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers inched towards approving a second bailout for debt-laden Greece on Monday that would resolve Athens' immediate repayment needs but seems unlikely to revive the nation's shattered economy. Agreement on a 130-billion-euro rescue package on strict conditions would draw a line under months of uncertainty that has shaken the currency bloc, and avert imminent bankrupcty. As the ministers met, officials were struggling to make the numbers add up. EU sources said they had to cut a further 6 billion euros, via various means, to make the financing work, and private investors might have to...

'Far-right' Vienna ball condemned on Holocaust Day Protesters voiced their outrage over the timing of the ball Continue reading the main story Related Stories Hitler's hometown revokes honour Vienna to honour WWII deserters Austria still haunted by Nazi past Protesters in Austria marking Holocaust Remembrance Day have condemned organisers of a ball which was expected to be attended by far-right leaders. Greens' Party head Eva Glavischnig said guests at Vienna's WKR event would be "dancing on the graves of Auschwitz" - a reference to the Nazi death camp. But the organisers rejected the accusations, saying the ball was always held...

If Canada’s “green” media — especially in the Parliamentary Press Gallery — demanded the same standards of accountability of themselves as they do of politicians, they would be killing entire forests right now apologizing to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Why? Because in sidestepping the economically suicidal stampede onto the green energy bandwagon which they relentlessly shilled for, Harper was right and they — along with the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens — were wrong. Today, so-called “green” energy is in retreat all over the developed world, as taxpayers and consumers in countries that blindly raced into it are in open...

Heavier than usual snowfall and high winds have caused chaos on roads and railways in many areas of Austria. Part of a major railway route has been shut down in the west of the county, and some villages and tourist resorts have been cut off. Up to 1.2 metres (4ft) of fresh snow has been recorded in some areas since Thursday. The authorities say the probability of avalanches is extremely high and widespread. The railway line that connects Oetzal, close to Innsbruck in Tyrol, and Bludenz in the far west of the country has been shut and is expected to...

Several dozen young men are basking in the warm mid-day sun. They are Afghan and Pakistani. Behind them, on a white wall, is graffiti extolling the glories of the UÇK -- ex-Kosovo Albanian guerilla fighters.Over the past two years, the Macedonian village of Lojane, which borders Serbia, has become a stop-over on the illegal migration routes to Western Europe. “It started when groups of three or four would arrive periodically. It didn’t disturb us at first,” says Selam Mehmeti, the head of the village community. “But since this summer, it’s grown to a whole other dimension: there were 500 in...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a free speech activist who was charged last year in Austria with “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion” for asserting that “Mohammed had a thing for little girls.” In February of this year she was convicted, and will have to pay a fine of up to €480. Just recently, on December 20, 2011, her conviction was upheld by the higher court. If she refuses to pay the fine, she may spend a maximum of two months in jail. She grew up and lived in Muslim countries and experienced Islam first-hand....

Judge Leo Levnaic-Iwanski upheld the verdict of the lower court, which convicted Elisabeth [Sabaditsch-Wolff] on the charge of “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion.” The judge found that the length of time her trial had taken was excessive, and that her fine should be reduced. A new date will be set in the lower court for the announcement of the fine. There will be a press conference shortly at the Wiener Akademikerbund.

Europe's Left has suffered a calamitous six months. Socialist governments have met historic defeats in Portugal and Spain. Greece’s Pasok party was toppled by an EU technocrat Putsch. Ireland’s soft-Left Fianna Foil lost every seat in Dublin. Almost 97pc of the European Union’s population is now governed by conservative or Right-leaning coalitions, or EU-imposed mandarins. All that is left to social democrats is Austria (8.4m), Denmark (5.5m), and Slovenia (2.1m). The whole machinery of the European Union (EU) system is under the control of the Right, with variants of Rhenish corporatism in the Council, and pre-modern Hayekians at the European...

SURRENDER COMPLETELY AND RECEIVE MY LOVE FOR YOU ! My surrender to you is eternal , for as My Sacrifice was a promise and a statement of My Love coming down through the Father ! It is Now time for You to SURRENDER wholeheartedly to Me . I need to see a heart opened forth right and true ; to discern My Presence ! That you make " ALL " Known to Me ~ free for release and in this surrender as you raise your hands and lower your defenses and pride I WILL COME ! And My SPIRIT ,...

Most Brits think it's an activity best learned behind closed doors. But an enterprising Swedish schoolmistress thinks otherwise. Ylva-Maria Thompson has opened the world's first international sex school to teach its students how to be better lovers. The Austrian International Sex School in Vienna offers 'hands on' lessons in seduction for £1,400 a term. The 'headmistress' says anyone over the age of 16 can enrol at 'the world's first college of applied sexuality'. Students live in a mixed sex dormitory block where they're expected to practise their homework. And at the end of the course, they are awarded a qualification....

Heinz-Christian Strache – A Modern-Day Captain Von Trapp who is fighting to protect his Nation against the 21st Century version of Nazism called ‘IslamoNazism.’ Austrians have had enough of increasing Islamization of Europe, and unchecked Islamic immigration from Turkey into the Austrian Republic. Last week Spanish voters threw out the Socialist Party Islamist appeasors, and elected a Conservative government that has vowed to protect Spanish sovereignty and culture. Now, Austria is about to do the same. The Party’s leader Heinz-Christian Strache is quoted: “We face serious problems in our immigration policy. This largely concerns migration from non-European Muslim countries such...

Ordinary measures are not warranted anymore for I have overcome for you and in Me you reside in the heavenlies. So cast off your flesh when it distracts you from My Will of virtue and Righteousness and "Remain" in "MY" Loyalty for I AM all you need to KNOW! John 15:9 (AMP) 9I have loved you, [just] as the Father has loved Me; abide in My love [[a]continue in His love with Me]. Acts 17:28 28For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his...

DELONG: It Is 1931. We Are Austria. If The Fed Doesn't Save Us Here Comes Another Great Depression... Henry Blodget Nov. 9, 2011, 5:21 PM How does Berkeley professor Brad Delong feel about what's going on in Europe? He's freaking out: Time to Spread Foam on the Runway: The Federal Reserve Needs to Act Now to Firewall Off the Eurocrisis I have been complaining for some time now that Reinhart and Rogoff think that the time is always 1931 and that we are always Austria--that the great fiscal crisis is about to erupt and send us lurching down toward Great...

Oh Crap... AUSTRIA?!? Joe Weisenthal Nov. 11, 2011, 6:59 AM And now we have to start talking about this. It's the Austria-German 10-year spread The spread is widening further today, even as Italy improves and markets are rising. What's the deal with Austria? Well there have been persistent rumors about a downgrade, but furthermore, Austrian banks are famously exposed to Eastern Europe. And now you see stuff about how Slovenian yields are surging. Too many fires to put out. For a good background story on Austrian banks and exposure to Eastern Europe, see this NYT piece from last year.

The brutal gang rape of a British woman by five Afghan refugees has sparked a massive protest against illegal immigrants in a Serbian spa town. The 38-year-old woman - who bravely managed to film the attack on her mobile phone - was repeatedly raped after befriending a group of Afghan men in a park in Banja Koviljaca. Despite handing the video footage to police, only one alleged attacker - identified by police only as Abdurashid D., 25 - has been arrested. Now local mothers have told police they are boycotting local schools from next week (nov 7) unless they clear...

The National Geographic has info, a teaser for an October 26 Nova special: The genetic results add both information and intrigue. From his genes, we now know that the Iceman had brown hair and brown eyes and that he was probably lactose intolerant and thus could not digest milk—somewhat ironic, given theories that he was a shepherd. Not surprisingly, he is more related to people living in southern Europe today than to those in North Africa or the Middle East, with close connections to geographically isolated modern populations in Sardinia, Sicily, and the Iberian Peninsula. The DNA analysis also revealed...

I Am going to move My sphere of authority into place now upon My Foundation and "TRUTH" shall be its Robe ! Zechariah 4:9 9The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundations of this house; his hands shall also finish it. Then you shall know (recognize and understand) that the Lord of hosts has sent me [His messenger] to you. The unction of My Spirit is something to be followed not ignored ! My blessings flow through My Spirit and Guiding counselor of My very Heart ! So understand this ; To reject My Spirit is to deny Me ,...

Archaeologists say they have located and excavated the ruins of a huge amphitheatre used to train gladiators east of Vienna, describing it as a "sensational discovery". They claim that the ruins found through ground radar measurements rival the Colosseum and the Ludus Magnus in Rome in their structure. The Ludus Magnus is the largest of the gladiatorial arenas in the Italian capital, while the Colosseum is the largest amphitheatre ever built in the Roman empire.

VIENNA — There is open rebellion among the clergy of Austria's Catholic Church. One highly placed man of the cloth has even warned about the risk of a coming schism as significant numbers of priests are refusing obedience to the Pope and bishops for the first time in memory. The 300-plus supporters of the so-called Priests' Initiative have had enough of what they call the church's "delaying" tactics, and they are advocating pushing ahead with policies that openly defy current practices. These include letting nonordained people lead religious services and deliver sermons; making communion available to divorced people who have...

An Austrian man has been accused of locking up his two mentally disabled daughters and using them as sex slaves for 41 years. Police said that the 85-year-old, who has not been named, repeatedly raped the women between 1970 and May 2011. The alleged victims are now 53 and 45 years old. The women escaped when the father was unable to get up after the older daughter pushed him over when he last tried to rape her, according to Austrian media. The sisters allegedly fled as their father lay unable to seek help for two days until he was found...

A Swiss dad celebrating the birth of his son with a trip to an Austrian casino won 43 million Euros - but then was told the cash would not be paid because it had been a "software error". Behar Merlaku, 38, won the jackpot in the Bregenz Casino operated by Casinos Austria in March but after he was told there had been a mistake he kept trying to get the prize money for four months and is now going to take the case to court. He told Austrian newspaper Heute: "When I won I was ecstatic and of course I...

Via Menzies House: A clear majority of Austrians support an anti-burka law, according to new poll results. The Austrian Independent reports: “Viennese public opinion agency Karmasin spoke with 500 Austrians to find that 71 per cent of them were in favour of such a law prohibiting wearing burkas in public places. Such veils cover women’s bodies expect a small gap for their eyes. Only 23 per cent spoke out against the introduction of such a bylaw, Karmasin found in its survey conducted for weekly magazine profil.” The seven in ten result isn’t surprising. Across right-leaning Europe, there is growing support...

A diplomatic row between Lithuania and Austria erupted after Austrian authorities released a former KGB officer implicated in a 1991 massacre in Vilnius. Mikhail Golovatov was arrested at Vienna airport on July 14 but released after 24 hours and allowed to travel to Moscow. A Justice Ministry spokeswoman said Austrian authorities had decided that the arrest warrant issued by Vilnius, which alleges crimes against humanity, lacked details of the man's suspected criminal actions. Lithuanian Deputy Foreign Minister Asta Skaisgiryte Liauskiene said the country had recalled its ambassador from Vienna and delivered a protest note. ...

The eurozone can in theory still be saved, if two sets of conditions are fulfilled; if the leaders of Germany, Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands accept fiscal union and a common pooling of debt, and can persuade their parliaments and courts to ratify such a revolution. If the Germanic bloc agrees to tear up the mandate of the European Central Bank, letting it switch from inflation-targeting to job-targeting ("Unemployment must not exceed 10pc in two or more EMU states, or some such formula), effectively instructing the ECB to embark on Fed-style stimulus for three to five years. This might allow...

Over 300 of Austria’s 4,200 priests have pledged to take part in Aufruf zum Ungehorsam (Call to Disobedience), an initiative launched in June. The Call to Disobedience document cites “the Roman refusal of a long-overdue Church reform and the inaction of bishops.” Priests who support the document pledge to pray for Church reform at every liturgy, since “in the presence of God there is freedom of speech”not to deny the Holy Eucharist to “believers of good will,” including non-Catholic Christians and those who have remarried outside the Churchto avoid offering Mass more than once on Sundays and holy days and...

Within that neatly closed circle lay all the major political dramas of the 20th century, most of which he witnessed and some of which he influenced. He was centre stage for one of them — the unequal struggle against Hitler for the survival of his Austrian homeland, which he tried to conduct as an exiled Pretender in the 1930s. Not for nothing did the Führer call the triumphant march-in of March 12 1938 “Operation Otto”. All that seemed unimaginable to the world in which young Otto, as he was known, started life during the deceptively tranquil Indian summer of the...

Milivoj Asner Austria has been branded as a "paradise for Nazis" after it emerged that an alleged war criminal deceased in a care home in Carinthia. A spokesman for a Caritas retirement centre in Klagenfurt confirmed newspaper reports claiming that Milivoj Asner passed away today (Mon). He said the Croat perished aged 98 in the institution last week. Asner is suspected of being behind the deportation of hundreds of Serbs, Roma and members of the Jewish community in Croatia’s Ustasa movement during World War Two (WWII). Asner changed his name to Georg Aschner after fleeing to Austria when the Communists...

The once-powerful head of the Croatian police during World War II, Milivoj Asner, has died a free man in Austria at the age of 98. Asner appeared as the fourth person on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's 'Most Wanted' list, and appeared on Interpol's 'Most Wanted' list as well. Nevertheless, he managed to escape extradition from Austria to Croatia, where in 2005 he was indicted for crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Those included his active participation in the deportation of hundreds of Jews, Serbs and Roma (gypsies) to the Nazi death camps. The Austrian government allowed him to stay in...

Under the current liturgical norms there is greater flexibility than some would wish regarding both diversity and inculturation. Most of you who read this blog regularly know that I am probably more appreciative of legitimate (please note that word) diversity. I celebrate both the Traditional Latin Mass (usually in the solemn high form) and also pastor a parish with strong African American roots where we use gospel music, spirituals and exhibit charismatic enthusiasm.However, I must add, that in the African American community, such things ARE traditional and considered sacred and reverent by most of my parishioners. In fact the traditional...

Yet another convert to Islam misunderstands his peaceful new religion. "Austrian National Arrested For Planning Bundestag Attack," from AGI, June 18 (thanks to all who sent this in): (AGI) Vienna- An Austrian national was arrested in Vienna and charged with terrorism. Detectives believe he was planning to crash a plane into the Bundestag, German parliament headquarters in Berlin. The suspect, 25-year-old Thomas al-J., is a young man who has converted to Islam. He was arrested Wednesday in his apartment in the Austrian capital and has also been accused of recruiting terrorists in order to send them to jihad training camps...

Austrian economist Peter Schiff brings you up to date on Eurozone developments - Merkel caves on Greece taking the easy way out politically by agreeing to a bailout that does not put the prime burden on Greek creditors. He also gives a heads-up on the what he sees as the inevitable coming QE-3...more monetizing of US debt by the Fed.