শুক্রবার, ৮ মার্চ, ২০১৩

Republican senators share "candid" dinner with Obama

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A dozen Republican senators talked about how to reach a "big agreement" on the nation's debt and deficit over dinner with President Barack Obama on Wednesday night, the start of what one of the senators hoped was a new round of intense fiscal discussions.

"It was a really good conversation. It was candid. We really talked about how do we get to a big agreement in terms of the debt and deficit?" Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota said after the private dinner with Obama at the Jefferson Hotel near the White House.

Obama also enjoyed the dinner, a senior administration official said in a statement, noting "a good exchange of ideas with the senators."

Hoeven said he felt "genuine desire" among the people in the room to tackle tax and entitlement reform in the next four to five months, as the White House and Congress face a series of deadlines to fund the government and deal with the debt ceiling.

"That really creates pressure to come to an agreement, a big-picture agreement," Hoeven told Reuters.

The meeting came on the heels of the failure of the White House and Congress to agree on how to avert $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts called the "sequester," which has touched off a fight about who was to blame.

Hoeven said he was optimistic that Republicans and Democrats both wanted to work through the issues and avert more congressional gridlock.

"I hope things are changing," he said.

But Hoeven emphasized it would take a lot more talks, led by Obama, to make progress.

"This kind of intense dialogue needs to be continuous," he said.

Obama is slated to meet with the full Republican Senate caucus next week, and will also pay a visit to Republicans in the House of Representatives.

"I think we'll make some progress," Hoeven said. "We have to get there."

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina drew up the guest list for the dinner, the White House said. Other senators there were Bob Corker of Tennessee, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, John McCain of Arizona, Dan Coats of Indiana, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.

(Additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republican-senators-share-candid-dinner-obama-041836154--business.html

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মঙ্গলবার, ৫ মার্চ, ২০১৩

Gay group calls for apology from Scottish cardinal

FILE - A Thursday Sept. 16, 2010 photo from files showing Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien speaking to the media in Edinburgh, Scotland. Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to marry and have children, Britain's most senior Catholic cleric said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who heads the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, said the requirement for priestly celibacy is "not of divine origin" and could be reconsidered. He told BBC Scotland that "the celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry _ Jesus didn't say that." (AP Photo/Scott Campbell, File)

FILE - A Thursday Sept. 16, 2010 photo from files showing Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien speaking to the media in Edinburgh, Scotland. Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to marry and have children, Britain's most senior Catholic cleric said Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who heads the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, said the requirement for priestly celibacy is "not of divine origin" and could be reconsidered. He told BBC Scotland that "the celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry _ Jesus didn't say that." (AP Photo/Scott Campbell, File)

LONDON (AP) ? A Scottish cardinal who stepped down from church leadership after admitting sexual misconduct should apologize to gay people for his years of "vicious and cruel language" about them, Britain's leading gay-rights group said Monday.

Officials in the Vatican refused to say whether they would formally investigate allegations against Cardinal Keith O'Brien. He resigned last week as Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric after being accused of inappropriate behavior by three priests and a former priest.

Until his abrupt resignation as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, O'Brien had been due to join cardinals from around the world in Rome for a conclave that will elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.

The cardinals met Monday, without O'Brien, for the first of their pre-conclave meetings.

The Scottish Catholic Media Office said the complaints against O'Brien had been reported to the Vatican, and it expected there would be an investigation.

The Vatican refused to confirm or deny Monday whether it was investigating O'Brien, and declined to say when it learned of the allegations against him. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, repeated his statement from last week, which was that the original four accusers had sent their complaint via the papal ambassador to Britain, and the pope had been informed.

Pressed to respond to reports of a purported fifth accuser, who reportedly approached the Vatican directly in October with accusations, another spokesman, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, read O'Brien's statement and said the Vatican would say no more.

O'Brien has not directly addressed the allegations against him, which include "an inappropriate approach" to a seminarian after night prayers and "inappropriate contact" with another priest.

But he said Sunday that "my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal."

"To those I have offended, I apologize and ask forgiveness," he said.

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights organization Stonewall, said Monday that the group noted "with sadness that the cardinal didn't find it in him to apologize to gay people, their families and friends for the harm his vicious and cruel language caused."

That view was echoed by veteran human rights activist Peter Tatchell, who urged the cardinal "to show true remorse for his homophobia and hypocrisy by saying sorry to the gay community for the hatred and harm he has caused ? and by publicly repenting his homophobia."

O'Brien, 74, had been a staunch advocate of church teaching against homosexuality, calling same-sex marriage "a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right" and saying that British government plans to legalize same-sex marriage would "shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world."

Last year, Stonewall named O'Brien "Bigot of the Year" for his hard line on homosexuality.

Despite his views on same-sex relationships, O'Brien was long known for his relatively liberal stance on some social issues.

Shortly after he was named cardinal in 2003, O'Brien made an unusual public pledge to defend Roman Catholic Church teaching, having previously suggested there should be more open discussion on issues such as the requirement of celibacy for priests and the church's ban on contraception.

The cardinal largely kept those views to himself over the next decade, although he reiterated them in an interview with the BBC just before the allegations against him emerged. O'Brien told the broadcaster that he was open to priests marrying and having children.

"The celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry ? Jesus didn't say that," he said in the interview last month. "When I was a young boy, the priest didn't get married and that was it. I would be very happy if others had the opportunity of considering whether or not they could or should get married."

Another British cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, said Monday that the claims against O'Brien weren't necessarily evidence that the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church ? which has been wracked by scandals over sexual abuse by priests ? was in need of deep reform.

"There's always been sinners in the church but there's always been saints," he told BBC radio from Rome.

Murphy-O'Connor ? who, at 80, is too old to vote in the conclave ? said that while sometimes wrongdoing was the responsibility of the church, "sometimes it is just the weakness of individuals and the wrong that they do."

?"To say that this is all in the church, I just don't think it is true," he said.

___

Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-04-Britain-Cardinal%203rd%20Ld-Writethru/id-bc690f7c7e4749999f6a3aa6116c721a

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