In the Supreme Court’s white marble courtroom, the nine sitting justices are not the only presiding presence. At the center of the nation’s legal system, high above the justices’ mahogany bench, the great lawgivers of history are depicted in marble friezes.

From Hammurabi to Moses to John Marshall, the stone sculptures commemorate written law as a force for stability in human affairs. The larger-than-life artworks, designed by architectural sculptor Adolph A. Weinman as the courthouse was being built in the early 1930s, convey the idea that, while the law begins with individuals, its principles never die.

The 18 lawgivers looking down on the justices are divided into two friezes of ivory-colored, Spanish marble. On the south wall, to the right of incoming visitors, are figures from the pre-Christian era — Menes, Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius and Octavian (Caesar Augustus). On the north wall to the left are lawmakers of the Christian era — Napoleon Bonaparte, Marshall, William Blackstone, Hugo Grotius, Louis IX, King John, Charlemagne, Muhammad and Justinian. Interspersed with the lawgivers are angels representing concepts such as philosophy, liberty and peace….

The 60-year-old choice of notables in the friezes has held up over time. Other than a brief controversy about Muhammad last year, the friezes have generated little public complaint. A coalition of Muslim groups asked the court to sandblast or otherwise remove the depiction of Muhammad, contending that it was a form of sacrilege because graven images are forbidden in Islam and that believers might be encouraged to pray to someone other than God, or Allah in Arabic.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist rejected the request, saying the Muhammad sculpture “was intended only to recognize him, among many other lawgivers, as an important figure in the history of law; it is not intended as a form of idol worship.”…

In Muslim tradition, this great prophet received the sacred scriptures of the Koran from God. The fundamental tenet of Islam, which covers all private and public behavior, is submission to the will of God. After last year’s controversy about the image of Muhammad, the Supreme Court included this explanation in tourist materials: “The figure is a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor to honor Muhammad, and it bears no resemblance to Muhammad. Muslims generally have a strong aversion to sculptured or pictured representations of their Prophet.”

So the reason you can’t depict Mohammed is because Moslems might be unable to tell the difference between a sculpture of a human being and a real live God? That doesn’t reflect too well on the Prophet’s opinion of his followers, does it?

As for the ‘explanation’ that the sculpture bears no resemblance to Mohammed, the best response comes from Sneer Review: ‘How do they know?’

Want to make 72 per cent annual interest? Want to know where you can find some really gullible people? Look no further…

SMH

…[T]he grand Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga in Australia still stands in an estate of factories and warehouses near Rooty Hill in Sydney but the pride of the Polynesian community is cloaked in shame and debt.

Owing $21 million, the Methodist church is set to collapse amid a confusion of parties, including 20,000 Tongans, Westpac and a Bankstown paint company with a sideline in short-term finance.

The church went into voluntary administration this month and into receivership this week, with the debt secured against church properties around the country.

The bulk of it – $18 million – is split between Westpac and an industrial paint business, Phoenix Lacquers & Paints, which lent the church $950,000 less than four years ago.

When the loan was not repaid after six months, during which time the interest rate was 5 per cent a month, a penalty was imposed and the interest rate increased to 6 per cent – or 72 per cent a year, the paint company said. The debt has now snowballed to more than $9 million….

Mr Lee denied the 72 per cent annual interest rate was predatory. He said this week he was willing to accept $1.4 million if the church could restructure its debt.

”They understood that the interest rate was high but they entered into it because they needed to have the church finished,” he said.

On Wednesday, Krul, 61, of Forestport, pleaded guilty in Oneida County Court to second-degree grand larceny for stealing more than $87,000 from the church between October 2008 and January 2011.

Krul was taken into custody after his plea to begin serving six months in Oneida County jail, where he once worked as chaplain for the Sheriff’s Office.

Krul will return to court Wednesday, March 7, to be sentenced by Judge Barry M. Donalty to five years of probation, including jail time.

The Observer-Dispatch

A German court has convicted a Catholic priest of 250 counts of sexual abuse involving three boys over the period of several years and sentenced him to six years in prison.

The state court in Braunschweig on Thursday found the priest guilty of abusing the boys, aged 9 to 15, between 2004 and 2011.

The 46-year-old man, whose name was not revealed, told the court he abused the children during youth camps.

PressTV

A Missouri Catholic bishop will go to trial in September on a misdemeanor charge that he and the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese failed to report suspicions of child sexual abuse by a priest…

The charges against Finn and the diocese stem from claims that the diocese waited five months before telling police about pornographic photos of children found on a priest’s computer.

A computer technician found hundreds of “troubling images” on the Rev. Shawn Ratigan’s computer in December 2010. Finn acknowledged that he knew of the photos in December, but didn’t report them to police until May.

He obviously wasn’t ‘troubled’ enough.

KMBC Kansas City

Holland is a pastor at the United Faith Church, which had been holding services in the lobby of a tax service business on Hacienda Avenue in Las Vegas. The alleged incidents involving Holland are said to have occurred at various locations in Henderson and in Las Vegas.

What happens in Vegas… happens in Henderson too, apparently.

The Vatican was shaken by a corruption scandal Thursday after an Italian television investigation said a former top official had been transferred against his will after complaining about irregularities in awarding contracts.

The show “The Untouchables” on the respected private television network La 7 Wednesday night showed what it said were several letters that Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who was then deputy-governor of Vatican City, sent to superiors, including Pope Benedict, in 2011 about the corruption.

The Vatican issued a statement Thursday criticizing the “methods” used in the journalistic investigation. But it confirmed that the letters were authentic by expressing “sadness over the publication of reserved documents.”

As deputy governor of the Vatican City for two years from 2009 to 2011, Vigano was the number two official in a department responsible for maintaining the tiny city-state’s gardens, buildings, streets, museums and other infrastructure.

Vigano, currently the Vatican’s ambassador in Washington, said in the letters that when he took the job in 2009 he discovered a web of corruption, nepotism and cronyism linked to the awarding of contracts to outside companies at inflated prices.

In one letter, Vigano tells the pope of a smear campaign against him (Vigano) by other Vatican officials who wanted him transferred because they were upset that he had taken drastic steps to save the Vatican money by cleaning up its procedures.

It’s that damned UNESCO again!

The case of Jacob Doe entered its third day Thursday at Superior Court in Waterbury. The plaintiff and his childhood friend, known as Matthew Doe in court papers, testified before a six-member jury.

In sometimes emotional testimony, the men, now in their mid-40s, told similar stories. They met the Rev. Ivan Ferguson, who died in 2002, when he began working at the school affiliated with the St. Mary the Immaculate Conception Church in Derby. Both boys were altar boys and testified that they immediately liked Ferguson when he showed up there in 1980…

After dinner, Ferguson showed them pornographic magazines and encouraged the boys to masturbate while he walked in and out of the room. Soon, the two Does testified, the priest gave them what they called “bear hugs.”…

Matthew Doe testified that he went to sleep on the couch and woke up with Ferguson performing oral sex on him. It was the first of several times that Ferguson abused him, Matthew Doe testified. Earlier, Jacob Doe testified that Ferguson sodomized him at one of the sleepovers…

What the two boys did not know was that the archdiocese assigned Ferguson to the school in Derby in spite of a complaint from a mother in Simsbury that Ferguson had previously abused her two sons while assigned to St. Bernard’s Church in Simsbury’s Tariffville section….

The negligence suit against the Hartford Roman Catholic Diocesan Corporation alleges that Jacob Doe’s abuse was the result of the church’s failure to take steps that would have kept Ferguson away from children. Matthew Doe’s lawsuit, similar to Jacob Doe’s, is pending.

ELPAÍS.com in English

During his Boxing Day sermon, the Bishop of Córdoba, Demetrio Fernández, said there was a conspiracy by the United Nations. “The Minister for Family of the Papal Government, Cardinal Antonelli, told me a few days ago in Zaragoza that UNESCO has a program for the next 20 years to make half the world population homosexual. To do this they have distinct programs, and will continue to implant the ideology that is already present in our schools.”

Because with all those letters in it, UNESCO just has to stand for something bad..

United Network Encouraging Sexual Choices Obscenely?

Ugly National Enmity to Solid Christian Options?

UNESCO? Seriously?