Catholic church gives blessing to iPhone app

The Catholic Church has approved an iPhone app that helps guide worshippers through confession.
The Confession program has gone on sale through iTunes for £1.19 ($1.99).

Described as "the perfect aid for every penitent", it offers users tips and guidelines to help them with the sacrament.

Now senior church officials in both the UK and US have given it their seal of approval, in what is thought to be a first.

The app takes users through the sacrament - in which Catholics admit their wrongdoings - and allows them to keep track of their sins.

It also allows them to examine their conscience based on personalised factors such as age, sex and marital status - but it is not intended to replace traditional confession entirely.

Instead, it encourages users to understand their actions and then visit their priest for absolution.

"Our desire is to invite Catholics to engage in their faith through digital technology," Patrick Leinen of developer Little iApps told Reuters.

The launch comes shortly after Pope Benedict XVI gave urging to Christians to embrace digital communication and make their presence felt online.

In his World Communications Address on 24 January, he said it was not a sin to use social networking sites - and particularly encouraged young Catholics to share important information with each other online.

"I invite young people above all to make good use of their presence in the digital world," he said.

He warned them to keep in mind that digital communication was part of a bigger picture, however.

"It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives."

Confession's developers, who are based in Indiana, said they took the Pope's words to heart when they were preparing the application for public consumption.

"Our goal with this project is to offer a digital application that is truly 'new media at the service of the word'," said the company.

The firm said the app was developed with assistance from several priests and had been given the church's imprimatur by Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne in Indiana.

A spokesperson from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales told BBC News the app was a "useful tool to help people prepare for the Sacrament of Reconciliation".

"The Church believes in embracing new technology and this creative app will hopefully help people to make a good confession."

It is thought to be the first time the church has approved a mobile phone application, although it is not entirely unfamiliar with the digital world.

In 2007, the Vatican launched its own YouTube channel.

Two years later created a Facebook application that lets users send virtual postcards featuring the pontiff.

From BBC

Leaders of indigenous Amazon tribes hand a petition to Brazil's government opposing construction of a massive hydro-electric dam.

Hundreds of indigenous Brazilians are protesting in the capital, Brasilia, against the construction of what will be the world's third biggest hydro-electric dam. An indigenous leader delivered a petition opposing the project signed by more than half a million people. Environmentalists say the dam in the Amazon river basin will harm the world's biggest tropical rainforest.Brazilian Energy Minister Edison Lobao said construction would begin soon.
Mr Lobao said the population which would be affected by the Belo Monte dam would be compensated and resettled.But indigenous leader Raoni said he was convinced the dam would bring "bad things" to his tribe's villages.'There'll be war'

"We don't want Belo Monte because it will destroy our rivers, our jungle and our way of life," he added.
Another tribal leader said he and his tribe had not been given enough information about the project.
Ireo Kayapo said that if his tribe were to be driven from its land, "there'll be war and blood will be spilled".
Wearing their traditional headdresses, tribal leaders delivered a petition signed by more than 600,000 people demanding the government scrap the $10bn project.
Licenses still have to be granted for the actual building of the plant, but last month Brazilian environment agency Ibama gave the go-ahead for the clearing of the land at the site of the planned dam.
The government says the Belo Monte dam is crucial for development and will create jobs, as well as provide electricity to 23 million homes.
The 11,000-megawatt dam would be the biggest in the world after the Three Gorges in China and Itaipu, which is jointly run by Brazil and Paraguay.
It has long been a source of controversy, with bidding halted three times before the state-owned Companhia Hidro Eletrica do Sao Francisco was awarded the contract last year.
Celebrities such as the singer Sting and film director James Cameron have joined environmentalists in their campaign against the project.
They say the 6km (3.7 miles) dam will threaten the survival of a number of indigenous groups and could make some 50,000 people homeless, as 500 sq km (190 sq miles) of land would be flooded.



From BBC

Singaporeans vs Lexus

The S'porean identity in a globalised era by Debbie Soon, For The Straits Times

IN HIS book Lexus And The Olive Tree, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues that there are two countervailing forces in globalisation.

On the one hand, there is 'Lexus', which stands for modernisation. And on the other, there is the 'olive tree', which represents the human need for identity and belonging.

Globalisation often introduces a sense of dislocation. The challenge is how these two countervailing forces can be balanced. Singapore has to balance its global city aspirations with its citizens' need for a sense of rootedness.

Singapore has opened its arms to globalisation. Many Singaporeans have ventured abroad and made successful careers for themselves. The country has also opened its doors to foreign talent, to address flagging birth rates and an ageing population. But many Singaporeans feel a sense of displacement as a result of the influx of foreigners, used as they are to being greeted by a familiar local face at the hawker centre or a familiar local accent at the supermarket.

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) conducted a survey in December 2009 to assess how Singapore citizens were coping with the economic recession. When asked to choose as many as they wished of the six social and psychological strategies of support listed in the survey, 53 per cent of respondents said they would lower their expectations, 48 per cent that they would change their mindsets, 32 per cent strengthen family bonds, and 12 per cent turn to religion. In the search for a sense of surety in the uncertain times brought on by globalisation, Singaporeans will turn to kith and kin and their religion.

Will the identity for Singaporeans change as globalisation continues? How will Singaporeans define themselves in terms of the communal, local or global?

On the level of the communal, it is a natural instinct of human beings to draw close to their ethnic, religious or familial community. There are signs indicating the continuing importance of racial and religious identity in the hearts and minds of Singaporeans.

Where religion is concerned, the evidence ranges from reports of Christian groups scrambling for worship space to the decision by Taoist leaders to conduct a census of their followers to register their growing membership. And where race is concerned, there was the campaign waged by bicultural Chinese against reducing the weightage of the mother tongue in the PSLE, and the concerns expressed by Malays that their community might be shrinking following the release of the advance census data.

Where the family is concerned, the conclusion of the 2009 State of the Family report by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and National Family Council suggests that most Singaporeans have strong family ties.

At the national level, the 2009 IPS National Orientations of Singaporeans Survey, which measured the emotional bonds of Singapore citizens, found healthy and stable levels of national pride and loyalty.

Singaporeans have managed to combine communal and national identities. The sense of racial and religious identity can in fact bolster the sense of nationhood. Thus, Singapore has so far successfully managed to subsume race and religion into its national identity. As such, there is largely no conflict between racial or religious identity and national identity.

Racial and religious ties build what Professor Robert Putnam of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government calls 'bonding social capital' by bringing people together on the basis of similarity. There is also a need to build 'bridging social capital' - which in Singapore's case means fostering better ties between individuals from different racial and religious backgrounds.

The universal nature of music, sport and even food provides platforms for the building of bridging social capital. The gradual broadening of space for political and artistic expression bodes well for the development of other identities.

On the global level, Singaporeans are exposed to cultures outside their country - through the Internet, cable television and other media. But the same technologies provide also the means to build stronger communal and national ties. It is now easier to keep in touch with friends, family and the local scene while abroad. Lexus has provided a means for growing bigger and stronger olive trees.

There is no question that Singaporeans will find something to hold on to as globalisation advances. The long lines for auditions with South Korean talent management company JYP and outside mega-churches, as well as strong demand for National Day Parade tickets, suggest that Singaporeans have managed to find a balance among their communal, local and global identities. The future of the Singaporean identity hinges on the mix we choose for ourselves.

The writer is a researcher with the Institute of Policy Studies.