The website of the Achdiocese of Mexico was down for a couple of hours Tuesday due to the operation that was identified online as #opFariseo, and something similar happened to the site of the Institute of Communications and Philosophy (Comfil).

"Hacked system. The POPE is not welcome, out out!!!!!" said the text that was posted on the Comfil website, usually devoted to teaching philosophy.

In its profile on the social network Facebook, Anonymous Hispano said the Comfil site was "hacked for supporting Benedict XVI."

Last week, Rush Limbaugh, popular voice of far-right politics, used his position on the airwaves to insult, label and pronounce on the sexual motivations of a young Georgetown law school student who testified on behalf of the coverage of contraceptive medicine in national health care insurance plans.

And he did it not once, but at least three times. It was not, obviously, a slip of the tongue. This was a personal attack of precise aim.

Then this week, on another subject but with a similar tone, students at Columbia University, Barnard College's sister school and one of the country's premier educational institutions, raged online at Newsweek's "The Daily Beast" about the unworthiness of the women of Barnard to have the honor of President Barack Obama as their graduation speaker. The insults hurled at Barnard, a woman's college since 1889 and a partner school of Columbia, were every bit as sexual and sexist, as degrading and as vehement as Limbaugh's.

At least Limbaugh didn't hide behind false screen names as did the respondents to the Barnard issue, who chose to be vile rather than accountable for their free speech.

Like Limbaugh, the students of Columbia — many of them women — who resent the fact that President Obama agreed to do the graduation address at Barnard rather than accept similar invitations to Columbia chose invective rather than analysis to register their reactions to the situation. They and the screaming respondents who answered their tirades with tirades of their own simply abandoned all pretense of intellectual development or rational response.

It is clear in both cases that "free speech" has reached a new low. The question is, Whose fault is that, really?

And the answer is that there are culprits aplenty, it seems. Read more

Sources

• Joan Chittister in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: MassLive.com

"It happened, but we have no comment to make on it," the Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said.

The Anonymous hacker collective claimed responsibility for the attack Monday, which cut off access to the Vatican website www.vatican.va for several hours and violated data on the Vatican Radio computer system.

Anonymous said the incursion into the Vatican Radio system was justified by the fact that the radio's powerful transmitters sited in the countryside outside Rome constituted a health risk to people living in the vicinity.

As reported in Friday's edition of CathNews, the Vatican's website was off line on Wednesday 7 March, allegedly under attack from Anonymous.

However, despite launching an attack for several hours, Anonymous was unsuccessful in completely shutting the site down.

The hackers "were not able to achieve their objective" of completely bringing down the site, Vice director of the press office, Father Ciro Benedettini said.

He said Anonymous usually posts its signature banner on a website once it has completely taken it over, and its banner never appeared on the Holy See's online hub.

Anonymous said the attack was "in response to the doctrines, liturgies and the precepts, absurd and anachronistic that your organization is for profit (Roman Apostolic Church) propagates and spreads worldwide and while not targeting christians or christianity, it was targeting the "corrupt roman Apostolic Church"."

Anonymous also objected to the Catholic stance on abortion, and stated the non-use of contraceptives and clergy sexual abuse as motives for the attack.

In admitting a partial attack, Benedettini said the problem was solved in the evening after the attempted full attack.

Sources

• CNA
• Image: Jean Marc Morandini

"Anonymous has now decided to lay siege to your site in response to the doctrines, liturgies and the precepts absurd and anachronistic that your organization is for profit (Roman Apostolic Church) propagates and spreads worldwide," the hackers said in a statement translated by Google from the Italian.

"Every day many of the members of the clergy may be responsible of molesting children, covering them when the facts become public domain."

Anonymos also protested the doctrines, liturgies and absurd and anachronistic precepts.

The hackers also objected to the Church's stance against abortion and contraceptives.

"This is NOT intended to attack the Christian religion or against the faithful around the world, but to the corrupt Roman Apostolic Church and all its "emanations", the statement read.

Associated Press reported earlier yesterday Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi SJ confirming the website's unavailability but declining to comment on the source of the problem.

The action comes just one day after five alleged computer hackers in Britain, Ireland and the United States were charged on Tuesday in high-profile cyber-attacks after a leader of the group became an FBI informant.

Anonymous tried and failed to attach the Vatican website last year.

Sources

• The Networked World
• The Guardian
• Official Blog of Anonymous
• Official Blog of Anonymous - Translated by Google
• Image: International Business Times