Last June, Johor set up an ad hoc committee to vet applications to build data processing centres that house the IT infrastructure for storing information of large companies, crucial for developing artificial intelligence, which will further boost energy demand.

Several studies have found that such facilities are highly polluting. One in Europe found that over 20 years, data centres in the continent produced between 6,600 and 10,400 tonnes of carbon dioxide per megawatt of operating IT, equal to the annual electricity consumption of 1,700 to 2,800 European households.

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The modernisation seeks to fill a twenty-six-year gap and reflect some of the modern challenges.

Dr John Kleinsman, director of the NZ Catholic bishops' Nathaniel Centre for Bioethics, is delighted with the bishops' update.

Kleinsman describes the new document as a "succinct overview of eight key moral areas, including a new section on information technology and artificial intelligence."

Among the modern challenges the bishops consider

• Information technology and artificial intelligence
• Justice and correction systems
• War and peace
• Poverty
• Discrimination and abuse
• End-of-life issues
• Beginning of life issues
• Integrity of Creation

Kleinsman says that people generally know what the Chucrh teaches but are unsure of why.

Te Kahu o te Ora - A Consistent Ethic of Life summarises key points which can give people greater insights into Catholic thinking, comments Kleinsman.

"It is a great source for open and informed discussions", says Kleinsman who, as well as being a theologian, is a married man, father and grandfather.

The original Te Kahu o te Ora was inspired by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's A Consistent Ethic of Life.

Bernardin's work grew from his observation that we must act consistently because all human life is sacred.

It was Bernadin's view that it was inconsistent to protect life in some situations but not in others.

In the years following Roe v. Wade, Bernardin argued that human life is always valuable and must be respected consistently from conception to natural death.

Being pro-life is not only about abortion or euthanasia.

Being pro-life must encompass war, poverty, access to health care, education and anything that threatens human life or human wellbeing, he argued.

Stephen Lowe, the Bishop of Auckland, the Apostolic Administrator of Hamilton and President of the NZ Catholic Bishops Conference, describes the update as "Opportune".

Lowe says human life and emerging challenges are interconnected.

"The essence of Te Kahu o te Ora is the interconnectedness of all life, from the womb to the Earth," he said.

Lowe says Pope Benedict put it well some years ago:

"There are so many kinds of desert. There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love. There is the desert of God's darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast."

"While traditional human life issues continue to need our attention, we are now facing many new problems, all interlinked.

"The key message of Te Kahu o te Ora is that everything is connected, whether it is life in the womb or the life of the Earth," Lowe repeated.

Sources

• Supplied
• Catholic Sun

He quizzed his texting partner about sex videos, pressed for details about intimate liaisons, described sexual acts and encouraged mutual masturbation.

He also repeatedly asked to meet. "Promise me you will never breath (sic) a word of this to anyone — ok?" he wrote.

Riedlinger, 30, had good reason for discretion. He was a priest at St. Aloysius Church in Jackson, N.J., and while exchanging more than 1,200 text messages over four weeks last year, he thought he was talking to a 16-year-old boy.

In reality, Riedlinger was the target of an elaborate sting by a 23-year-old man who says the priest sexually harassed him for years.

Timothy Schmalz, who lives in Washington after graduating from Catholic University, said he was moved to action after his first complaint about Riedlinger in 2011 resulted in what he characterized as a slap on the wrist by Trenton Bishop David M. O'Connell.

Schmalz is one of five young men who provided similar accounts of harassment and sexual obsession by the priest. Four of the five were in their late teens or early 20s when Riedlinger began inappropriate and persistent sexual dialogues with them, they said. The fifth was in his late 20s.

The sting, initiated on Facebook and carried out through the use of a Google Voice account, partially served its purpose.

After Schmalz forwarded transcripts of the text messages and other materials to O'Connell in August 2012, Riedlinger was removed from the parish and placed in an in-patient treatment program. He was later assigned to restricted ministry away from children.

Sources:

RNS

Image: Calgary Sun

With regard to churches, Beck reads the data as suggesting that Facebook and other social media are replacing what he believes is the "main draw of the traditional church: social connection and affiliation."

Beck is certainly right that church is no longer a central gathering place for the majority of believers and seekers. And, it seems, too, that Facebook has taken up much of the chat about "football,… good schools,… local politics," and other matters that Beck sees as the "main draw" of routine ecclesial practice in days gone by. Yet the sneak peek Beck offers of his own research appears to undermine the argument.

Read ELIZABETH DRESCHER Facebook Doesn't Kill Churches, Churches Kill Churches