Al Jazeera: Why is the pope not apologising to Canada's indigenous people?

The crimes perpetrated at those largely Catholic-run "residential schools" have been documented by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which describes in exhaustive detail how indigenous child after child after child was kidnapped, stuffed into a tiny suit or dress and paraded like a play doll, beaten, fondled, raped, tortured in homemade electric chairs, discarded, abandoned, killed and, ultimately, buried often in unmarked, mass graves.

In December 2015, the TRC tabled its findings. One of the report's 94 "calls to action" was a plea to the pope to visit Canada promptly and apologise for the degradations and depravity visited upon so many children, for so many years by so many Catholic "teachers" who faithfully served the "supreme teacher".

The pope's response to "call to action" number 58: silence. During an audience with the pope last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, another teacher, implored the supreme teacher to "consider the gesture". The pope's response: silence. [...]

Pope Francis will, I suspect, rebuff Kind Hearted Eagle Women's request even though decency and the historical record demand it. In doing so, the Pope will confirm that he is devoted, above all, to the institution he leads.

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Al Jazeera: Russia: A resurgent superpower?

Moscow sees itself as a resurgent superpower - but the Kremlin's current ideology opposes almost everything the communists stood for. After Putin's return to the Kremlin for a third presidency in 2012, Moscow has become a global bellwether of neo-conservative, ultranationalist, right-wing and anti-globalist political forces, and the Russian Orthodox Church eagerly fills the void left by the collapse of the Communist dogma. [...]

"I really believe that Russia is the leader of the free world right now," Matthew Heimbach, head of the white supremacist Traditionalist Workers Party, said last December. "Putin is supporting nationalists around the world and building an anti-globalist alliance, while promoting traditional values and self-determination." [...]

Kouprianova translated the works of controversial philosopher Alexander Dugin, who believes that Russia is the world's sole power that prevents the coming of Antichrist and predicts the revival of the Russian Empire through a new "Eurasian Union" with former Soviet republics that will eventually take over all of Europe, into English. [...]

Putin's European supporters include such Eurosceptic and far-right groups as the National Democratic Party of Germany and the Alternative for Germany, Jobbik in Hungary, Golden Dawn in Greece, the Freedom Party of Austria, the Serbian Radical Party and France's National Front. The latter's leader, Marine Le Pen, said she "admired" Putin and admitted to receiving a $12m loan from a Kremlin-affiliated bank in 2014. [...]

The conference was organised by the Russian Anti-Globalist movement, a Moscow-based group that denies ties to the Kremlin. But its leader, a bespectacled seven-footer named Alexander Ionov, admitted to this reporter that the separatist summit was paid for by a $55,000 government grant - and donations from "Texas and other countries".

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