Dr [Alison] Peden, 57, had been shortlisted for the role of Bishop of Glasgow & Galloway in the Scottish Episcopal Church.

But the Very Rev Dr Gregor Duncan, 59, rector of St Ninian’s Church, Pollokshields, Glasgow, was chosen for the role.

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Can this be a turning point? Haiti is crying out for better government at home. But it also certainly requires improved support from those on whom it relies. The United Nations has failed miserably on most fronts over the past decade, and the leadership of Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has so far suggested little improvement. In rebuilding Haiti on a better foundations, the UN has an opportunity to demonstrate what it usefully can do.

Haiti also represents a decisive challenge to the Obama Administration, and one that extends far beyond the immediate rescue effort. Meanwhile, the response of China ”” a paltry contribution of $1 million ”” has proved depressingly revealing. After the Sichuan earthquake, the international community rushed to help China. But China has shown no such reciprocity now. The asymmetries of China’s self-serving foreign policy are looking increasingly consistent.

Haiti has frequently been described as the world’s unluckiest country. That plight looks set to continue in the short term. But the underlying causes of that fate have been international as well as domestic.

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Watch it all.

[url=http://is.gd/6oLz4]A photo of the Cathedral before the earthquake is here[/url] (Hat tip: Brien).

Check out what remains from Mark Harris. Makes the heart sad–KSH.

A local family is still waiting for word on a Washougal man who has been missing since Tuesday’s earthquake devastated Haiti.

Walt Ratterman was visiting Haiti to check on a solar-power project when his family lost touch with him when the quake hit.

“We are pretty certain he was sending e-mails at the time, from the courtyard of Hotel Montana,” said Briana Ratterman, daughter of the missing man.

This is but one illustration of dramas playing out throughout the world this week. Read it all and please check out this blog entry also. If you have time check out the linked Facebook page–it makes for moving reading.

Pope Benedict XVI has called on Turkey to give legal recognition to the Roman Catholic Church in the Muslim-majority but politically secular nation, which has been criticized for its treatment of religious minorities as it seeks to join the European Union.

Receiving Kenan Gursoy, the new Turkish ambassador to the Vatican last week (Jan. 7), Benedict said Catholics appreciated the freedom of worship, “guaranteed by the constitution” in Turkey. However, he added that “civil juridical recognition” would help the church, “to enjoy full religious freedom and to make an even greater contribution to society.”

About 99 percent of Turkey’s 77-million people are Muslim. The Catholic Church there has about 32,000 members.

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“Why are clergy the worst dressed people in church?” said a lay friend of mine the other day. “I know they shouldn’t try to be too transcendent, but do they have to dress aiming to look like hobos?” he said.

It got me thinking. I must say I think he’s onto something. Commonly, but not always I am pleased to say, in my experience the clergy dress worse than the lay people. Not as a question of casual versus formal. There is a way of dressing casual that looks really good. There is a way that looks positively daggy and scruffy.

I wonder why this is. I guess one of the reasons is that overall now we are a much more informal society and that means that a Sunday best really doesn’t exist. A good guide is to just look at television. The Sunday presenters are dressed more casually than the weekday ones, and that should be a model, of course, to the clergy if they are not wearing more formal robes. Although there is a way of dressing casually which looks quite smart, there is a way of dressing casually that looks like you just don’t care.

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Listen to it all from the BBC (about 2 3/4 minutes).

Interviewed on the programme, Commander Ron Flanders of the US 4th Fleet, based in Florida, said that the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was acting as a sea-base from which the navy could deliver supplies to the island. “Our main goal,” he said, “is to ease suffering and prevent loss of life”.

Listen to it all (about 10 1/2 minutes).

Marketplace Minute 1/15 from Marketplace on Vimeo.

Only one minute long–wonderful stuff! (Hat tip: Elizabeth)

Some boast of chariots, and some of horses; but we boast of the name of the LORD our God.

–Psalm 20: 7

On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services. On Thursday, President Obama told the people of Haiti: “You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” If he is going to remain faithful to that vow then he is going to have to use this tragedy as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. He’s going to have to acknowledge a few difficult truths.

The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.

In the recent anthology “What Works in Development?,” a group of economists try to sort out what we’ve learned. The picture is grim. There are no policy levers that consistently correlate to increased growth. There is nearly zero correlation between how a developing economy does one decade and how it does the next. There is no consistently proven way to reduce corruption. Even improving governing institutions doesn’t seem to produce the expected results.

Read it all

And as the international community continues to respond, I do believe that America has a continued responsibility to act. Our nation has a unique capacity to reach out quickly and broadly and to deliver assistance that can save lives.

That responsibility obviously is magnified when the devastation that’s been suffered is so near to us. Haitians are our neighbors in the Americas, and for Americans they are family and friends. It’s characteristic of the American people to help others in time of such severe need. That’s the spirit that we will need to sustain this effort as it goes forward. There are going to be many difficult days ahead.

So, so many people are in need of assistance. The port continues to be closed, and the roads are damaged. Food is scarce and so is water. It will take time to establish distribution points so that we can ensure that resources are delivered safely and effectively and in an orderly fashion.

But I want the people of Haiti to know that we will do what it takes to save lives and to help them get back on their feet. In this effort I want to thank our people on the ground — our men and women in uniform, who have moved so swiftly; our civilians and embassy staff, many of whom suffered their own losses in this tragedy; and those members of search and rescue teams from Florida and California and Virginia who have left their homes and their families behind to help others. To all of them I want you to know that you demonstrate the courage and decency of the American people, and we are extraordinarily proud of you.

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Efforts to deliver desperately needed food, water and medical help to victims of Haiti’s earthquake intensified on Friday even as the voices of survivors buried underneath mountains of rubble began to fall silent.

Cargo planes and military helicopters swooped in and out of the crowded airport in Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of American troops were arriving, with more on the way. Some 25 rescue teams fanned out to collapsed hotels, schools and homes, and aid groups said they had given food and blankets to thousands of people.

But 2 million to 3 million are still in dire need, and patience was wearing thin on the streets as Haiti went another day with no power and limited fresh water.

Read it all.

Up to 10,000 US troops will be on the ground or off the coast of Haiti by Monday to help deal with the earthquake aid effort, US defence officials say.

Aid distribution has begun, but logistics continue to be extremely difficult, UN officials say.

Tuesday’s earthquake has left as many as 50,000-100,000 people dead.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said more than 15,000 bodies had already been recovered and buried, French news agency AFP reported.

Read it all.

(ACNS) The Archbishop of Canterbury has given a message of support to the people of Haiti affected by the devastation caused by Tuesday’s earthquake.

“I am profoundly shocked and concerned to hear about the devastating earthquake in Haiti. As the news comes through, we are learning more about the tragic loss of life, injury suffered and terrible damage to the country. We stand alongside all the people in Haiti affected by this terrible disaster in prayer, thought and action as the situation unfolds. We pray for the rescue of those still trapped and look towards the rebuilding of lives and communities.

I commend the swift action of the Department for International Development and the relief agencies and churches in mobilising an emergency response. In this time of catastrophic loss and destruction, I urge the public to hold the people of Haiti in their prayers, and to give generously and urgently to funding appeals set up for relief work.”