ARTICLES - HOT OFF THE FAGGOT

Priestly Porn

I ask those of you who are parents to carefully consider this question: Would you entrust your children to a daycare center that is known to not only employ child abusers to work with children entrusted to their care but to actually nurture and protect such people?


Priestly Porn

I ask those of you who are parents to carefully consider this question: Would you entrust your children to a daycare center that is known to not only employ child abusers to work with children entrusted to their care but to actually nurture and protect such people?

I ask all who read this to carefully consider this question: Would you entrust your hopes for eternity to a shepherd who habitually violates his vows to his church and to his god?

Those in the Roman hierarchy who fashion the rules and exceptions that govern that cult surely are neither ingenuous nor blind to the reality of the corruption and perversion that infects the priestly class. Certainly, this awareness must have been a factor that led them to create ways to make priestly perversions to have virtually no effect on their suitability to continue to perform priestly duties.

I have posted several articles concerning predatory priests who prey upon those they claim to shepherd. The sexual and emotion horrors perpetrated by Roman Catholic priests, nuns and monks against children throughout Canada were detailed in my paper on the Duplessis Orphans. I recalled some of the terrible crimes committed by former rulers of the Catholic cult in a paper titled Would You Buy A Used Car From One Of These Guys. And in another paper called Celibacy and Pedophile Priests I examined how the Roman Catholic princely hierarchy watches over her wayward priests and protects them from the long arm of the law.

For a time following publication of such articles, I receive a lot of email from Catholic apologists and others who deny the truth of what they have read. The writers sometimes go to great lengths to play down the crimes of the Catholic priesthood and are quick to point out that it is the individual priest or nun who violates the laws of God and man. According to their reasoning, that entity known as the Roman Catholic Church continues pure as the driven snow, her soul, if you will, unsullied by the deeds of her priestly class. A convenient, if invalid, response that recalls the words and actions of Pontius Pilate as he attempted to evade responsibility for the execution of Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 27:24). Just as Pilate could not evade his responsibility by claiming he was not to blame, so cannot the Roman Catholic cult hide from the accusing finger of reality.

Not that the Roman cult does not act against priests when forced to do so.Canon 290 of the Code of Canon Law declares that, while a priest is ordained for life, he can be deprived of his clerical state. The next canon adds that the priest thus chastised is not released from his vow of celibacy.

In worst case situations, the offending priest may be recalled to his mother house, where he will spend the remainder of his days tending the rose garden or working in the library. I suspect many who teach in Catholic seminaries might be priests who have been deprived of their clerical state. I suppose that, to some pervert priests, such punishmentsmight be tantamount to B'rer Rabbit's being thrown into the briar patch.

So, what does the RCC leadership do to protect her billion or so faithful from the sexual appetites of predatory priests? In most cases, I suspect, it does nothing. Oh, when there are complaints, the diocese might move a priestly pervert to another parish or, in some cases, even trade him off to another diocese.

Not all Catholics are blind to priestly perversions. My next door neighbor, for example, has told me that his parish priest prohibits all fund-raising activities in his church. His reason? Every time the archdiocese is sued due to the sexual activities of a predatory priest, the chancery draws down the savings of the parish churches to settle the lawsuit. This priest told his parishioners that he could not in conscience call upon them to pay the financial costs of the sexual sins of Catholic priests.

Some would argue that sexually predatory priests like Rudy Kos are rare. These folks cannot, of course, support their claim from any veriable source. The priestly pervert acts in secret, for the most part, and the very nature of his actions militates hiding them from public scrutiny. One must look elsewhere for information. In the USA, insurance companies do not protect Catholic parishes from liability suits resulting from priestly perversions. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself. Ask your parish priest or the Chancery for the name of the insurance company that provides such protection. Bet they can't.

You could go to the Web for information. Make it easy. Choose the Alta Vista search engine and search for "Rudy Kos". You will get pages and pages of URLs for sites detailing not only his sex crimes but those of a lot of other Catholic priests.

The Survivors of Clergy Crimes operate a web site that offers an enormous amount of information on the crimes of Catholic clergy. I challenge anyone who would deny the reality that many of those to whom they look for spiritual guidance are far from holy in their everyday lives to spend time reading in the files of this site.

The Survivors are, or were, Catholic. A Protestant ministry provides more information of priestly crimes. On this site, you can read also some of the attempts by Catholic officials and laymen to discount the truth and the seriousness of charges of priestly perversion.

Perhaps the most damning evidence of the corruption tht seems to be rampant within the ranks of Roman Catholic religious was provided by a Web site and mail list operated by and for homosexual Roman Catholic priests, nuns and laymen. That site was ordered closed by the bishop of the diocese where its founding priest works. Though the site and mail list may now be closed, much of the material, correspondence and photographs they once held were preserved by a ministry operated by Catholic layment and guided by responsible Catholic priests.

Before providing the link to that site, however, I think it important that the interested reader first read another page in order to get an overview of what is to come. When reading under the heading "Maine" on this page, pay special attention to the fact that Father Harris acknowledged that he was the author of an "expletive-filled" sent in response to a communication from a responsible priest.

The text of Harris' email and the email that triggered it are available on the web site operated by a group called Roman Catholic Faithful. When you go there, I think it important to first read "A Few Blunt Words To Catholics" to get a feel for what is coming.

After digesting the information in that opening statement from Catholic to Catholic, the next step is to click on the link to "St. Sebastian's Angels." WARNING! This section is not for the sensitive nor those easily shocked. This is the page with the pictures, emails, articles and dating information provided by actively homosexual CAtholic priests and at least one bishop. Some of the articles and photographs are definitely X-RATED. To their credit, the RCF provide plenty of warnings of what is to come. You will never stumble blindly into pornography. After visiting this site, keep in mind what you saw there as you read again these words from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2354. "Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Doubleday:New York, (c) 1994 United States Catholic Conference, Inc. -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana, p. 624)

The Leadership of the Roman cult acknowledge that pornography is a "grave offense." In paragraph 2357, the Catechism defines homosexualilty and, in addressing homosexual acts, declares that "Under no circumstances can they be approved."

So here we have it. The RCC does not approve of pornograpy, homosexuality, violation of vows of celibacy, etc., yet on the other hand, known sexual deiates within the priesthood are sheltered and permitted to continue to shepherd innocents entrusted to their care. How can this be? Why, the Roman hierarchy calls upon its sacrament of Holy Orders to defend the perverts among her religious.

1550. "This presence of Christ in the minister is not to be understood as if the latter were preserved from all human weaknesses, the spirit of domination, error, even sin. The power of the Holy Spirit does not guarantee all acts of ministers in the same way. While this guarantee extends to the sacraments, so that even the minister's sin cannot impede the fruit of grace, in many other acts the minister leaves human traces that are not always signs of fidelity to the Gospel and consequently can harm the apostolic fruitfulness of the Church. " (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Doubleday: New York, (c) 1994 United States Catholic Conference, Inc. -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana, p. 624)

I call upon the Catholic readers of this article to think upon what you have read when you next attend Mass. As the priest places what you believe to be the body, blood soul and divinity of Christ into your hands or on your tongue, will you wonder where those hands have been?

Read more at christian-truths2.blogspot.com
 

The Prophecy Club: THIS WEEK IN RADIO



THIS WEEK IN RADIO





Being A Christian Activist 3



Stan Johnson - 8/1/2011 - mp3 download



The Cradle Of Liberty



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Bible Prophecy In The Future



Stan Johnson - 8/3/2011 - mp3 download



What Every American Needs To Know About The Koran 1-William Federer



Stan Johnson - 8/4/2011 - mp3 download



What Every American Needs To Know About the Qu'ran 2-William Federer



Stan Johnson - 8/5/2011 - mp3 download



What Every American Needs To Know About the Qu'ran 3-William Federer



Stan Johnson - 8/8/2011 - mp3 download



What Every American Needs To Know About the Qu'ran 4-William Federer



Stan Johnson - 8/9/2011 - mp3 download



This Blistering Heat



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A Rod To Lead Us Through Turbulence 1-Augusto Perez



Stan Johnson - 8/11/2011 - mp3 download



A Rod To Lead Us Through Turbulence 2-Augusto Perez



Stan Johnson - 8/12/2011 - mp3 download





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103-year-old nun to leave convent for first time in 84 years to meet Pope

What a waste of a life!

Amplify’d from www.telegraph.co.uk

103-year-old nun to leave convent for first time in 84 years to meet Pope


For the last 84 years she has spent every day of her life behind the
cloistered walls of a convent to the north of Madrid but on Friday Sister
Teresita, aged 103, will venture into the world outside – to meet the Pope.

103-year-old nun Sister Teresita to leave convent for first time in 84 years to meet Pope



Sister Teresita, 103, will venture into the world outside to meet the Pope 


The sprightly centenarian has been confined within the convent of Buenafuente
del Sistal since she took her vows as a 19 year old, two years before the
Wall Street Crash.



By strange coincidence she entered the convent on April 16, 1927 – the day
that Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was born in Germany.



Sister Teresita has remained at the convent ever since leaving its seclusion
for only a few hours at a time during the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War when
the nuns fled to escape the fighting.



But on Friday she will join a delegation to meet Pope Benedict during his
three day visit to the Spanish capital to celebrate World Youth Day.



"She said she thinks she will make the trip with her eyes closed, so that
nothing will distract her," said the convent's mother superior, Maria.


Sister Teresita was the subject of a book entitled "What is a girl like
you doing in a place like that", which the author Jesus Garcia
recounted the lives of 10 nuns in the convent,


"Who can spend 84 years in a convent without being happy? You feel
happiness when you follow your vocation."


More than a million pilgrims have flooded in the capital for five days of
events that began yesterday evening with a concert and will culminate on
Sunday when the Pope celebrates an open air mass at an airfield in
southwestern Madrid.

Read more at www.telegraph.co.uk
 

Pastor Zachery Tims, Found Dead In Times Square Hotel, Allegedly Had Drugs

Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com


Pastor Zachery Tims, Found Dead In Times Square Hotel, Allegedly Had Drugs

Police are investigating if drugs were involved in death of a Florida megachurch pastor who was found dead in his Times Square hotel room.

There was a envelope filled with white powder allegedly inside the shorts of the Rev. Zachery Tims Jr, 42, the New York Daily News reported. Tims, who leads the 8,000-member New Destiny Christian Center near Orlando was found lying face up on the floor of his room in the W Hotel by workers on Friday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

New York Police Department officials don't suspect foul play, according to reports, because his room was locked from the inside and none of his valuable belongings appeared to be missing. Police said his body showed no evidence of trauma.

Tims was in town for a meeting and was scheduled to fly next to Texas, the Daily News said.

An autopsy performed over the weekend was inconclusive while toxicology tests will take weeks to complete, The Christian Post said.

Drugs have had a role in Tims' life before he founded the church with his then-wife Riva in 1996. His biography on the New Destiny website said: "After Dr. Tims was miraculously saved, instantly delivered from drug addiction, and called into ministry, he determined to make his young life count by simultaneously earning two Bachelor’s degrees."

Tims has four children from his marriage with Riva that ended in 2009 after he admitted to having an affair with a stripper, The Wall Street Journal said.

A prayer service on Monday at New Destiny Christian Center drew 2,000 people, according to The Orlando Sentinel. Tims' ex-wife Riva spoke and told the audience that he'd vacationed in Puerto Rico with his family a week before he died.

"We lost one of our leaders," said the Rev. Willie Barnes, a Baptist pastor who spoke at the service. ""His ministry was very, very powerful, especially to young people. He brought a different style of ministry, and it reached a lot of the younger generation because it wasn't so traditional," Barnes said, according to the Sentinel.

A sign with a photo of Pastor Zachery Tims is seen near the street at the New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka, Fla., Monday, Aug. 15, 2011. Tims, the pastor of one of the largest congregations in central Florida, was found dead in a hotel room in New York.









Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com
 

Michio Kaku Hyping Alien Invasion As Corporate Media Says Alien Threat W...

Ireland Faces Down Vatican

Amplify’d from zionica.com

Ireland Faces Down Vatican

Ireland is squeezing the Roman Catholic Church to hand over cash and real estate toward a 1.4 billion-euro ($2 billion) child-abuse bill amid the bitterest stand-off yet seen between the Vatican and the government.

In the sharpest language an Irish leader has ever used against the church, Prime Minister Enda Kenny said last month the Vatican’s handling of the scandals has been dominated by “elitism and narcissism.”

“The relationship between the state and the Vatican has never been worse,” David Quinn, a religious commentator who is also director of the Dublin-based Iona Institute, which promotes religion in society, said in an interview. “I struggle to think of a stronger attack by a Western European leader on the church than Enda Kenny’s.”

Kenny said the church needs to be “truly and deeply penitent for the horrors it perpetrated, hid and denied” after three government reports on clerical abuse and cover-ups rocked one of Europe’s most devout societies. With the focus now moving to who compensates the victims in talks starting next month, the church’s riches and dominance of Ireland’s educational system face their most direct threat in the country’s modern history.

Read more at zionica.com
 

Catholic Church covers up butchers among its clergymen

Amplify’d from english.pravda.ru

Catholic Church covers up butchers among its clergymen

Catholic Church covers up butchers among its clergymen. 45128.jpegRussia only plans to introduce the service of chaplains, although clergymen already serve in the armies of many countries of the world. It is an open secret, though, that military men do not always perform the function of defenders, who can be relieved of the sin of murder. What clergymen should do if soldiers take part in punitive operations? Is the Church supposed to defend the chaplains, who serve both to God and the state?

The military dictatorship in Argentina was the bloodiest and most ruthless in Latin America. Over 30,000 people were either killed or went missing from 1976 to 1983.

In 2007, Christian von Wernich, a Catholic priest, was sentenced to life in prison. The officer was found guilty of seven counts of murders, tortures and kidnappings. During the years of the dictatorship, he was a pastor at Ramon concentration camp. Afterwards, he served as a chaplain for the chief of security service of Buenos Aires.

It turns out that former chaplains still serve to God in Argentina. Church authorities help the retired clergymen, who cast a slur on their reputation, find work at civil curacies.

The whole Argentina has been following the story of the Alberto Zanchetta, a former chaplain recently. The congregation perceive him as their pastor, but he continues to move from one curacy to another. In 2007, Zanchetta was sent to work at the Argentinian peacemaking contingent in Haiti. The priest was working there until his activities during the years of dictatorship were made public.

It was revealed that Zanchetta was bestowing blessings upon the pilots of the so-called death raids. Military men would arrest people on the ground and make them board the "death planes" where the people would be drugged and then dropped into the ocean from high altitudes with weighty items chained to their feet.

The pastor was exposed by one of the pilots. "He told me that it was a Christian death. A war is a war, and the Bible says that the wheat must be separated from the chaff," the pilot said.

In 2009, after Pagina 112 newspaper and other Argentinian media published articles about the military crimes of the pastor, Zanchetta was dismissed. However, he was not deprived of his pension and his church title. He has changed several curacies under the protection of church authorities since then: parishioners would recognize him and protest his presence in their congregations. The Church would simply move Zanchetta to another region of the country, where he would continue his work as a pastor.

This is not the only incidence, when chaplains were involved in mass murders of people. In 2009, four pastors of the Catholic Church were charged with genocide of 1994 in Rwanda, when extremists of Hutu tribe exterminated over 700,000 members of Tutsi ethnic group. One of them, Emmanuel Rukundo, took a direct participation in the killings and was sentenced to 25 years in jail. The former chaplain supposedly said: "Tutsi are the people who should be wiped off the face of Earth. We must fight against them using all possible methods."

Late Pope John Paul II said in 1996 that the Church could not be responsible for the crimes of its sons. It just so happens that the Vatican supports the criminal chaplains, although the Church had the power to prevent the crimes.

Russia's Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree about army clergymen in 2009. Defense Ministry officials said that there were 240 clergymen put on service in the Russian troops. Muslims may raise the issue of their own military chaplains too, which may lead to religious fights in military units.

Lyubov Lulko

Pravda.Ru

Read more at english.pravda.ru
 

Awesome or Off-Putting: The Vatican Will Be Destroyed This Coming Wednesday

Amplify’d from www.hecklerspray.com

Awesome or Off-Putting: The Vatican Will Be Destroyed This Coming Wednesday

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

When Vatican City was established by a treaty between blah blah blah and blah blah blah way back in 1929, well – they may as well have not even bothered. That’s because according to a small group of believers – the whole thing is going to topple to the ground this coming Wednesday.

We don’t really buy it though. After all, the thing has already withstood the rapture, why would it crumble down now?

Because the Virgin Mary said it would in a vision to three children, that’s why.

Ahem.

On the thirteenth day of six consecutive months way back in 1917, three shepherd children claim they were visited by an apparition of The Virgin Mary. That seems like a lot of meetings, no doubt filled with tons of idol chit chat about the latest silent film. But all you need to know for this story is that Mary is said to have told the kids 3 secrets.

The first two weren’t all that secret as they’ve been open for discussion since around 1941. The first was this, as found in one of the children’s eventual memoirs:

“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.”

The second secret is found in the same book:

“You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”

All well and good. But the third secret is the one we’re here to talk about today – because it’s the one that actually was a secret for a long time. In 1941 the same girl who told of the first two secrets wrote the third on a piece of paper. With it she included the order that it not be torn from it’s sealed envelope until 1960. Since then it’s been released to the public. It reads, at least according to FatimaMovement.com, as follows:

“Now i will reveal the third part of the secret; This part is the apostasy in the Church!

Our Lady showed us a vision of someone who i describe as the ‘ Pope ‘, standing in front of a praising multitude. But there was a difference with a real Pope, the evil look, this one had eyes of evil. Then after a few moments we saw the same Pope entering a church, but this church was like the church of hell, there is no way to describe the ugliness of this place, it seemed like a fortress made of gray cement, with broken angles and windows like eyes, there was a beak on top of the building. We then looked up at Our Lady who said to us you have seen the apostasy in the Church, this message can be opened by The Holy Father, but must be announced after Pius XII and before 1960. During the pontificate of John Paul II the cornerstone from Peter’s tomb must be removed and transferred to Fatima. Because the Dogma of faith is not preserved in Rome, her authority will be removed and given to Portugal. The cathedral of Rome must be destroyed and a new one built in Fatima. If 69 weeks after this command is announced Rome continues it’s abomination, the city will be destroyed. Our Lady told us this is written, Daniel 9 24-25 and Mathew 21 42-44.”

The Fatima Movement explains their math here:

“The Masonic Vatican is obviously not listening to the Mother of God so Rome will be destroyed 69 weeks after the release of the letter, this last April 21, 2010. This puts the destruction of Rome at August 17, 2011.”

You know, they actually do have a count down clock there too. It’s about 4/5 of the way down the page – just below the t-shirts they’re selling to commemorate the occasion. As of this writing there are just over two days left on it. Hecklerspray certainly hopes all those priests have emergency bags packed. We also hope this mass destruction will leave plenty of televisions to be looted from under the rubble, because well, it’s been a week. And our hands are getting an itch that only other people’s property can satisfy.

To Rome then Londoners! To Rome!

Read more at www.hecklerspray.com
 

Chinese Jews Face Existential Questions

Amplify’d from www.wallstreetjournal.com

Chinese Jews Face Existential Questions

Divided and Diminished: In Eyes of Judaism as Well as Beijing, Tiny Kaifeng Community Isn't Quite Kosher

KAIFENG, China—Zhang Xinwang, a moon-faced Chinese man with a spiky beard, calls himself "Moishe."

"So do you think I look Jewish?" he asks.

For much of the past millennium, Jews in Kaifeng— descendants of merchants who arrived here from Persia, probably around the 11th century—have been struggling with an existential question: What does it mean to be Jewish?

KAIFENG2
Bob Davis/The Wall Street Journal

Zhang Xinwang calls himself "Moishe."

The handful of Kaifengers who go to Israel are sometimes floored to discover they need to go through a rabbi-certified conversion to be accepted as Jews, while the ones staying home squabble over which of them are really Jewish.

The question has surprising consequences in this dusty walled city in central China. According to the Chinese government, there are no Kaifeng Jews because there are no Chinese Jews. Judaism isn't one of China's five official religions and Jews aren't designated as one of the country's 55 official minorities. Orthodox Jews have a similar view, though for different reasons. Kaifeng Jews trace their heritage through their father, as Chinese traditionally do, while orthodox Jews define Judaism as passing through the mother.

"They may stem from Jewish ancestry, but they aren't Jewish," says Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, who runs the orthodox Chabad House in Beijing. "There hasn't been a Jewish community in Kaifeng in 400 years."

Except there is one, though it's divided and diminished. Somewhere between 500 and 1,000 people in the city say they are descendants of Kaifeng Jews and cling to at least some Jewish traditions. A canvas poster at No. 21 Teaching the Torah Lane announces the street as the site of a synagogue that was destroyed in an 1860 flood and never rebuilt. Inside a tiny courtyard house, "Esther" Guo Yan works as a tour guide and sells knick-knacks decorated with Jewish stars.

KAIFENG1
Bob Davis/The Wall Street Journal

Kaifeng's last synagogue, destroyed in an 1860 flood, stood at "Teaching the Torah Lane," now an alley of courtyard houses.

When tourists stop by, she quizzes them on Jewish ceremonies, like what prayers to say when lighting Sabbath candles. She says she hasn't yet managed to fast a full day on Yom Kippur, though she is trying. As the granddaughter of a Kaifeng Jew, she says the orthodox standard on Judaism is unfair: "We read the Torah with Eastern thoughts; deal with it."

The first Jewish merchants arrived when Kaifeng was in its heyday as the Song dynasty capital. They married the local women and rose to become mandarins and military officials. Over the centuries they blended in ethnically and were forgotten by the world until 1605, when a Jewish scholar from Kaifeng, Ai Tien, met Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci in Beijing. The missionary then spread the news that Jews had been living in China for centuries.

The Kaifeng Jewish population is thought to have peaked at around 5,000, but by the early 1900s, none could read Hebrew and the community's Torah scrolls were sold to collectors. Jews were called "the Muslims with the blue caps," referring to the color of the yarmulkes some still wore.

"In our family, we didn't eat pork, that's for sure," says Nina Wang, a 24-year-old Kaifeng native who now lives in Israel and underwent orthodox Jewish conversion. The family had menorahs and Sabbath cups, she said, "but we didn't know what to do with those things."

When thousands of European Jews settled in Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s to escape the Holocaust, a few Kaifengers went there to study. But the Shanghai Jews were focused on aiding those persecuted in Europe.

After the Communists took over in 1949, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping fretted that Kaifeng Jews might be subversive. In a 1953 document, they wrote that the "Kaifeng Jewish community is disclosing secrets to the overseas communities and causing trouble."

Even so, Kaifeng Jews say they weren't singled out for discrimination. Ms. Guo says that her friends used to tease her, saying she must be smart and good at making money—common Chinese stereotypes of Jews— but she didn't feel threatened.

As China opened again to foreigners in the 1980s, Jewish tourists, Christian missionaries and foreign academics made their way to Kaifeng, each doling out different advice. Xu Xin, a non-Jewish professor of Jewish studies at Nanjing University, said some Kaifengers turned to him as a kind of rabbi to ask whether or not they were Jewish. He demurred.

These days, many in Kaifeng turn to Timothy Lerner, who calls himself a "messianic Jew"—meaning he was born Jewish but believes in Christ as the Messiah—to learn Hebrew and Jewish customs. Mr. Lerner acknowledges that his visa was revoked by the Chinese government in 2006 for evangelizing, but says he doesn't try to convince anyone to follow his religious beliefs. He says he set up the "Kaifeng Israel School" to help Kaifeng Jews "learn the Jewish lifestyle" and move to Israel, where about a dozen of them have taken up residence, thanks largely to funds from Shavei Israel, an Israeli group.

Others in the Jewish community are suspicious. Shi Lei, one of the first Kaifeng Jews to study in Israel, blames Mr. Lerner for "creating factions" in the tiny community with his school, though Mr. Lerner says Mr. Shi misunderstands his efforts.

Today, Kaifeng Jews tread with caution given China's ban on unauthorized religious activity. The Jewish descendants say they rarely meet in groups of 10—the number required by Jewish law for a religious service—for fear the government might consider that a political gathering. They make DVDs of themselves wearing traditional Chinese garb while they light Sabbath candles, to portray the act as a folk custom.

Passover is celebrated as a restaurant meal, not as a religious gathering, though some pass out matzos sent from Hong Kong.

As for Jewish tourist sites, there isn't much to see. Several stone tablets from different Kaifeng synagogues are stored in an unmarked, padlocked room in the Kaifeng Municipal Museum.

Some of the city's notables (none of whom are Jewish) are looking to boost tourism by rebuilding the Kaifeng synagogue, but as a museum so as not to inflame the Chinese government. "You could have tourists stay a night with local Jewish descendants to see what their lives are like," says Su Linzhong, a management professor at Kaifeng University. "They are so emotional about their grandparents."

—Yang Jie contributed to this article.


Write to Bob Davis at bob.davis@wsj.com

Read more at www.wallstreetjournal.com
 

Religious freedom shrinking worldwide

Amplify’d from www.sun-sentinel.com

Religious freedom shrinking worldwide

New Pew study says a third the world's population has suffered more restrictions since 2006.

.

Looks like the screaming was wrong. On both sides.

A decade back, the religious right said secularists would sacrifice freedom of religion to a tyrannical, God-denying state.

Meanwhile, secularists were warning that "fundamentalists" would seize power and suffocate freedom of speech, even thought.

What’s actually happened, according to a new Pew study, is that governments and social movements are combining to limit religious freedom worldwide.

The new study of 198 countries, by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, says that nearly a third of the global population -- more than 2.2 billion people -- saw their religious liberties shrink in three years.

Whether from official strictures or "social hostilities," the circle of religious freedom shrank between mid-2006 and mid-2009, says the report, "Rising Restrictions on Religion."

Worse, freedoms didn’t expand in any of the 25 most populous countries, and shrank in eight of them.

Here are some other highlights.

The Middle East had the largest proportion of countries where religious freedom shrank by government action. Europe saw the most restrictions from social hostilities.

However, social hostilities rose in a wide variety of countries -- including China, Nigeria, Russia and Vietnam.

Egypt and Indonesia were among the top 10 countries in both categories -- government restrictions and social hostilities involving religion.

Violence and abuse related to religion rose 51 percent, to 101 countries.

Christians and Muslims suffered the most harassment, either social or governmental. But Sikhs, Bahais, Zoroastrians and Rastafarians also suffered -- and Jews fell victim in 75 countries.

A paradox: Restrictions have grown in many countries that have laws against blasphemy and religious defamation. "While such laws are sometimes promoted as a way to protect religion, in practice they often serve to punish religious minorities whose beliefs are deemed unorthodox or heretical."

Interestingly, despite anti-Islamic blogs and scattered protests against the building of mosques, the Pew report found no "substantial changes" in religious freedom in the United States.

Worse yet, there’s little hope for change. Most nations that already limited religious freedoms became more restrictive, while nearly half of the countries that lifted some restrictions had already had few.

"This suggests that there may be a gradual polarization taking place," the report says.

Check out the online version of the Pew report. It has separate breakdowns on government and social restrictions of religion, plus a graphic on the 25 most populous nations. You can also download the whole report as a .pdf document.

James D. Davis

Read more at www.sun-sentinel.com