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Constitution Worshipers Hoping to Radically Change It

As you may have heard, the Republican party simply does not care for Barack Obama's health care law. And yet it's still a law! How is this fair? It's not. Time to introduce a constitutional amendment banning, uh, laws, then.

Whether you hate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or not, it's possible that trying to reinstate the Articles of Confederation because one bill irritates you would be an overreaction:

The same people driving the lawsuits that seek to dismantle the Obama administration's health care overhaul have set their sights on an even bigger target: a constitutional amendment that would allow a vote of the states to overturn any act of Congress. Under the proposed "repeal amendment," any federal law or regulation could be repealed if the legislatures of two-thirds of the states voted to do so.

It's a start, but a more comprehensive amendment would simply say, "This amendment here bans the Democrat party from doin' stuff."

This repeal amendment will not go anywhere of course. It would allow all the states with very tiny populations to kill everything for sport. Also: State governments should not have federal legislative powers.

Still, it will probably find its way into the next Democratic Tax Deal.

Image via Shutterstock.com

Send an email to Jim Newell, the author of this post, at newell@gawker.com. Read more at gawker.com

 

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Pedophilia Guide Author Arrested

Phillip Greaves, who infamously sold The Pedophile's Guide To Love and Pleasure through Amazon's e-book store, has been arrested on obscenity charges. He probably shouldn't have sent an autographed copy of his creepy "child lover's" guide to a Florida sheriff.

Greaves was arrested at home in Pueblo, Colorado by deputies from Polk County in Florida, to whom Greaves had sold and mailed his book. The third degree felony charges are reportedly punishable by up to 30 years in prison, which, revolting as this book is, would be a ridiculous sentence to impose for shipping some printed made-up words to a backwater sheriff who wasn't inspired to actually molest anyone (hopefully).

Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at ryan@gawker.com. Read more at gawker.com

 

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Prince William: 'Do You Know Who I Am? I Do What I Want'

A book about Prince William claims he once yelled this at Kate: "Do you know who I am! No one tells me what to do. I do what I want." As the future King of England, he has a point. Only a few people can get away with "Do you know who I am?" at any given moment in human history. World-famous one-names are shoo-ins. (Madonna, Cleopatra, Gilgamesh.) The President of the United States of America, sometimes. (FDR, yes. Dubya, no.) And, though the British empire and royalty in general are not the phenomena they once were, anyone destined to be the King of England gets grandfathered in to the "Do you know who I am?" club. Anyway, I sort of doubt the veracity of this book, which claims to have an inside line on the fights Kate Middleton and Prince William had during their 2007 break-up (a time during which Wills supposedly hurled the "Do you know who I am" bomb as a defense for infidelity) because the monarchy in general—and the Wills-Kate relationship in particular—is good at closing ranks. Nonetheless, we should hope that this is the way Prince William dealt with the break-up: The prince and his band of bar hopping buddies show up at Mahiki. "As the Rolling Stones classic You Can't Always Get What You Want blasted over the sound system, Wills waved his arms in the air and shouted, 'I'm freeeee!'" according to the book. "'Let's drink the menu.'" ...if only because having a balding frat boy as King of England would be perhaps the final blow to taking "British monarchs" of the ol' "Do you know who I am?" list. [NYP, Observer, Official royal portrait via Getty] Send an email to Maureen O'Connor, the author of this post, at maureen@gawker.com. Read more at gawker.com

 

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'Socialist' Methodist Church in Tea Party Crosshairs

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips has a dream: "No more Methodist Church."

A blog post on his Tea Party Nation page says that on Friday he walked by the United Methodist Building in Washington D.C., which had a sign that said, "Pass the DREAM Act." Phillips wrote: " I have a DREAM. That is, no more United Methodist Church."

Phillips explains that he was formerly a member of the church, but he left because it's "the first Church of Karl Marx," and "little more than the "religious" arm of socialism."

"The Methodist church is pro-illegal immigration," he continues. "They have been in the bag for socialist health care, going as far as sending out emails to their membership "debunking" the myths of Obamacare. Say, where are the liberal complaints on the separation of church and state?"

"In short, if you hate America, you have a great future in the Methodist church," he says.

Phillips has recently argued that it's a "wise idea" to only let property owners vote. He's also defended an email he wrote calling for supporters to help "retire" Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) because "he is the only Muslim member of congress."

See more at gawker.com

 

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Man Charged With Child Sex Attack At California Walmart

Amplify’d from www.exposereport.com

Man Charged With Child Sex Attack At California Walmart

SAN LEANDRO, CA (CBS 5/BCN) — A 29-year-old San Leandro man has been charged with sexual assaulting an 8-year-old girl inside a Walmart store, police said Monday.

Carlyle Villazon allegedly assaulted the girl after she became separated from her family during a Friday night shopping trip to the Walmart at 1919 Davis Street in San Leandro.

He was arrested after a pair of shoppers, Malcolm Mason and Dino Rinetti, chased him down and held him until police arrived.

The girl was taken to Children’s Hospital in Oakland for forensic assault evaluation.

Police said Villazon is not a registered sex offender, but has prior arrest history for traffic violations and making terrorist threats.

Police said the 8-year-old victim was shopping with her family when she told her mother that her younger brother had disappeared and that she would go find him.

A short time later, the girl walked back to her mother in tears and told her that a man had and touched her inappropriately. She stuck her hand down her pants to demonstrate what the man had done to her, police said.

The victim’s mother immediately alerted Walmart staff of the incident and both parties began searching for the man inside the store.

The girl spotted Villazon near the garden department and identified him to her mother. Police said that when Villazon caught the pair looking at him, he ran toward the main doors.

After he fled, her mother yelled, “somebody help, he touched my daughter,” prompting Mason, who was shopping at the Walmart, to chase after Villazon, police said.

“The girl’s mom was crying and the little girl was crying, and the mom pointed this guy out,” Mason said. “I started walking toward him and he looked all reddish and nervous, then he started running.”

Mason chased Villazon and pushed him to the ground just before he reached the exit doors, he said.

“He was about to get up out of there in about 10 yards,” Mason said. “But he didn’t get away, I held him right there until the police came.”

Rinetti, the second good Samaritan, helped tackle Villazon and both men detained him until officers arrived about 15 minutes later, Mason said.

Villazon was arrested on charges of engaging in lewd acts with a child, aggravated sexual assault on a child and false imprisonment, police said.

This was the second case in recent weeks of a child being sexually assaulted while shopping with family members.

SEE NEWS VIDEO HERE

SOURCE: CBS San Fransisco Read more at www.exposereport.com

 

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T.D. Jakes 6 God's Got You Covered

'Police kept me in jail even after judge said let me free'

URL:  http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=239633

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HOMELAND INSECURITY: Christmas in America could be a literal blast

URL:  http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=241737

HOMELAND INSECURITY: Ex-chief worried naughty terrorists won't be nice to New York, Washington



WorldNetDaily



There is a "real possibility" foreign Islamic terrorists already infiltrated the U.S. though the country's "sufficiently porous" borders, warned former CIA Director James Woolsey.



Commenting on a federal law-enforcement terror-bulletin warning of possible terrorist plots for this holiday season, Woolsey stated symbolic locales in New York and Washington are likely most at risk for any possible attacks.



"I think the thing to be perhaps most worried about is single-person attacks at symbolically important places," stated Woolsey. "And that would put, I think, New York and Washington particularly perhaps maybe more on notice than other places."



Woolsey was speaking in an interview with WND's senior reporter Aaron Klein on the latter's investigative radio program on New York's WABC Radio.



Woolsey said he believes al-Qaida is most motivated to carry out terrorist acts in the U.S. against "symbols of economic prosperity and dominance."



Responding to a question about U.S. border security, Woolsey told Klein that "our borders are sufficiently porous that it is at least possible that Hezbollah or other terrorists have come across in some of the ways that people come here just who want to work."



"And we shouldn't forget the Canadian border," he added. "There are real possibilities of people having come in both ways."



Woolsey warned of the increased terrorist threat emanating from Latin American countries, where Iranian-backed militants are reported to have gained a foothold.



Stated Woolsey: "It doesn't have to just be al-Qaida. A lot of people are under the impression that because the Iranians are Shiites and Hezbollah works for Iran they would never cooperate with a Sunni group like Al -Qaida. That's nonsense."



"Iran has been supplying a lot of the improvised explosive devices and the technology for them to Sunnis in the Taliban and so forth in Afghanistan to kill Americans. And Hezbollah has a major presence in the tri-border region of South America, down by the Iguassu Falls down in southern Brazil, Argentina, etc."



Just last week, classified diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks outlined U.S. government concerns that Iran and the Hezbollah terrorist organization are gaining a foothold in Latin America.



Among the concerns is that Iranian-backed militants may attempt to infiltrate the U.S. or use Latin America as a staging ground for anti-American attacks, the documents relate.



Also, the U.S. caught Iran shipping explosives and attempting to ship unmanned aerial vehicles to Venezuela, the cables revealed.



Meanwhile, a Department of Homeland Security bulletin sent last week to law-enforcement agencies nationwide revealed authorities are worried terrorists will try carry out attacks this holiday season.



The bulletin lists possible threats including car bombs, trucks ramming crowds and Mumbai-style small-arms attack – meaning attacks against soft targets, such as hotels or shopping centers.



The bulletin did not cite any specific plot for Christmas or New Year's. It made clear the warning was based on persistent terrorist threats.



Still, the bulletin followed reports that Iraqi government interrogations of captured gunmen revealed the possibility of an increased terrorist threat to both the U.S. and Europe during the holidays.

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Galileo and the Church

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Galileo and the Church

By John Heilbron

What Galileo believed about providence, miracles, and salvation, is hard to say.  It may not matter.  Throughout his life he functioned as the good Catholic he claimed to be, and he received many benefits from the church before and after the affair that brought him to his knees before the Holy Inquisition in 1633.

First among these benefits was education.  Galileo studied for a few years at the convent of Vallombrosa (a Benedictine order) near Florence.  He loved the place and had entered his novitiate when his father removed him from the temptation.  Later the Vallombrosans gave him his first important job teaching mathematics.  He probably lived briefly at the Benedictine convent of Santa Giustina in Padua just after taking up a professorship at Venice’s university there in 1592.  He may have taught at Santa Giustina and from its ranks recruited his most faithful disciple, Dom Benedetto Castelli.

The largest and ablest collection of mathematicians in Italy belonged to the Society of Jesus.  When he started serious study of mathematics, Galileo sought and obtained the advice and approval of their leader, Father Christopher Clavius.  He had to break off relations in 1606, when the Venetian state expelled the Jesuits from its territories.  Galileo restored the connection soon after returning to Florence in 1610 as “Mathematician and Philosopher to the Grand Duke of Tuscany.”  Again he had an urgent need for Clavius’s endorsement.  The astonishing discoveries he had made in 1609/10 by turning his telescope on the heavens challenged credulity.  By the end of 1610 he had the confirmation he wanted.  Clavius’s group of mathematicians invited him to their headquarters in Rome to celebrate the “message from the stars,” as Galileo had entitled the book in which he had announced his discoveries, and to toast the messenger.

Galileo’s other benefits from the Church included the large salary he enjoyed as court mathematician and philosopher, which came from ecclesiastical revenues, and a papal pension for his son.  The son declined on discovering that its beneficiary had to wear a tonsure, and Galileo, having no such reservation, took it himself.  In the hope of relieving his chronic illnesses, he made pilgrimages to Loreto.  To relieve himself of his two illegitimate daughters, he put them in a nunnery.  When old and blind and confined to his villa, members of religious orders comforted and read to him.  And throughout his life he had many friends, disciples, and patrons among ecclesiastics.

His late-in-life comforters were not Jesuits.  Obliged to teach the physics of Aristotle, in which the earth stands still at the center of the world, they could not endorse the Copernican system, which Galileo believed his discoveries proved.  That did not stop them from becoming experts in telescopic astronomy.  Galileo did not like the competition and attacked the Jesuits unfairly.  That was a mistake.  They did not help him when he ran into an order of priests who did not like mathematics.  These were the Dominicans, who ran the machinery of the Inquisition.

Some of their firebrands preached that since Copernican notions conflicted with Joshua’s order to the sun to stand still, they might be heretical.  Galileo hurried to Rome in 1615 to clear himself and Copernicanism.  Early in 1616 the Inquisition found that Copernicanism was contrary to scripture and philosophically absurd; the Congregation of the Index thereupon banned Copernicus’s masterpiece pending correction and other works altogether; but it did not mention Galileo.  Instead, on papal orders, the chief theologian of the Inquisition, the Jesuit Cardinal (now Saint) Robert Bellarmine, summoned Galileo to hear the decree of the Index and to receive, in private, a personal injunction not to teach or hold the Copernican theory in any way whatsoever.

Galileo obeyed this instruction until the election in 1623 of his old friend Maffeo Barberini as Pope Urban VIII.  As a member of the Congregation of the Index in 1616, Barberini had opposed the condemnation of sun-centered astronomy, not because he believed it, but because he held that no astronomical system could be known to be true.  An omniscent omnipotent God could contrive to produce astronomical appearances in ways different from the one preferred by astronomers.  Condemning any astronomical system would give all of them a status they did not deserve.

Galileo now argued that to counter the sneers of Protestants, Catholics should make clear that they had understood the astronomical arguments at stake in 1616.  Urban liked the idea.  Apparently he agreed that Galileo could develop the strongest arguments he could for a moving earth and stationary sun, provided that he flanked them with a preface containing the motivation (we reopen the question to show we are not ignorant) and a postscript containing Urban’s epistemology (nonetheless, we cannot affirm the truth of any astronomical system).

Galileo’s Dialogue on the two chief world systems (1632) takes place between two of his dead friends and a genial Aristotelian blockhead named Simplicio.  It begins with the stipulated preface, continues with the knockdown arguments, but stops without the postscript. It ends with Simplicio declaring Urban’s epistemology.  Instead of securing his prize—the endorsement by Italy’s greatest mathematician and philosopher of his prophylaxis against all assaults on scripture mounted from natural knowledge—Urban had the mortification of having his philosophy of science expressed by a fool.

Galileo was charged with “vehement suspicion of heresy” for defending a theory he knew contravened scripture and had been ordered not to teach.  He confessed, ascribed his error to excessive pride in his cleverness, and underwent, candle in hand, the prescribed procedure for abjuration ex vehementi.  Reading the prepared text, he said that he detested his Copernican ideas and “all other errors and heresies.”  (This seems to be the first official public indication that Copernicanism might be a heresy; if so, it became one by poor editing, not by official proclamation.)  Continuing with his text, Galileo gave himself over to the Inquisition to do with as it pleased.  Urban pleased to place his former friend under perpetual house arrest.  Customarily people who abjured ex vehementi obtained their freedom after a year or two.  Galileo and his friends petitioned for his release, but to no avail.  Urban continued to believe that Galileo needed quarantine, not because he taught that the earth moves, but because he thought that the human mind unaided by revelation could attain to truth.

In 1979, Urban’s successor several times removed, Pope John Paul II, appointed a committee to re-examine the merits of the case against Galileo.  Their report, issued a decade later, blamed and exonerated both parties:  the Inquisition had understood the scientific issues at stake, but not the principles of exegesis; Galileo had employed a sound hermeneutics, but not an acceptable standard of scientific proof.  Their no-fault collision arose from a “tragic mutual misunderstanding.”  People restricted to ordinary modes of thought may have trouble accepting this resolution and the associated assurance that there is no essential opposition between science and religion. Read more at www.hnn.us

 

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Pope: Don’t Take Bible Literally

Amplify’d from www.thetrumpet.com

Pope: Don’t Take Bible Literally

In his latest treatise, Benedict XVI reverts to medieval teaching.

By Ron Fraser

Can you trust the Bible? Is it, in fact, the inspired Word of God?

The pope recently weighed in on these questions in an “apostolic exhortation” called Verbum Domini (“The Word of the Lord”), issued on November 11. As cna/ewtn News reported it, this papal message was “a lofty and impassioned plea for everyone in the church to rediscover the Bible.”

The truth of it is, this was more than an “impassioned plea” from this pope to his parishioners. It was a direct attack on all who believe the inerrancy of the literal Scriptures as inspired by God!

Pope Benedict “criticized ‘fundamentalist’ or ‘literalist’ interpretations and urged renewed appreciation for the symbolic and spiritual interpretation techniques used by the ancient fathers of the church” (ibid., emphasis mine).

“An authentic interpretation of the Bible must always be in harmony with the faith of the Catholic Church,” Benedict declared.

We must look at this declaration in light of other recent endorsements of the claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church. This pope has said more than once that all Christian denominations other than Roman Catholicism are illegitimate—either defective or not true churches. Now he has reasserted the medieval stance that only the interpretation of Scripture by the Roman Catholic Church has authenticity.

That is a blatant papal lie that the very Scriptures themselves oppose!

How to Understand the Bible

Your Bible clearly declares, first and foremost, that “no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 Peter 1:20).

It further declares that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). There is no instruction here to resort first to any “symbolic and spiritual interpretation techniques used by the ancient fathers of the church”!

Those “interpretation techniques” as applied over the centuries have led to many contradictory interpretations of Scripture, even within Roman Catholicism. But Jesus Christ plainly said “the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). The Bible does not contradict itself!

It is not for the pope, it is not for any of his priests, it is not for man at all to interpret the Scriptures based on any particular religious ideology!

Only one power can unlock the plain, straightforward meaning of Scripture. That is the power of the mind of God alone, exerting His influence on the mind of an individual by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ Himself, the Word of God personified, declared that when the Holy Spirit comes into the mind of an individual, it reveals all things. He called it “the Spirit of truth, [which] the world cannot receive, because it seeth [it] not, neither knoweth [it]” (John 14:17).

Christ called the Holy Spirit the “Comforter” (John 16:7). It is a revelatory Spirit, the Spirit of truth—actually a portion of God’s own supreme intellect embedded in the mind of a converted Christian. Christ declared that when it is given by the Father to a servant of God, it “will guide you into all truth … and [it] will shew you things to come” (verse 13).

cna/ewtn News described “The heart of Verbum Domini” as comprising “a long and often technical discussion of ‘hermeneutics,’ or the proper method for interpreting the sacred texts.”

The reality is that Jesus Christ, the very Author of the Word of God, gave us the proper method for understanding the Bible. We read of the direct experience of His original disciples, from whom the original apostles were ordained and who in turn formed the very foundation of the one true Church. Of their experience with the resurrected Jesus Christ, they remembered, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?”

It is thus the living Jesus Christ, the true Head of His one true Church, who opens up the Word of God to us by the power of God’s Holy Spirit!

The Real Reason Men Interpret the Bible

Yes, it takes dedicated study to grow in understanding the Bible (2 Timothy 2:15; Isaiah 28:10, 13). But, in reality, the Bible interprets itself!

Why do men insist on trying to interpret the Bible?

A quarter of a century ago, Herbert Armstrong gave the answer. In the Plain Truth magazine of November 1983, he wrote, “The Scriptures are profitable for the purpose of reproving and correcting us. But we resent being reproved and corrected. How many people do you know who are even willing to be corrected where they are in error—to be reproved for the wrong things they do?

“People do not like to be reproved and corrected. They love praise and flattery. But reproof and correction they surely hate.

“That’s why it is so hard for so many people to understand the Bible and to agree on just what it says. The Bible is God’s great spiritual mirror. It shows up every flaw in our thinking and reveals every spot on our characters. It pictures us as we really are—as God sees us, not as we like to think we are or to have other men look upon us.”

That’s the plain and simple truth.

Hebrews 4:12 reads, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The Bible is a powerful weapon that cuts both ways, opening up and laying bare the inner man!

That is not a comfortable process—and thus, too often, men simply won’t subject themselves to it. As Herbert Armstrong further stated, “Too often men have applied some different meaning to the scriptures that reproved them. They have passed right over some scriptures that corrected and rebuked them. Instead they studied diligently to find some other scripture into which they could read a meaning that would justify their course of action.

“That is how men began, centuries ago, to interpret the Bible. And so God’s Word has become perverted, twisted, wrested, distorted. And almost every false and counterfeit meaning imaginable is read into it instead of seeing the natural meaning—the plain, simple meaning God intended.

“Today we have hundreds of interpretations of the Bible. But you never hear of hundreds of interpretations of a biology textbook. Why? Because biology textbooks do not rebuke and correct men.

“Instead of acknowledging the truth, repenting of the sin, having it legally justified by the blood of Christ, men seek to justify their own acts by perverting the sacred and holy Word of God.”

Melanie Phillips recently mused that the Vatican today, under this pope, may be taking “a giant step backwards into a darker age”—an age when the Vatican dictated that the Roman Catholic Church alone was the sole authority for interpretation of the Bible! (Oct. 25, 2010).

Could it be that this pope is in reality seeking to hide what inerrant Scripture reveals as to the true nature of the religious body he leads, its true beginnings, and its prophesied end? Hide the truth by insisting on the application of the interpretation techniques imposed by the “ancient fathers of the church” and thus interpreting, or rather wresting, the Scriptures to suit the whim and the will of the Vatican? (2 Peter 3:16).

You need to allow the Bible to interpret itself on this burning question and all others. Request our free booklet Daniel—Unsealed at Last! for insight into, and for the biblical answers to, this question. • Read more at www.thetrumpet.com

 

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Pope’s Christmas warning: ‘the future of the world is at stake’

Amplify’d from www.lifesitenews.com

Pope’s Christmas warning: ‘the future of the world is at stake’

by John-Henry Westen

VATICAN, December 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In his traditional Christmas greeting to Vatican officials this morning, the Pope drew a link between the times of the fall of the Roman Empire and our own times, arguing that “the future of the world is at stake.”

Read the pope’s complete talk here.

Describing the decline of the Roman Empire he said, “The disintegration of the key principles of law and of the fundamental moral attitudes underpinning them burst open the dams which until that time had protected peaceful coexistence among peoples. “The sun was setting over an entire world,” he continued. “Frequent natural disasters further increased this sense of insecurity. There was no power in sight that could put a stop to this decline.“ Comparing those times to our own he said: “For all its new hopes and possibilities, our world is at the same time troubled by the sense that moral consensus is collapsing, consensus without which juridical and political structures cannot function. Consequently the forces mobilized for the defence of such structures seem doomed to failure.” The pope tied the priestly sexual abuse crisis, which he referred to as “the great tribulations to which we have been exposed during the past year,” into the overall theme of the talk. He began by pointing out that the past year had been designated the “Year of the Priests.” “We were all the more dismayed, then, when in this year of all years and to a degree we could not have imagined, we came to know of abuse of minors committed by priests who twist the sacrament into its antithesis, and under the mantle of the sacred profoundly wound human persons in their childhood, damaging them for a whole lifetime,’” he said. While he spoke of the need for the Church to reflect upon its own inner workings to determine how such a thing could have happened, he also pointed to the moral disintegration of society as a contributing cause. We cannot, he said, “remain silent regarding the context of these times in which these events have come to light.” In this context the Pope noted child pornography, sex trafficking and drug abuse, saying that, “No pleasure is ever enough, and the excess of deceiving intoxication becomes a violence that tears whole regions apart – and all this in the name of a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually undermines man’s freedom and ultimately destroys it.” The Pope stated that in order to resist these evils it is necessary to resist relativism, and the warping of the idea of the conscience: In order to resist these forces, we must turn our attention to their ideological foundations. In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children. This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos. It was maintained – even within the realm of Catholic theology – that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a “better than” and a “worse than”. Nothing is good or bad in itself. Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end in view. Anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circumstances. Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist. The effects of such theories are evident today. He also called on political leaders to “put a stop to Christianophobia,” and noted that “healing can only come from deep faith in God’s reconciling love.” In the final analysis, he suggested that “only if there is …  a consensus on the essentials can constitutions and law function.”  The Pope explained that the public agreement on essential truths which is “derived from the Christian heritage” is at risk from an approach where morality is ignored in the pursuit of certain goals. He concluded: “To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.” Read more at www.lifesitenews.com

 

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Arlington Diocese - Heed Pope Benedict XVI - "Repair the Injustice" of sexual abuse in the church

Amplify’d from ministryvalues.com

Arlington Diocese - Heed Pope Benedict XVI - "Repair the Injustice"

By Stephen Ryan

Today, from the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI,  in his annual Christmas speech to Bishops and Cardinals, speaking of the sex abuse crisis, forcefully said to his audience "We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred," To repair the damage that the Holy See speaks of  we strongly urge the Arlington Diocese to open an investigation into the events known as the Seton Miracles which manifested itself in the form of an extraordinary display of weeping statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The miraculous events were silenced by the Chancellor of the diocese of Arlington, an alleged pedofile with mulitple accusations, who committed suicide a few months after coldly ending the Catholic Church's role in the mysterious events. It is time for the diocese of Arlington, as the Pope urges the leadership of the faith,  to repair this great injustive. (editor's note: We have spoken with eye-witnesses to the  strange events. Minsitryvalues.com is based in Alexandria, Va and the author has been a member of the diocese of Arlington for thrity years and a graduate of Bishop Ireton High School)  The Mystery For years, many close to the Church, clergy and lay, had speculated on how an Evil - the Smoke of Satan - would manifest itself inside the Catholic Church - inside “certain chanceries” and then on a hot summer day in August - a clue.  On August 11, 1992, the long time Chancellor to the diocese of Arlington in Virginia, 53-year-old Monsignor William Reinecke, walked into a non-descript cornfield in Berryville, Virginia, near the Holy Cross Trappist Monastery with a loaded shotgun and killed himself.  His death would leave behind a long shadow of untold secrets – secrets of both good and evil- secrets whose scope, nearly twenty years later, are today just beginning to be fully understood.  During an implausible six months in 1992, Chancellor Reinecke would quite literally come face to face with both the divine and the damned.   Before the Chancellor’s death, five months earlier, on March 6, 1992, a local television affiliate of CBS news aired a story, initially without much fanfare, about mysterious occurrences of weeping statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary taking place in Lake Ridge, Virginia, a quite suburb twenty miles south of the Nation’s Capitol. The extraordinary events were mostly occurring at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church (SEAS) and its rectory.     The reported weeping Madonnas were associated with a local priest named Father Jim Bruse – they seemed to tear in his presence – who was also experiencing the “wounds of Christ” known as the Stigmata.   Many eye-witnesses to the events and those who have investigated the incident argue that never in the entire history of the Catholic Church, has there been a greater manifestation of the supernatural or momentous occurrence of weeping statues and other physical signs of God's presence through the Blessed Virgin Mary than what took place on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.  in 1991 – 1993.   There were hundreds, if not thousands, of credible witnesses who saw the statues of the Virgin Mary weep before their eyes, including lawyers, military officers and government employees. Most significantly the Bishop of the Arlington Diocese, John R. Keating along with  Monsignor William Reinecke both witnessed  the weeping Madonnas -  “On March 2, 1992  Father Hamilton and Father Bruse met with Bishop Keating at the Chancery along with Monsignor William Reinecke. “Both prelates had Madonna statues. Bishop Keating had two in his office and Monsignor Reinecke brought one of his own. In addition, Fr Bruse, had brought his little Fatima statue with him. All the statues wept. Reportedly, this convinced Bishop Keating that the weeping is a genuine phenomenon and should be so treated.” - The Seton Miracles  Within days of the CBS news report, the story of the weeping statues and the priest experiencing the stigmata would become a worldwide media sensation.  The Washington Post and a throng of other national and international news organizations descended onto the community to report and investigate the miraculous occurrences. To this day, the spontaneous media frenzy that engulfed the unexplained events stands as a singular moment in television history in the coverage of mystical religious phenomena.  Then suddenly, the Chancery Office to the diocese of Arlington, headed by Monsignor Reinecke, concerned about the “circus atmosphere” at the Lake Ridge parish and with the blessing of the Bishop, John R. Keating coldly shut everything down. The statues of the Madonna, mind you, continued to weep, at times profusely, but as far as the diocese of Arlington and the Catholic Church were concerned the matter was officially over.  The Chancery stated its position regarding the miraculous events in a formal declaration to the Pastor of SEAS, Father Hamilton.  In a nutshell, the declaration said that since there was no overt divine message being delivered, there was nothing to investigate and the parish and the clergy from that point forward were forbidden to talk about the events.  This decision, to many parishioners was not only profoundly sad but seemed to be an odd determination since only physical phenomena can be investigated. Reports of apparitions and locutions cannot be investigated. They can merely be assessed as to whether they are consistent with Catholic faith and morals.   The Scandal and The Smoke of Satan Within months of dismissing the tears of Our Lady and silencing the talk of the highly publicized miraculous events, Monsignor William Reinecke,  would again make newspaper headlines -  this time by committing suicide in the cornfield by the monastery.  After the suicide, at first, shocked priests, parishioners,and friends searched for answers.  Many blamed themselves for failing to see Monsignor’s Reinecke quiet despair. But soon after the suicide a startling report surfaced in the Washington Post. Joe McDonald, a former altar boy from another parish, claimed that Father Reinecke sexually molested him twenty-five years ago and said he had confronted the priest about the incident two days before Reinecke killed himself. Then another bombshell. After reporting the allegations of sexual molestation, The Washington Post revealed that William Reinecke was also, scandalously, the person in charge of investigating claims of pedophilia for the Arlington Diocese. On August 30, 1992, after being rebuffed by the diocese of Arlington to discuss Reinecke’s death,  Joe McDonald contacted the Washington Post and  told his story of  his sexual abuse by Father Reinecke. Then, according the Post, Bishop John R. Keating, after reading the story in the newspaper, sought out Mr. McDonald to discuss the matter. In the meeting with the Bishop’s representatives he asked the diocese to establish support groups for victims and priests, but Mr. McDonald said no "concrete proposals" came out of his meeting and was upset that they asked him to “stop speaking out”.  Five months earlier Bishop Keating and Monsignor Reinecke had also asked the parishioners of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton to stop speaking and the diocese has rebuffed all inquires to investigate the mysterious events of the weeping Madonnas  for nearly twenty years. In 2006 Becky Ianni came forward saying that in the late 1960s, when she was ten years old, she  had been sexually abused by  Fr. Reinecke.  She told the Washington Post that Father Reinecke gave  her family their first color TV and  within days while watching the brand new TV in the basement  the molestation started.  "I didn't tell anyone what happened," she said. "I was basically told that I'd go to hell if I did." Ianni said she no longer considers herself a practicing Catholic."I became so disillusioned," she said. "I realized I couldn't be a part of a church that wouldn't deal appropriately with these victims."  Did Our Lady’s unprecedented tears in 1992 forewarn of the great Catholic priest sex abuse crisis?  Did "Our Lady confront the "Smoke of Satan"?   Of course nobody on that tragic day would hear the gun go off that killed Monsignor Reinecke.   But now, looking back on the events of 1992, as Our Lady was weeping like never before in history,  perhaps the gunshot was the “shot heard ‘round the world” because within months of the accused pedophile’s suicide - a man in charge of pedophilia investigations for the diocese, the Catholic Church’s  sexual abuse crises would begin to unfold.   In the 2004  John Jay Report on sexual abuse, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,  it stated that “prior to 1993, only one-third of sex-abuse cases were known to church officials,"    The Sex abuse catastophe, as we now know, has become, arguably, the single greatest challenge to the hearts, minds, and souls of the Catholic faithful – many have left the faith because of it - and to this day the Vatican continues to endure the ramifications of what Pope Benedict XVI has described as a “wretchedness” inside the Church.  The Smoke of Satan had indeed entered the Church and the Blessed Virgin Mother  wept for the loss of so many souls.  The Aftermath  Bishop Keating and Monsignor Reinecke’s  decision to ignore the miraculous events of the weeping statues continues to be an unsolved  mystery and to many  a very unfortunate one. The decision to ignore the events did not leave a neutral opinion in its wake. It left a negative implication, some even believe the events have been condemned by the diocese of Arlington.   The bishop's apparent disinterest suggested that he must know something negative about the cause of the phenomena.  The tragedy of this situation is that the local bishop, then Most Rev. John R. Keating and now Most Rev. Paul Loverde, have refused to even acknowledge the events much less investigate them to determine whether they constitute a true sign from God that the faithful could consider as miraculous.  Perhaps the most disturbing aspect to all of this is that the point man in charge of silencing talk of the Seton Miracles, a man who was also overseeing investigations into claims of sexual abuse by clergy, may well have been a pedophile.  Recently the bishop of Green Bay, Wisconsin, just recognized the first official apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the United States to a nun in 1859.  The church is the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help at Champion, just east of Green Bay near Lake Michigan.  http://www.gbdioc.org/newsevents/news/857-worthy-of-belief.html.  For purposes of the Seton Miracles, it demonstrates that it is not too late to conduct this investigation and make a determination of validity.  Indeed it is never to late to investigate the miraculous and to be sure prominent people still seek answers and guidance from the diocese of Arlington. Citing the weeping statues and miracles that took place in the outskirts of Washington D.C.,Justice Scalia recently argued that “It isn’t irrational to accept the testimony of eyewitnesses to miracles. What is irrational,” is to reject a priori, with no investigation… which is, of course, precisely what the worldly wise do. Why wasn’t that church absolutely packed with nonbelievers, seeking to determine if there might be something to this?”  The answer was obvious, he said with disdain: “The wise do not investigate such silliness.” The words of Supreme Court Justice leaves us asking why indeed was the church not packed with officials of the diocese of Arlington to investigate the mysteries that obviously to this day haunt Justice Scalia. Clearly, Justice Scalia has not heard evidence to his satisfaction to make a ruling in the extraordinary case of the weeping statues of the Blessed Mother.  If an honest investigation determines that there were natural causes for all of the strange things that happened around Fr. Bruse, in Lake Ridge, Va. great!   - the matter could then be put to rest  But we don't believe that will be the outcome of a true investigation.  We don't see how such a conclusion would be possible.  But, that's the purpose of investigating.  Read more at ministryvalues.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.knoxnews.com

Letters: Muslim columnist hits, misses on Christianity

The Dec. 12 Perspective column by Shadab Siddqi was an interesting, eye opening window into the mind of a well educated Muslim living in the United States.

He is correct (in) observing that most Americans know little about Islam and its history. He, however, demonstrates his limited understanding of Christianity and freedom of conscience by comparing the tiny Vatican, measured by acreage, with the vast and draconian Islamic theocracies, established by force of arms, where citizens are Muslim by birth and may be subject to capital punishment if they wish to leave the Muslim faith.

He is correct (in) noting that hundreds of churches exist in predominately Muslim countries, largely in Indonesia, but he neglects to mention that hundreds have been burnt to the ground, an action that would ignite world wide jihad if the roles were reversed. Observe also that mosques are bombed by fellow Muslims who hold somewhat differing views, while Christians of various denominations gather together to bring aide to others, regardless of their faith.

Siddiqi said that Americans don’t want mosques built in the United States. Although many may not desire it, they would allow it and protect it. Lastly, Siddiqi should not confuse the actions of government with the actions and attitudes of its people, as American society remains open and tolerant, which is why Siddiqi’s column found its way to such prominence in this newspaper.

Eric Rockwell

Knoxville Read more at www.knoxnews.com

 

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Pontiff Denounces Child Pornography, Pedophilia

Amplify’d from www.catholic.net

Pontiff Denounces Child Pornography, Pedophilia

Rome's Zenit News

The Pope stated this today during his traditional meeting with the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and members of the Roman Curia and of the Governorate of Vatican City State, for the exchange of Christmas greetings.  "For all its new hopes and possibilities, our world is at the same time troubled by the sense that moral consensus is collapsing, consensus without which juridical and political structures cannot function," he observed.  The Pontiff continued, "Excita, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni [stir up your power O Lord and come]: Amid the great tribulations to which we have been exposed during the past year, this Advent prayer has frequently been in my mind and on my lips."  He mentioned in particular the abuse of minors by clergy that came to light over the past year, crimes of "priests who twist the sacrament into its antithesis, and under the mantle of the sacred profoundly wound human persons in their childhood, damaging them for a whole lifetime."  "We must accept this humiliation as an exhortation to truth and a call to renewal," the Holy Father said. "Only the truth saves."  Reparation  He continued "We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred.  "We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen. We must discover a new resoluteness in faith and in doing good.  "We must be capable of doing penance. We must be determined to make every possible effort in priestly formation to prevent anything of the kind from happening again."  "In my meetings with victims of this sin," Benedict XVI stated, "I have also always found people who, with great dedication, stand alongside those who suffer and have been damaged."  He also expressed gratitude to "the many good priests who act as channels of the Lord's goodness in humility and fidelity and, amid the devastations, bear witness to the unforfeited beauty of the priesthood."  The Pope stated that we cannot "remain silent regarding the context of these times in which these events have come to light."  "There is a market in child pornography that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society," he lamented.  Terrifying signs  "The psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times," the Pontiff asserted. "From bishops of developing countries I hear again and again how sexual tourism threatens an entire generation and damages its freedom and its human dignity."  "In order to resist these forces, we must turn our attention to their ideological foundations," he said.  The Holy Father said: "In the 1970s, pedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children. This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos."  "It was maintained -- even within the realm of Catholic theology -- that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself," he noted.  Benedict XVI warned against this theory that "anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circumstances," in which "morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist."  "The effects of such theories are evident today," he stated.  The Pope noted, "Against them, Pope John Paul II, in his 1993 encyclical letter 'Veritatis Splendor,' indicated with prophetic force in the great rational tradition of Christian ethos the essential and permanent foundations of moral action."  "Today, attention must be focused anew on this text as a path in the formation of conscience," the Pontiff stated.  He added, "It is our responsibility to make these criteria audible and intelligible once more for people today as paths of true humanity, in the context of our paramount concern for mankind."  --- --- ---  On ZENIT's Web page:  Full text: www.zenit.org/article-31289?l=english Read more at www.catholic.net

 

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