Blog to discuss the book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation" and current events that point to the events described therein.
Ours is a world gone mad when a film about Islam is universally condemned while we continue the daily slaughter of the unborn right here in our own country.
A film depicting the roots of terrorism is to be condemned while a Catholic College displays a painting of the Virgin Mary as a prostitute and calls it "art".
Notre Dame University holds a pornographic, feminist play on campus in the name of so-called "academic freedom" defended by the president of the university,an ordained priest.
People reading Bible verses on the sidewalk in Philadelphia during a "Gay Pride" parade are arrested and sent to jail and threatened with up to 40 years in prison.
"Art" galleries display a crucifix in a jar of urine and it is acclaimed as art, as is a painting of the Virgin Mary with elephant dung splattered across it.
And the Dutch producer of this short but poignant film is in hiding for his life?
The cowardly media and governments of this world had better wake up soon or the fake empire they've created will come crashing down under the weight of sharia law.
And let's not forget the Church that apologizes left and right for all it has done through the centuries. Perhaps it should apologize, for no longer teaching the divine truth that civilization was based on.
Note: Last time someone made cartoons accusing Islam of being violent, they rioted across Europe and Asia to prove it. Likewise, when the Pope quoted a text that questioned whether Islam was inherently violent, there were riots and a nun was stabbed to death.
The apathetic western media and governments will continue to call Islam a "Religion of Peace" hoping saying it will make it so.
Islam is the "Burning Mountain" of the Book of Revelation. It has its place in the mysterious plan of God. And so does the Mystical Body of Christ. Destiny awaits both.
Had to redo the link after the original hosting site, LiveLeak was threatened with death.
***WARNING!! EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIOLENCE IN THIS VIDEO***
Note: Emphasis in bold mine. "A devastating and catastrophic mistake"
Priests praise return of traditional Latin Mass; say discouraging its use for so long was an error
Priests in the Bay Area are speaking out in favor of the traditional Latin Mass, telling a secular newspaper the old rite has several virtues nearly lost by the Church.
"For a long time, I have felt that the Mass we're doing today is not as reverent," Fr. Lawrence Goode told the March 13 Oakland Tribune. Fr. Goode offers the traditional Latin Mass at 7 p.m. every first Friday of the month at St. Francis of Assisi Church in East Palo Alto.
Goode has been celebrating the Mass according to Pope John XXIII's 1963 Roman Missal for six months at St. Francis. He told the Tribune that he wants eventually to celebrate the old rite on more occasions. "It helps in my devotion," Goode said. "It makes me conscious of the meaning of what I'm doing. (But) I'm just beginning to get the hang of it." More than 40 people assisted at the Mass on March 7.
The Second Vatican Council, noted the Tribune, never banned the old rite of the Mass outright, "but it was gradually phased out."
"We felt it was wrong to suppress it (the old Latin Mass)," Fr. William Young, who resides at Most Holy Redeemer parish in San Francisco's Castro district, told the Tribune. Fr. Young says the traditional Latin Mass at the Chapel of the Most Holy Rosary in San Rafael. The chapel is located on the grounds of the St. Vincent School for Boys, a residential treatment center for emotionally troubled young men. Fr. Young told the newspaper that suppressing the rite "was a devastating and catastrophic mistake."
"We were determined to do all we could to keep it from becoming something for antiquarians to study," said Fr. Young.
The San Rafael Mass is, currently, the only regular Sunday celebration of the traditional Mass in the archdiocese, which includes San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties, with an estimated 425,000 Catholics.
Fr. Young, who was ordained in 1976, said that before Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio last July freeing up the celebration of the old rite, "to celebrate it would constitute disobedience and disloyalty. Rome allowed the impression that the Mass was forbidden to continue."
"The old Mass attempts to create a sense of the transcendent and the sacred," Fr. Young told the newspaper. "It attempts to create an experience that is totally discontinuous of ordinary experience."
Another priest interviewed by the Tribune, Msgr. Bruno Peschiera, celebrated the traditional Mass in Rome for ten years. "There is a great devotion," he said. "You see the respect for the Eucharist and for the things that happen at the altar."
Sixty-four-year-old Joan Favero of Santa Cruz told the Tribune the Mass is "just part of life. I don't think it's important to actually be part of the Mass as far as answering in English. Worshipping God is why we are there. Any other type of community or social activity can be after Mass."
Our take: The following articles only confirm what we already sensed - that Europe has lost its faith and that the resulting vacuum is being filled by Islam. What Islam failed to capture by conquest it now takes by procreation and the apathy of the formerly Christian lands it has spread to without resistance. All that remains is for the tipping point to be reached when the remaining faithful are persecuted and put to the sword.
Madrid, Mar. 26, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The Union of Muslim Communities in Spain (UCIDE) claims that 1.13 million Spaniards, or 2.5% of the country's residents, are Muslim, Vatican Radio reports.
Moroccan immigrants, numbering approximately 565,000, constitute the largest Muslim group in Spain. Also, almost 35,000 native Spaniards have converted to Islam.
UCIDE is demanding Islamic religion classes in public schools in the four Spanish regions with the highest concentration of Muslims: Catalonia, with 279,000; Madrid, with 197,000; Andalusia, with 185,000; and Valencia, with 131,000.
British Muslims to outnumber Christians? London, Mar. 26, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Muslims may outnumber practicing Catholics in England and Wales by the year 2020, according to a forthcoming study.
A Christian Research study on estimates that the number of Catholics attending Sunday Mass regularly will fall to 679,000 in the next 12 years. Over the same period, the "Religious Trends" forecast says, the number of Muslims praying at English mosques will rise to 683,000.
Catholics already outnumber Anglicans attending Sunday services in England. The "Religious Trends" survey, which will be published in April, will suggest that by the year 2050, the number of practicing Muslims will exceed the number of Christians attending all Sunday church services in England.
I apologize to my frequent visitors for not posting or writing much the last few days. I've had a bit of writer's block. Or rather, the ideas and news articles have come so fast and furious lately that I haven't had time to thoroughly read them all and pick the ones most relevant to the Apocalypse.
But what has really been on my mind is the complete collapse of the Catholic way of life as seen through the prism of the local parish. I was contemplating that during the Triduum when we are at our supposedly most solemn. On Holy Thursday, a cell phone was vibrating in someones pocket behind me. It belonged to someone in the choir. On Good Friday, the Missal says to leave Church silently. But instead, I heard the usual chatter about every meaningless topic people could think of.
As a child, both before and shortly after the "reforms" a Church was a holy place, a sacred place. When you entered, even as a child, you knew to be quiet and respectful. You wore decent clothes there, especially on holy days. And you reverenced the priest, never questioning his holiness.
Now, the priest is treated like one of the gang. The building is almost constantly abuzz with chatter. The genuflect is hardly ever seen. The altar service is almost completely female now. Once reserved for young men who could later hear a call to the priesthood, now it's a social club for girls and boys have no interest. The same holds true for the foot washing on Holy Thursday, the initiation to the priesthood that Christ performed for his apostles. Now it's some sort of social status, missing the whole point of "the greatest among you must serve the least".
The pews are emptier now. So are the seminaries. Birth control is no longer enumerated as a sin in public. It has taken its toll. Homosexuality has compromised the priesthood even though only a small minority of priests practice it.
I went to confession on a Saturday in Lent at a fairly large parish. My wife and two of my seven children went with me. We were the only people there at first. As we left a very elderly couple arrived. That was it. As a child I remember long lines for confession on almost any Saturday. I remember a missal with words in Latin on one page and in English on the next so you could follow along. I remember an altar rail that we knelt at as an altar boy held a patten under our chins and the priest placed the host on out tongues.
I feel like I switched to a strange religion somewhere along the way, a protestant one. I long for the one from my childhood, the one where everything was sacred. Will I ever see it again?
I have to believe with all my heart that we are in a time when "the Sun is darkened and the moon does not give its light". Divine truth is no longer being taught. Strange doctrines have replaced it - radical feminism, environmentalism and relativism. Man has become his own God.
I also remember how full the churches were right after September 11, 2001. Catholic churches. People know the truth deep down. It is written on our nature. But we are being mislead and deceived. The time is drawing near when a false prophet, The False Prophet, will lead many away from the Church of Peter. And a leader will unite most of the world in a kingdom opposed to all the Church has taught for two millenia. And the only obstacle left will be the pope. And he will be assassinated shortly after his difficult election.
It's all in the book. And it seems more true today than when it was given to me a few years ago.
Note: It would be easy to dismiss the Bin Laden statement as hubris from a reclusive, dying man and a reclusive, dying ideology if not for the knee-jerk reaction to burn things and chant in mindless protest in much of the backwards Muslim world. Photos like the one below could be taken in any of a dozen or so countries anytime one of the jihadi leaders points out a new grievance or whips up an old one. It would be better for the media to ignore them if not for the real and present danger they present for unsuspecting westerners caught in the cross-fire.
Vatican Blasts Bin Laden's Claim of Pope's Anti-Islam 'Crusade'; CIA Is 'Confident' Voice Is Terror Leader's
Thursday , March 20, 2008
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican said Thursday that Usama bin Laden's accusation that Pope Benedict XVI had played a role in a worldwide campaign against Islam is "baseless," as the CIA said it was "confident" that the voice on the tape is in fact the terror leader's.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said it was not surprising that bin Laden had mentioned the pope in a new audiotape posted late Wednesday on a militant Web site -- which the CIA believes is authentic, a U.S. intelligence official told Reuters.
"He was already named in previous messages," Lombardi said in a telephone interview. "It is absolutely baseless (to accuse) the pope of contributing to a lack of respect toward Islam" and its prophet, Muhammad, Lombardi said.
In the tape, bin Laden warned of a "severe" reaction for Europe's publication of cartoons of the prophet and said they were part of a "new Crusade" against Islam in which Benedict had played a "large and lengthy role."
Lombardi noted that the pope and the Vatican have criticized the cartoons on several occasions. In 2006, after the caricatures were first published in a Danish newspaper, the Vatican said the cartoons represented an "unacceptable provocation," and that the right to freedom of expression "cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers."
The pope later said religious symbols must be respected, but he also condemned as unjustified the violent protests in Muslim countries that followed the publication of the cartoons. Benedict has recently taken steps to improve relations with moderate Islam.
In November he will meet Muslim religious leaders for a seminar that was organized after 138 Muslim scholars and intellectuals wrote to Benedict and other Christian leaders to encourage Christians and Muslims to develop their common ground of belief in one God.
In a 2006 speech in Germany that angered many in the Muslim world, Benedict cited a medieval text that characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."
The pope later said he was "deeply sorry" about the reactions his remarks sparked and stressed that they did not reflect his own opinions.
Note: Strange times we're in when the lay people of a country rebut the dissenting views of their own bishops' conference. With clear hindsight and heavy consciences, the Canadian people are waking up to the damage done by their bishops' divergence from Vatican teaching on human sexuality. Will the bishops heed their call?
Canadian Catholics Ask Bishops to Retract Winnipeg Statement - Recomit to Humanae Vitae By John-Henry Westen
OTTAWA, March 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the 40th anniversary of the publication of Pope Paul VI's July 25, 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae approaches, a group of Catholics is challenging Canada's Catholic bishops to revisit their official position on the document as it pertains to contraception. The encyclical, which wrote of the Church's prohibition on contraception, predicting accurately that it would lead to treatment of women as objects of use, was at the time rejected by many within the Catholic Church.
In 1990 the Philippine Bishops issued an apology to the nation's Catholics for having failed to encourage their flock to adhere to Humanae Vitae. They wrote: "Afflicted with doubts about alternatives to contraceptive technology, we abandoned you to your confused and lonely consciences with a lame excuse: 'follow what your conscience tells you.' How little we realized that it was our consciences that needed to be formed first."
The Rosarium of the Blessed Virgin Mary has collected approximately 1000 signatures on a petition to formally ask the Canadian Catholic Bishops to retract the pastoral document written nearly 40 years ago on September 27, 1968 - the Winnipeg Statement.
The letter accompanying the petition challenges the bishops to reflect on their own role in the complete moral and social collapse that has befallen Canada. It states in part: "Once contraceptive sex was accepted in principle, it led the way to all of the other sexual abominations our country is currently experiencing, not the least of which is same-sex 'marriage' - which, at its core, is merely contraception in its final form. Contraception blurred the distinction between men and women by robbing women of their femininity and subverting their fertility. The psychological effects of this over 40 years came to fruition with the normalization of same-sex unions. A sterilized woman is, in one fundamental respect, another man."
The letter adds: "We can no longer sit idly by as a Church and pretend that our actions - or lack of them - in word or in deed have not contributed to this situation. For forty years we have walked the desert of this culture of death because for forty years, we have refused to submit to the entire truth of Humanae Vitae. As faithful Catholics, therefore, we are humbly asking the bishops of Canada to reflect on how their teaching (or lack thereof) regarding contraception these past 40 years has contributed to Canada's social and moral collapse. In particular, we are once again drawing your attention to the Winnipeg Statement, one of the most destructive documents ever to be released on the subject of contraception."
The controversial document in question, commonly referred to as the Winnipeg Statement, has been long considered a dissent against Rome's absolute prohibition on contraceptive acts. The most controversial section of the document states: "Counsellors may meet others who, accepting the teaching of the Holy Father, find that because of particular circumstances they are involved in what seems to them a clear conflict of duties, e.g., the reconciling of conjugal love and responsible parenthood with the education of children already born or with the health of the mother. In accord with the accepted principles of moral theology, if these persons have tried sincerely but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with the given directives, they may be safely assured that, whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience."
John Pacheco, a director of The Rosarium and a Catholic political and social activist, remarked that the time has come for the Bishops to reconsider the Winnipeg Statement.
"We are approaching the 40 year anniversary of the legalization of both contraception and abortion in Canada in 2009," Pacheco told LifeSiteNews.com. "We can no longer fool ourselves into thinking that contraception has not played an enormous role in the break down of the family unit these past forty years. It's not a coincidence that once contraception was legalized with abortion in May 1969, the precipitous fall of the family followed thereafter. It's time for all Catholics to reflect on how the Church was right and the Culture was wrong. For lay Catholics, that means tossing the condoms and the pills and for the Canadian bishops it means repenting of a treacherous document."
In addition to calling for the retraction of the Winnipeg Statement, the group is asking the Bishops to strongly re-affirm Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical prohibiting abortion and contraception, on the 40th anniversary of its publication on July 27. It is also encouraging the bishops to become more involved in active opposition to abortion.
"We will never defeat abortion in Canada until the question of contraception is addressed. And contraception in Canada will never be addressed sufficiently until the bishops acknowledge the great harm that the Winnipeg Statement has caused. It's time for all of us to repent and move on. Canada needs a new beginning. That starts with the retraction of the Winnipeg Statement", Pacheco said.
Whether it is in the explicit form of the old Tridentine Mass or in the softer language of the NovusOrdo Mass, the spirit and intent is the same - to pray for the conversion of the Jews. Why? Because we love them as our elder brothers and as those whom Jesus loved first. And out heart aches for their long-suffering and the persecution they experience for being God's first chosen ones. And we also pray for them because revelation tells us our prayers will one day be effective. In The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter, by Steven Paul, their conversion is described as well as the place God has prepared for them in the "New Heaven and New Earth".
Some Passages From Chapter 24:
Note that the names of the twelve tribes are written on the "gates." This suggests a special honor will be bestowed upon the Jews, for they were God's chosen nation, his "gate," through which salvation came to the whole world. The text suggests that the leadership of the Church will be given to them, because they will "sell," i.e., renounce, all that they have, their worldly desires, to "buy" or obtain the "pearl," the wisdom of Christ. Christ was born of the house of David, and He meant exactly what he said, "the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.'
4 Behold I have given him for a witness to the people, for a leader and a master to the Gentiles. 5 Behold thou shalt call a nation, which thou knewest not: and the nations that knew not thee shall run to thee, because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. [Is. 55:4-5].
The foundations of the "wall" are twelve, and each is adorned with a specific kind of "precious stone." The "jewels' are symbolic of spiritual things; three of them I have already explained in part two of this commentary. As for the others, I have not yet been able to find their precise meanings. I will neither opine nor speculate. If I find their meanings, I will inform you. Isaiah 54:11-12 contains a description, in part, similar to the one John gave.
Verses 22-27 allude to passages in the Old Testament, such as, Isaiah 60:3, which reads,
"Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance";
or 60:11, which reads,
"Your gates shall stand open constantly; day and night they shall not be closed, but shall admit to you the wealth of nations, and their kings, in the vanguard." [John does not mention "night" because the "millennium" will be unending "days," spiritually speaking]
There are too many to quote, and it is better for the reader to "browse among the lilies," so that he or she may judge how closely John has restated many of the prophecies in the Old Testament.
One fact is made perfectly clear: Israel shall be exalted and glorified in the "millennium," and Jerusalem, especially. It was impossible for me not to receive the impression that Jerusalem will be the center of the Church in the world during that time. The reader must keep before the mind that Chapter 21 describes Jerusalem, in particular, and the Church, in general, the former being understood as within the latter. Since Jerusalem will be the "crown" upon the "mountain," like the "crown" upon the "woman" in Chapter 12, I have concluded what I have concluded about Jerusalem and the Jewish people.
Whenever Easter comes around, like most Christians I greet it with joy. But I also note that in the book, The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter, my brother-in-law, Steven Paul showed how the Book of Revelation has many puns and hints at relationships between terms in different places in the book. In this passage, Steve showed how the third woe, the final battle between good and evil is likely to take place in the 49 days between the Christian holidays of Easter and Pentecost. Indeed, I feel slight trepidation every time Easter comes around. But I know from the book what events precede this and that they have not yet occurred. Note: I omitted the original Greek because Blogger does not support that font. From Chapter 20: John did not indicate when the great Battle of Armageddon would be fought. However, bear in mind that the three Divine Persons in one nature, though they are not dunces for redundancy, have, in the past, evidenced a penchant, if you will, for repetition.
Now, the festival of Passover commemorates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt; it begins on the eve of the 14th day of the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish calendar, and is celebrated for seven days by Reform Jews and Jews in Israel.
The festival of Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ; it is observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox [as calculated on the Gregorian calendar, not the Julian, which the Orthodox churches use].
Well, the way it works out, Passover and Easter come about the same time in the spring, the time of renewal. In Matthew 24:32-33, Christ said,
"And from the fig tree learn the lesson: when already its branch is becoming tender and it is sprouting its leaves, you know that summer is near: so also you, when you see all these things, know that he is near, at the doors."
In Apocalypse 3:20 [the seventh letter, Laodicea], Christ used the expression [epi ten thyran], "at the door," which is similar to [epi thyrais], "at the doors," in Matthew 24:33. Jesus punned on the noun [theros], "summer," and [rypa], "door, gate," to make the point memorable.
Now, the critical time for crops in Israel [if this old brain remembers faithfully] comes between Passover and the festival of Shavuoth, that is, during the Omer, the period of 49 days [7 weeks] from the 2nd day of Passover to the 1st of Shavuoth [the 6th day of the month of Sivan]; for, if the hot winds blow from the desert, too early, there will be little or nothing to harvest.
The festival of Pentecost comes 49 days [7 weeks] after Easter. The first Pentecost was the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles; and that Pentecost is regarded as the birthday of the Church.
So, first comes Easter/Passover, then 7 weeks later comes Pentecost/Shavuoth. To these facts, relate three more:
(1) The "fig tree" is the symbol for the nation of Israel. (2) The "birth pangs" mentioned by Christ in Matthew 24:8 will end when the seventh plague [in the Apocalypse] ends. (3) The period of the seven Apocalyptic plagues will be, at least, several weeks long, especially, because it will take a few just for the armies under the kings from the East to travel westward, cross the dried-up Euphrates, and move into Palestine--even if the armies are totally mechanized.
All these things together, plus the fact that...
(1) the noun for "harvest" is [therismos], (2) and the verb for "reap" is [therein], both relevant to the [thërion] or [thër], the Beast to which the nouns [theros] and [thyra] bear similitude, ...
give me the impression of being a big hint. Aye, whereas Apocalypse 4:1 reads,
"After these things I looked, and behold, an opened door [thyra] in heaven!";
and whereas 15:5 reads,
"And after these things I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent of the witness [martyrion] in heaven opened, and out came the seven angels having the seven plagues from the sanctuary...";
and whereas 19:11 reads,
"And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse and the one seated on it called faithful and true...";
I am compelled to assert that Christ's phrase, "at the door," or "at the doors," refers to the door(s) of the sanctuary, and that it means he is about to issue judgment.
Hence, I strongly, very strongly, suspect that:
(1) The Two Witnesses will be in Jerusalem for Easter/Passover at the end of their 1260 days. (2) The conversion of the Jews will be when the "fig tree sprouts its leaves." (3) During the 7 weeks until Pentecost/Shavuoth will come the 7 last plagues [martyrion] to the nations. (4) On or about Pentecost/Shavuoth, there will come, to Armageddon, the Great Day of Almighty God.
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying: How long, O Lord (holy and true) dost thou not judge and revenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11 And white robes were given to every one of them one; and it was said to them, that they should rest for a little time, till their fellow servants, and their brethren, who are to be slain, even as they, should be filled up.Apoc. 6:9-11
Chaldean Catholic Faith and Resolve: 'They Will Not Scatter the Chaldean Flock'
3/14/2008 Chaldean.Org
"May Bishop Raho rest in the arms of our Lord and may God show mercy on those that continue to hate."
MOSUL, IRAQ (Chaldean.org) - The Chaldean community around the world stand numb and in disbelief as news of Archbishop Bishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul is dead. Outcry from world leaders swayed no influence as fanatical terrorists proved once more that no women, children, medical providers, and now spiritual leaders are safe from their killing spree.
"These are innocent people that want to help bring peace. They kill them, because they are filled with hate. These barbarians have no faith in anything, but their own rise to power," said Omar Touma, a recent refugee and Chaldean parishioner of the Good Shepherd Chaldean Church in Canada.
Text of the news, mournful cries, and prayer messages quickly traveled via e-mail and phone messaging reporting the sorrowful news. Our Bishop is dead, decried one message as images of weeping families huddled together comforting one another.
The kidnappers had been demanding a heavy ransom, Church officials say. When requests were made to speak to the Archbishop the kidnappers replied that the archbishop was dead and gave gave instructions on how Church officials could recover the archbishop's body.
The Chaldean archbishop of Mosul had been dead for at least five days before his body was found this morning by some members of the Church, following information provided by the kidnappers themselves. This timeline is provided by the autopsy conducted on the body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, found in an abandoned area outside of the city, which is in part used as a trash dump.
Archbishop Rahho was seized outside the Holy Spirit cathedral in Mosul after conducting a Stations of the Cross service on Friday, February 29. Three parishioners were killed by the gunmen who abducted the archbishop.
In the days since the kidnapping, Church leaders had pleaded in vain for some clear evidence that Archbishop Rahho was alive and well. The archbishop, who was 69, suffered from a serious heart condition and needed daily medication.
The identity of the kidnappers remains unknown. Although Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki had ordered an all-out effort to locate the archbishop and secure his release, troops were unsuccessful in their search around Mosul-- a city dominated by insurgents and terrorists.
While the kidnappers did ask for a large money ransom, they were evidently not motivated solely by the desire for financial gain. Church spokesmen said that their demands included political conditions-- an indication that the archbishop's abduction was arranged by a terrorist group rather than simply a criminal gang.
Mosul confirms its place as the most dangerous city for the Christian community, the presence of which has dropped by over 75% since 2003. Christians remain the soft target for insurgents terrorists and criminal gangs to raise money and fund their ongoing operations.
After the Iraqi government and coalition forces systematically began turning off funding sources for these militant and criminal groups, their focus turned towards Christians. Iraqi Christians tend to be educated professionals and considered wealthy. They also offer less of a risk in way of having a pro-Islamic police force aggressively peruse the crimes since the victims are Christians and maintain a dhimmi status under Islamic law.
The attacks have created a brain-drain in Iraq as the professionals flee the country in large numbers. Professors, doctors, scientists, and engineers have fled into neighboring regions or across the ocean seeking safe harbor.
After Fr Ragheed Gani was slaughtered on June 3 information revealed that the terrorists were politically motivated to drive Christians out of Iraq. Many consider the indigenous Iraqis that were able to maintain their Christian identity and keep from being converted or conquered by Muslim raiders in the early centuries a moderate balance to the region. The belief is held strongly by fanatical Muslims who are systematicaly driving out the church in hopes of creating a more fundamental Islamic Iraq.
The latest wave of violence against the church came from January 6-17, 2008, when a series of explosions struck the Chaldean Church of Mary Immaculate, the Chaldean Church of St Paul, which was almost destroyed, the entryway to the orphanage run by the Chaldean sisters in al Nour, a Nestorian church, and the convent of the Dominican sisters of Mosul Jadida.
"Our faith is in Jesus who died for the sins of humanity. He will find favor in our Chaldean Martyr who offered nothing but peace, hope, and love," says Touma. "May bishop Raho rest in the arms of our Lord and may God show mercy on those that continue to hate. They will not scatter the Chaldean flock because they have killed our shepherd. Our faith will now grow even stronger."
U.S. State DepartmentWASHINGTON -- A largely unreported meeting held at the State Department discussed integration of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in concert with a move toward a transatlantic union, linking a North American community with the European Union.
The meeting was held Monday under the auspices of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, or ACIEP. WND obtained press credentials and attended as an observer. The meeting was held under "Chatham House" rules that prohibit reporters from attributing specific comments to individual participants.
The State Department website noted the meeting was opened by Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs Daniel S. Sullivan and ACIEP Chairman Michael Gadbaw, vice president and senior counsel for General Electric's International Law & Policy group since December 1990.
WND observed about 25 ACIEP members, including U.S. corporations involved in international trade, prominent U.S. business trade groups, law firms involved with international business law, international investment firms and other international trade consultants. No members of Congress attended the meeting.
The agenda for the ACIEP meeting was not published, and State Department officials in attendance could not give WND permission under Chatham House rules to publish the agenda. The meeting agenda included topics reviewing the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council, or TEC.
The SPP, declared by the U.S., Canada and Mexico at a summit meeting in 2005, has 20 trilateral bureaucratic working groups that seek to "integrate and harmonize" administrative rules and regulations on a continental basis.
Several participants said the premise of the SPP is to create a North American business platform to benefit North America-based multi-national companies the way the European Union benefits its own.
Others noted the premise of the TEC is to create a convergence of administrative rules and regulations between Europe and North America, anticipating the creation of a "Transatlantic Economic Union" between the European Union and North America.
Participants pointed out that transatlantic trade is currently 40 percent of all world trade. They argue that trade and non-trade barriers need to be further reduced to maintain that market share as a framework is put in place to advance transatlantic economic integration.
Still, some participants argued that many corporations in North America already have moved beyond a North American focus to adopt a global perspective that transcends even the Transatlantic market.
"Supply chains and markets are everywhere," one participant asserted. "What's to stop global corporations from going after the cheapest labor available globally, wherever they can find it, provided the cost of transporting goods globally can be managed economically?"
Other participants argued regional alliances were still important, if only to put in place the institutional bases that ultimately would lead to global governance on uniform global administrative regulations favorable to multi-national corporations.
"North America should be a premiere platform to establish continental institutions," a participant said. "That's why we need to move the security perimeters to include the whole continent, especially as we open the borders between North American countries for expanding free trade."
One presentation on the agenda identified four reasons why administrative rules and regulations need to be integrated by SPP in North America and by the Transatlantic Economic Council, bridging together European Union and North American markets:
Standardization - to keep prices low and productivity high;
Investment - for every $1 traded, $4 is invested; right now 75 percent of investment in the U.S. comes from the EU, and 52 percent of the investment in the EU comes from the U.S.;
Productivity Improvements - to lower production costs and stimulate trade; and
Open Borders - to facilitate the free movement of labor to markets where employment opportunities are available.
The discussion pointed out the SPP trilateral working groups and the Transatlantic Economic Council were being supported by top-level Cabinet officers and the heads of state in both the EU and in North America.
Progress in EU-U.S. regulatory integration was noted in financial market coordination, investment rule cohesion, trade security measures and efforts undertaken recently to preserve intellectual property rights.
Before the meeting began, concerns were raised informally by participants worried that the Ohio Democratic Party primary had prompted both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to talk of renegotiating NAFTA.
Participants at the State Department meeting pointed out U.S. political candidates could be expected to argue "protectionist themes opposed to global economic integration" as a tactic, without necessarily being committed to taking aggressive steps once in office.
"The political dialogue misses the point of economic reality," one participant argued. "There is a J-curve correlation between when a currency like the U.S. dollar depreciates and when exports kick in to increase. We should accelerate the J-curve and our discussion about it, to help the local politics catch up with the international reality."
Part of the discussion was devoted to concerns that national regulators in North America and Europe were too reluctant to abandon provincial regulatory advantages.
"Regulators by nature are advocates, and they are hard to move," one participant grumbled. "What we need is more diplomats and negotiators to identify solutions, otherwise the bureaucrats will bog down the progress we need to see coming out of the SPP and TEC."
"North America is already an integrated continental economy and a continental-wide business platform," another said. "What we need now is more regulatory convergence. 'Harmonized' should mean that once approved, the same set of administrative regulations and procedures ought to be ready throughout NAFTA, SPP and the TEC."
As WND previously reported, the Transatlantic Economic Council, or TEC, was created by President Bush at an April 30 summit meeting at the White House with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the current president of the European Council, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
WND also reported the Transatlantic Policy Network, a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington and Brussels and advised by a bi-partisan congressional policy group chaired by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, has called for the creation of a Transatlantic Common Market between the U.S. and the European Union by 2015.
ACIEP members include corporate officers from General Electric, Exxon Mobil, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Archer Daniels Midland, United Parcel Service, Citibank, Proctor & Gamble, Hunt Oil, CMS Energy, Boeing, 3M, Goldman Sachs and Cargill.
Note: Since when is the right to practice one's own faith against the law in the UK? When the religion is Catholic. While extremist Muslims plot their terrorist activities under the noses of the snooty dysfunctional government, MPs decide that the real threat is Christian teaching.
UK Catholic Bishop Before Parliament for Insisting on Crucifixes in Every Classroom and Truly Catholic Sex-Ed By Hilary White
LONDON, March 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic Bishop of Lancaster UK today gave a spirited response to accusations by secularist MPs in a Commons Committee who accused him of trying to establish religious "fundamentalism" in his schools. Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue told the Committee that schools in his diocese should see it as their prime duty to teach the Catholic faith and to evangelise and that this constituted neither "proselytism" nor "fundamentalism".
Crucifixes in every classroom, "sex-education" based on the principles of chastity and the sanctity of marriage, no school fundraising for anti-life groups and religious education based firmly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: it sounds like the dream world of most Catholic parents. But the scenario is one that was ordered last year by the Bishop O'Donoghue in a 66-page document, "Fit for Mission? - Schools". The document was circulated to all teachers, staff, governors and parents in the diocese.
But the document that received high praise from parents, Catholic lay organizations and the Vatican, has drawn the ire of the increasingly aggressive secularist wing of the British government. Earlier this year, the Labour MP for Huddersfield, Barry Sheerman, told the media that this new document was a worrying sign of a new "fundamentalist" direction on the part of the Church. Sheerman, the chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, called Bishop O'Donoghue to explain his intentions.
Sheerman told media, "It seems to me that faith education works all right as long as people are not that serious about their faith. But as soon as there is a more doctrinaire attitude questions have to be asked." Sheerman said, "It does become worrying when you get a new push from more fundamentalist bishops. This is taxpayers' money after all."
But Bishop O'Donoghue replied in the Daily Mail, "They (the MPs) see me as a fundamentalist and that is a pejorative word these days with connotations of terrorism, violence and irrationality. I will say I reject these connotations."
Appearing before the committee with the Stephen Venner, the Anglican bishop of Dover, and Peter Irvine of the Catholic Education Service, O'Donoghue said the document was necessary when he found that the Catholic religious instruction in the schools had been "marginalized" even within the Religious Education department.
MP Fiona McTaggart said she found it "surprising" that the document bans the various fundraising activities such as the Red Nose day, and Amnesty International, in which children were encouraged to support anti-family and pro-abortion organizations and activities. She also objected to the instruction to remove materials from school libraries that "contain polemic against religion in general" such as the works of Karl Marx and French nihilist philosopher Albert Camus.
Bishop O'Donoghue responded, "Supposing you went into a school and you found in the library material that said the Holocaust has never taken place."
Bishop O'Donoghue told the six committee members, "Every school has a philosophy. And a philosophy which puts God at the centre and morality as objective, is no less powerful than that which says God is irrelevant and morality is up to the individual choice."
"To our view, the role of democracy is to embrace all views, and not to infringe on basic human rights."
He said "the impression that is coming across" from politics and the media is that "some people seem to think that the only true democratic stance is the latter, namely that God is irrelevant and that morality is up to the individual."
The bishop told media that the document had come in response to pressure from parents. "Many parents go to great lengths to bring up their children properly and they feel that schools are not cooperating with them as well as they should," he said.
He told the Daily Mail that the government's sex education policies had failed. 30 years of "throwing condoms at children" had drastically increased the levels of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
In "Fit for Mission?" Bishop O'Donoghue wrote, "The secular view on sex outside marriage, artificial contraception, sexually transmitted disease, including HIV and Aids, and abortion, may not be presented as neutral information."
Note: The Vatican called attention to the sins of carelessness with the environment, promiscuity, hyper-wealth accumulation and here in this story we see a confluence of all of them in one place. Sin kills, and mortal sin kills the soul. We are in for a rough ride until we get our moral bearings once again. BIRTH CONTROL HORMONES ARE FOR THE BIRDS! by Judie Brown
When I saw the latest report on starlings and the dreadful damage that birth control hormones are doing to their ability to sing, I was amazed!
The thing that made me stop and take notice was not that additional research is showing that "gender-bender chemicals" are negatively affecting the environment, but rather that such scientific results do not get even a minimal amount of attention from the major media in America.
According to this most recent article, "scientists at Cardiff University have discovered that the brains of male starlings foraging for worms at a sewage treatment works in South-West England have been subtly changed by being contaminated by estrogen from the contraceptive pill and hormone replacement therapy."
The report says that female hormones pass into the sewage by way of female urine and remain unaffected by the sewage itself. However the hormones do cause the part of the brain that controls the starling's song to grow much bigger, causing them to sing at greater length and with more "virtuosity than usual."
At UCLA researchers have found the same effect on female finches so that they are singing like the males do, though in the past female finches never sang.
Some researchers are even describing the hormones that enter the environment as a type of "pollution" and are concerned about the long range effects they will have on the environment as we know it. For example, in Florida during the 1980s alligators were failing to reproduce because males had been negatively affected by the estrogen in the streams and rivers. And in Britain another study found that, "a third of male roaches in rivers and streams have been producing eggs which are normally produced by female sex organs."
Some research suggests that these negative effects are having a deleterious impact on men as well, predicting that the "average man will be unable to father children within decades."
The article does not represent some harebrained idea that was concocted in the back room of a pub! It is based on the scientific research of several environmental scientists from various parts of the world and their work should be taken seriously.
We already know that synthetic hormones can cause all sorts of problems for the women who ingest them. Add to that the problems that the residuals are causing for the environment and for the men in society and you have to wonder why there is not more effort to get the things off the market. Of course no sooner did I get that sentence onto my screen then the answer became obvious: money!
Pharmaceutical companies make billions on birth control chemicals and hormone replacement therapy, so why sound alarms when it is so easy to ignore these studies and keep the results from the public? While some would say that the health and wellbeing of the nation's human beings should be the number one priority of the government, the media and big business, it has become painfully clear over the years that this is simply not the case when dealing with matters of sexual relations that involve birth control and abortion.
When you read about the impact these hormones is having on humans, you really have to wonder what in the world is wrong with people who are in positions to warn the public of the impending disaster that human beings will face.
For instance: Communities exposed to high levels of these and other gender-bender chemicals, from the Great Lakes of North America to the Russian Arctic, have been found to give birth to twice as many girls as boys.
Gender-bender chemicals are not just for the birds! Apparently they are going to negatively affect every aspect of society as we know it... unless something is done to correct the problems that have caused the imbalances reported in this article.Don't hold your breath!
Michael Hichborn Director of Media Relations American Life League 1179 Courthouse Road Stafford, Virginia 22554 540.659.4171 (w) 540.226.9178 (c) mhichborn@all.org http://www.all.org/
Note: The Bible refers to a "Burning Mountain" and only one current movement fits the description...
Muslims protest Danish Muhammad cartoons Demonstrations against publication held in Pakistan, Gaza, Denmark
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Muslims protested Friday in the Gaza Strip, Pakistan and Denmark against the reprinting of a Danish newspaper cartoon depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Thousands of residents in the conservative Gaza Strip ruled by the militant Islamic Hamas movement marched in the Jebaliya refugee camp chanting: "What Denmark said is heresy." "It is shameful that Denmark should renew its offense against the prophet," Hamas official Mushir al-Masri told reporters at the protest.
Question: Can you commit heresy against a religion you are not a part of?
In Pakistan, hundreds of people rallied in various parts of the country, setting fire to Danish flags and demanding the Danish ambassador's expulsion. And in Denmark, a prominent Danish imam urged rioting youth to stop setting fires and hurling rocks at police.
The protests came after Denmark's leading newspapers reproduced one of 12 cartoons of Islam's prophet Wednesday in a gesture of solidarity after police said they uncovered a plot to kill the cartoon's artist. The drawings had sparked deadly riots across the Muslim world in 2006.
About 200 students from the International Islamic University in Islamabad vowed to organize a street march next Friday if the government did not accept their demand.
"We are even ready to sacrifice our life for our beloved Prophet," said Mahmood Sadiqui, a student leader.
Note: I'm sure he'll appreciate it. Maniacal suicide seems pleasing to the prophet.
About 200 people held a similar rally in Multan, a main city in the eastern Punjab province, burning Danish flags and chanting "Death to the Cartoonist!" and "Boycott, boycott of European products!"
Note: There goes the trade balance for the EU. What will the Danes do now?
At two rallies in Pakistan's biggest city of Karachi, about 150 supporters from radical Islamic parties torched effigies of the Danish prime minister amid calls to boycott Danish products. Mohammad Imran, a student leader from Islami Jamiat Talba, a student organization linked with Pakistan's largest Islamic political group, Jamaat-e-Islami, called the cartoon "blasphemous."
"We demand the rulers to sever diplomatic ties" with Denmark and Sweden for publishing the cartoons. "The cartoonist and publisher must be hanged."
Note: Ooh, that'll hurt. Where will they get carpets from?
It was the second protest in Karachi in as many days. Dozens of Islamic students set fire to a Danish flag on Thursday. In Pakistan, blasphemy of Muhammad is considered a serious crime that carries the death sentence.
Appeal for calm in DenmarkIn Copenhagen, about 800 people protested peacefully in a march organized by the radical Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Meanwhile, a prominent Danish imam urged rioting youth to stop setting fires and hurling rocks at police after a fifth consecutive night of vandalism there and in other Danish cities.
"Please stop what you're doing," Imam Mostafa Chendid, the leader of the Islamic Faith Community, said in an address to young people during Friday's prayer. "The prophet has not taught you to burn down schools, or burn cars or infrastructure."
Note: Someone did. If not the Prophet, who?
Nine youths were arrested overnight Friday in Copenhagen, six of whom faced preliminary charges for throwing rocks at police officers, police said Friday. There were no reports of injuries.
Glosses over birth control disaster while reporting about "pharmaceuticals" in the environment.
Here are a few excerpts pulled from a long artcle:
A vast array of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.
And this:
Key findings
Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:
Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds.
Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.
Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.
A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water.
The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.
Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.
And:
The New York state health department and the USGS tested the source of the city's water, upstate. They found trace concentrations of heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabilizer and a tranquilizer.
Freaky fish mutations
Also, pharmaceuticals in waterways are damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe, research shows. Notably, male fish are being feminized, creating egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. Pharmaceuticals also are affecting sentinel species at the foundation of the pyramid of life - such as earth worms in the wild and zooplankton in the laboratory, studies show.
Some scientists stress that the research is extremely limited, and there are too many unknowns. They say, though, that the documented health problems in wildlife are disconcerting.
"It brings a question to people's minds that if the fish were affected...might there be a potential problem for humans?" EPA research biologist Vickie Wilson told the AP. "It could be that the fish are just exquisitely sensitive because of their physiology or something. We haven’t gotten far enough along."
I post this excerpt because it is most pertinent to the times we are in - the time of the 200 million "horsemen". In this piece, Steven Paul reveals some of the symbolism used in the Apocalypse and how to discern what it means.
From Chapter 5 of The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation, by Steven Paul
In most instances, the word "earthquake" is a prophetic term signifying "social upheaval or revolution": the "great earthquake" in Apocalypse 6:12, for example. But, that is not the meaning here, because Jesus already included the idea of "social upheaval or revolution" by mentioning "lawlessness" and "wars." Rather, Jesus meant physical earthquakes.
Since "birth pangs" increase in their frequency and intensity, and since Christ included "earthquakes" in that term, it follows that the second and third woes will be a period of spiritual and physical violence ever increasing in frequency and intensity - including earthquakes.
St. Paul hinted at this,
"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revelation of the children of God...We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now..." [Rom. 8:19, 22]
The Apostle wrote "until now" because he thought, as did many others, that "the day of the Lord" was imminent; he did not know that it would be many centuries in coming.
So, in historical comparison, seismic activity during the second and third woes will be extraordinary; indeed, this activity will culminate at the very last event of this present evil age:
There came...a great earthquake, such as has not come since man has come on the earth, the violent earthquake was so great. The great city [Jerusalem] was split into three parts and the cities of the nations fell down. [Apoc. 16:17-19]
The meaning of "nations" in that passage is made perfectly clear by the context: "all the nations," even the Great Eagle mentioned in Chapter 12.
It cannot be deduced from Christ's words, however, that the beginning of the second woe and the escalation of seismic activity to the extraordinary will be synchronous; this notwithstanding, it is a safe assumption that said activity will escalate soon after the second woe has commenced, perhaps, within a year or two: for Christ intended that His faithful be informed; and so, lest the information about earthquakes become otiose, Christ's words will be fulfilled soon after the four evil angels are loosed from the Euphrates. In that way, the faithful, especially, the Four Living Beings, will not mistake other phenomena, such as World War I
