Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Who's Neil Gorsuch?
Neil Gorsuch
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office
August 8, 2006
Appointed by George W. Bush
Preceded by David M. Ebel
Personal details
Born Neil McGill Gorsuch
August 29, 1967 (age 49)
Denver, Colorado, U.S.
Education Columbia University (BA)
Harvard University (JD)
University College, Oxford (PhD)
Neil McGill Gorsuch (born August 29, 1967)[1] is a United States federal judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.[2]
Gorsuch is a proponent of originalism and of textualism in interpreting the Constitution.[3][4][5]
On January 31, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Gorsuch to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to fill the seat left vacant after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Early life and education
Gorsuch is the son of David Gorsuch and Anne Gorsuch Burford (née Anne Irene McGill), a Republican and states' rights proponent, who, under President Ronald Reagan, was the first female head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency from 1981 to 1983, when she was forced to resign for failure to turn over documents to Congress related to the alleged mishandling of Superfund.[6][7] Neil Gorsuch was born in Denver, Colorado but moved to Washington, DC as a teenager, after his mother was appointed to the EPA.[8]
In 1985, he graduated from the Georgetown Preparatory School.[9] He received a B.A. from Columbia University in 1988.[1][6] While a student at Columbia University, he wrote columns for the Columbia Daily Spectator student newspaper[10] and was a fan of the Columbia University Marching Band.[11] In 1986, he co-founded the alternative Columbia student newspaper, The Fed.[12] He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1991,[1][6] where he received a Truman Scholarship.[13] He received a Doctor of Philosophy in Law from University College at Oxford University in 2004,[1][6] ...
Pope Francis Calls on Christians, Muslims to Unite after Quebec Attack
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis called on both Christians and Muslims to remain united following Sunday’s attack on a mosque in the Canada city of Quebec, which left six dead and several wounded.
The Holy See said in a statement on Monday that the pontiff spoke during a meeting with Canadian Cardinal Gerald Cyprien LaCroix, Archbishop of Quebec city, who was on a visit to Rome and immediately returned to his country.
At the meeting, the pope conveyed his condolences to the cardinal and assured him of his prayers for the victims of the attack.
The Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin sent a telegram to LaCroix on behalf of the Pope, stressing that the pontiff “strongly condemns the violence that engenders such suffering.”
IN A CONTROVERSIAL INTERVIEW, POPE FRANCIS HAS PUBLICLY DEFENDED LIBERATION THEOLOGY...
January 28, 2017
IN A CONTROVERSIAL INTERVIEW, POPE FRANCIS HAS PUBLICLY DEFENDED LIBERATION THEOLOGY, CALLING IT A “POSITIVE THING” IN LATIN AMERICA.
In his lengthy interview last week with the leftist Spanish daily El País, the Pope said that “Liberation Theology was a good thing for Latin America,” but also recognized that it had “deviations” that needed to be corrected.
The part of Liberation Theology that “opted for a Marxist analysis of reality was condemned by the Vatican,” Francis said.
“Cardinal Ratzinger issued two instructions when he was Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith,” he continued. “One very clear one about the Marxist analysis of reality, and the second picked up positive aspects.”
“Liberation Theology had positive aspects and also had deviations, especially in the part of the Marxist analysis of reality,” he said. The two Vatican documents cited by the pontiff were Libertatis Nuntius, issued in 1984, and Libertatis Conscientia, released just two years later, in 1986.
POPE FRANCIS, THE JESUITS AND LIBERATION THEOLOGY:
Libertatis Nuntius addressed “developments of that current of thought which, under the name ‘theology of liberation,’ proposes a novel interpretation of both the content of faith and of Christian existence which seriously departs from the faith of the Church and, in fact, actually constitutes a practical negation.”
“Concepts uncritically borrowed from Marxist ideology and recourse to theses of a biblical hermeneutic marked by rationalism are at the basis of the new interpretation which is corrupting whatever was authentic in the generous initial commitment on behalf of the poor,” the instruction continues.
The document also noted that in “certain parts of Latin America,” the recognition of injustice “is accompanied by a pathos which borrows its language from Marxism, wrongly presented as though it were scientific language.”
THE LETTER ALSO SAID THAT CERTAIN CHRISTIANS, DESPAIRING OF EVERY OTHER METHOD, TURNED TO A MARXIST ANALYSIS, “ESPECIALLY IN LATIN AMERICA.”
The 1986 text was issued as a complement to the first one, and sought to “highlight the main elements of the Christian doctrine on freedom and liberation” as a corrective to the errors of Liberation Theology brought out by the prior instruction.
In a striking revelation in 2015, the highest ranking Cold War defector asserted that the KGB had created Liberation Theology, exporting it to Latin America as a means of introducing Marxism into the continent.
Ion Mihai Pacepa, a 3-star general and former head of Communist Romania’s secret police who defected to the United States in 1978, has been called “the Cold War’s most important defector.” During the more than ten years that Pacepa worked with the CIA, he made what the agency described as “an important and unique contribution to the United States.”
He is reported in fact to have given the CIA “the best intelligence ever obtained on communist intelligence networks and internal security services.”
“Liberation theology has been generally understood to be a marriage of Marxism and Christianity. What has not been understood is that it was not the product of Christians who pursued Communism, but of Communists who pursued Christians,” Pacepa said.
In his role as doctrinal watchdog, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger referred to Liberation Theology as a “singular heresy” and a “fundamental threat” to the Church. source
IN A CONTROVERSIAL INTERVIEW, POPE FRANCIS HAS PUBLICLY DEFENDED LIBERATION THEOLOGY, CALLING IT A “POSITIVE THING” IN LATIN AMERICA.
In his lengthy interview last week with the leftist Spanish daily El País, the Pope said that “Liberation Theology was a good thing for Latin America,” but also recognized that it had “deviations” that needed to be corrected.
The part of Liberation Theology that “opted for a Marxist analysis of reality was condemned by the Vatican,” Francis said.
“Cardinal Ratzinger issued two instructions when he was Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith,” he continued. “One very clear one about the Marxist analysis of reality, and the second picked up positive aspects.”
“Liberation Theology had positive aspects and also had deviations, especially in the part of the Marxist analysis of reality,” he said. The two Vatican documents cited by the pontiff were Libertatis Nuntius, issued in 1984, and Libertatis Conscientia, released just two years later, in 1986.
POPE FRANCIS, THE JESUITS AND LIBERATION THEOLOGY:
Libertatis Nuntius addressed “developments of that current of thought which, under the name ‘theology of liberation,’ proposes a novel interpretation of both the content of faith and of Christian existence which seriously departs from the faith of the Church and, in fact, actually constitutes a practical negation.”
“Concepts uncritically borrowed from Marxist ideology and recourse to theses of a biblical hermeneutic marked by rationalism are at the basis of the new interpretation which is corrupting whatever was authentic in the generous initial commitment on behalf of the poor,” the instruction continues.
The document also noted that in “certain parts of Latin America,” the recognition of injustice “is accompanied by a pathos which borrows its language from Marxism, wrongly presented as though it were scientific language.”
THE LETTER ALSO SAID THAT CERTAIN CHRISTIANS, DESPAIRING OF EVERY OTHER METHOD, TURNED TO A MARXIST ANALYSIS, “ESPECIALLY IN LATIN AMERICA.”
The 1986 text was issued as a complement to the first one, and sought to “highlight the main elements of the Christian doctrine on freedom and liberation” as a corrective to the errors of Liberation Theology brought out by the prior instruction.
In a striking revelation in 2015, the highest ranking Cold War defector asserted that the KGB had created Liberation Theology, exporting it to Latin America as a means of introducing Marxism into the continent.
Ion Mihai Pacepa, a 3-star general and former head of Communist Romania’s secret police who defected to the United States in 1978, has been called “the Cold War’s most important defector.” During the more than ten years that Pacepa worked with the CIA, he made what the agency described as “an important and unique contribution to the United States.”
He is reported in fact to have given the CIA “the best intelligence ever obtained on communist intelligence networks and internal security services.”
“Liberation theology has been generally understood to be a marriage of Marxism and Christianity. What has not been understood is that it was not the product of Christians who pursued Communism, but of Communists who pursued Christians,” Pacepa said.
In his role as doctrinal watchdog, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger referred to Liberation Theology as a “singular heresy” and a “fundamental threat” to the Church. source
Give the Trumpet a Certain Sound.
Those who present the truth are to enter into no controversy. They are to preach the gospel with such faith and earnestness that an interest will be awakened. By the words they speak, the prayers they offer, the influence they exert, they are to sow seeds that will bear fruit to the glory of God. There is to be no wavering. The trumpet is to give a certain sound. The attention of the people is to be called to the third angel's message. Let not God's servants act like men walking in their sleep, but like men preparing for the coming of Christ.
Review and Herald, March 2, 1905.
Monday, January 30, 2017
The Breakdown of Society
Every man's hand will be against his fellow man. Brother will rise against brother, sister against sister, parents against children, and children against parents. All will be in confusion. Relatives will betray one another. There will be secret plotting to destroy life. Destruction, misery, and death will be seen on every hand. Men will follow the unrestrained bent of their hereditary and cultivated tendency to evil....
Selected Messages Book 3, p.418.
American Paganism: The Statue of Liberty
Sound Doctrine Ministries
American Paganism: The Statue of Liberty
Mark Bowron4 years ago
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom and the embodiment of liberty, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States. a welcoming signal to immigrants arriving from abroad.
In 238 B.C., before the Second Punic War, having long been a Roman deity along with other personified virtues, Libertas assumed goddess status. Tiberius Gracchus ordered the construction of her first temple on Aventine Hill; census tables were stored inside the temple’s atrium. A subsequent temple was built (58-57 B.C.) on Palatine Hill, another of the Seven hills of Rome, by Publius Clodius Pulcher. By building and consecrating the temple on the former house of then-exiled Cicero, Clodius ensured that the land was legally uninhabitable. Upon his return, Cicero successfully argued that the consecration was invalid and thus managed to reclaim the land and destroy the temple. In 46 B.C., the Roman Senate voted to build and dedicate a shrine to Libertas in recognition of Julius Caesar, but no temple was built; instead, a small statue of the goddess stood in the Roman Forum.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
CNN: PROGRESSIVES BUYING ROOMS IN DOOMSDAY SHELTER IN WAKE OF TRUMP VICTORY
‘A new report details how doomsday prepping for the super rich has taken hold from some of the wealthiest in America from Silicon Valley to New York City’
Jan 29, 2017
RUSH EXCERPT:
"If your image for person who preps for end of times is a lower income red-stater who hoards gum, baked beans and scores water in his basement. A new report details how doomsday prepping for the super rich has taken hold from some of the wealthiest in America from Silicon Valley to New York City. They trade tips on how to purchase gas masks and there is the survival condo project,built in a Kansas former nuclear missile silo. You could have an apartment not as a residence but after taking in the high above sea level, seismology and I say could have had because they're sold out."
THE MOST HYPOCRITICAL HOUR OF THE WEEK
28 JAN 2017
POSTED BY SHANE PRUITT, DIRECTOR OF MISSIONS, SOUTHERN BAPTISTS OF TEXAS CONVENTION
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN LEAVING CHURCH AND ARRIVING AT LUNCH, WE LOSE THE INTENTIONALITY OF BEING WITNESSES FOR OUR GREAT GOD.
The alarm goes off on Sunday morning waking you out of beauty sleep. You’ve got to get up this time because you’ve already hit the snooze button seven times. The sun beams through the windows, and it’s a great day to gather with fellow believers to lift high the name of Jesus. You put on your Sunday best, get the kids dressed, jump in the mini-van because you’re already late. There is no need to stop for breakfast because you’re going to raid the donuts and coffee in the Welcome Center when you get to the church building.
Read more at World Religion News: "The Most Hypocritical Hour of the Week" http://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=34657
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Obama’s Parting Gift to You: A Ministry of Truth
January 04, 2017 chris
Before leaving office on Jan. 20, President Barack Obama and the Democrats stuck Americans with a combination Christmas and going-away present that effectively creates a Ministry of Truth to police what constitutes news in this country. Notably missing from this new measure is who, exactly, is going to be defining what is true and what is false.
By John Tiffany
There’s a saying that evil and the devil never sleep. Thus, while the American people were celebrating the Christmas season and paying little attention to politics, secure in the knowledge that Donald Trump had been elected, a lame-duck Congress and President Barack Obama made their move, passing and signing into law a bill that will create an Orwellian Ministry of Truth.
The budget-busting $611 billion 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has hidden deep within its pages a proviso known by various euphemisms such as the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 (H.R. 5181) or the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 (S. 2692).
Long before the flap about so-called “fake news”—meaning anything (such as the truth) not conforming to the government/mainstream media narratives—was drummed up, the writers of this anti-First Amendment legislation were planning to task the secretary of state with coordinating with the secretary of defense, the director of national intelligence, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to “establish a Center for Information Analysis and Response,” whose ostensible purpose is to “develop and disseminate” what are claimed to be “fact-based narratives” to counter the pesky truthers who have the effrontery to point out anomalies and holes in the establishment narratives.
Notably unanswered is the question of who determines what is “fact” and how they determine this. For example, for President George W. Bush it was a “fact” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In the end, it was clear to everyone the true facts were the opposite of the president’s “facts”—but by then the damage had been done.
The free speech-chilling rider was first introduced by Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and back in March by RINO Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). Kinzinger is noted for saying he cannot support Donald Trump.
Portman complained: “Surprisingly, there is currently no single U.S. governmental agency or department charged with the national-level development, integration, and synchronization of whole-of-government strategies to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation.”
On Dec. 8, the proviso was quietly inserted into the Senate version of the NDAA. Obama signed it into law in the evening of Dec. 23—practically on Christmas Eve.
The bill also creates a grant program to give away taxpayer dollars to “NGOs, think tanks, civil society [whatever that means] and other experts outside government who are engaged in counterpropaganda-related work.”
In what is effectively a return to the Cold War, Obama and these solons claim “foreign disinformation and manipulation” threaten the world’s “security and stability.”
This legislation “does not bode well for independent media and has massive potential to be abused for political purposes,” commented the news and commentary website “21stCenturyWire.com.”
Germany’s boss, Angela Merkel, joined with Obama in calling for more censorship and news control.
As part of the same drive, we have already seen Facebook partnering with government-sponsored “fact checking” sites and algorithms being put in place to remove dissident news from social media feeds. The new law chips away at freedom in America.
This latest outrage comes scant weeks after the Defense Department was found to have hidden a January 2015 report showing how $125 billion could have been saved over a five-year period without any civilian layoffs or any reduction in military strength—information the Pentagon and military-industrial-banking complex do not want leaked to the taxpayers.
Such “lamestream media” as The Washington Post have already indoctrinated and primed the public to believe that anyone deviating from the official narrative is providing “fake news” and “Russian propaganda,” so that now the government can legally crack down on any media that questions the official line.
WHAT THE NDAA IS ALL ABOUT
SEN. ROB PORTMAN ON FOREIGN PROPAGANDA:
“Our enemies are using foreign propaganda and disinformation against us and our allies, and so far the U.S. government has been asleep at the wheel.
“. . . But, today, the United States has taken a critical step towards confronting the extensive and destabilizing foreign propaganda and disinformation operations being waged against us by our enemies overseas.” —SEN. ROB PORTMAN
[AMERICAN FREE PRESS translation: Too much truth is getting out about the misdeeds of the U.S. government and something has to be done.—Ed.]
PORTMAN ON THE PURPOSE OF THE NDAA:
The Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act has this as its main goal, according to a press release on Portman’s Senate website:
“The first priority is developing a whole-of-government strategy for countering the foreign propaganda and disinformation being wages [sic] against us and our allies by our enemies. The bill would increase the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors like Russia and China as well as non-state actors.
“The Center will be led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies. The Center will develop, integrate, and synchronize whole-of-government initiatives to expose and counter foreign disinformation operations by our enemies and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests.”
[AMERICAN FREE PRESS translation: The government will accelerate distribution of its official propaganda narrative through compliant media outlets while at the same time crushing “fake news” outlets until the nexus between government and media is 100% complete. At the same time, the U.S. will expand even further its own spying and disinformation operations.—Ed.]
John Tiffany is AFP’s copy editor and lives in West Virginia.
Source
Blessings Upon the Watchful Ones
Blessings Upon the Watchful Ones
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January 28
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Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. Luke 12:37.
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God has always given men warning of coming judgments. Those who had faith in His message for their time, and who acted out their faith, in obedience to His commandments, escaped the judgments that fell upon the disobedient and unbelieving. The word came to Noah, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me.” Noah obeyed and was saved. The message came to Lot, “Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city.” Genesis 7:1; 19:14. Lot placed himself under the guardianship of the heavenly messengers, and was saved. So Christ's disciples were given warning of the destruction of Jerusalem. Those who watched for the sign of the coming ruin, and fled from the city, escaped the destruction. So now we are given warning of Christ's second coming and of the destruction to fall upon the world. Those who heed the warning will be saved.
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Because we know not the exact time of His coming, we are commanded to watch. “Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching.” Luke 12:37. Those who watch for the Lord's coming are not waiting in idle expectancy. The expectation of Christ's coming is to make men fear the Lord, and fear His judgments upon transgression. It is to awaken them to the great sin of rejecting His offers of mercy. Those who are watching for the Lord are purifying their souls by obedience to the truth. With vigilant watching they combine earnest working. Because they know that the Lord is at the door, their zeal is quickened to co-operate with the divine intelligences in working for the salvation of souls. These are the faithful and wise servants who give to the Lord's household “their portion of meat in due season.” Luke 12:42. They are declaring the truth that is now specially applicable. As Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses each declared the truth for his time, so will Christ's servants now give the special warning for their generation.
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Maranatha, p.36.
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Inaugural event of new Center for Understanding World Religions
By Heather Reifsnyder - January 26, 2017
Wholeness
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This is the center's inaugural program.
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Religious hostility too often sits at the core of conflict and violence. Honest dialogue and mutual respect are part of the solution, and hence one reason Loma Linda University Health has created the William Johnsson Center for Understanding World Religions.
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The new center, approved by the Board of Trustees in February 2016, will hold its inaugural event Saturday, Jan. 28; full details are below.
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The name of the center recognizes William Johnsson, PhD, MA, and his contributions to promoting interreligious understanding in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
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Above: Dr. William Johnsson
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Johnsson served as assistant for interfaith relations for former General Conference President Jan Paulsen for a number of years following a prolific career in publishing and scholarship in the Adventist Church. Johnsson retired to Loma Linda in 2014, where he regularly teaches courses for LLU School of Religion and still writes books.
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“Dr. Johnsson’s knowledge and passion for world religions have been invaluable to our campus,” says Richard Hart, MD, DrPH, president of Loma Linda University Health.
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Jon Paulien, PhD, dean of the School of Religion, who will serve as the center’s director, seconds Johnsson’s vast contributions. “The faculty of the School of Religion consider him one of the great Adventist figures of our era. His work with the Adventist Review and then interfaith relations has truly become legendary to us.”
Purpose of the center
Dean Paulien notes that central to the definition of a university is the exchange and understanding of diverse ideas — such as different religious beliefs.
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The surest way to people’s hearts is
through their faith.
Dr. Jon Paulien
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“Working or studying at Loma Linda University Health is a calling, not a job,” Paulien says. “If God calls non-Christians to Loma Linda, then that is a spiritual gift to us. They can benefit us by testifying to what God has done in their lives.
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“Furthermore, the surest way to people’s hearts is through their faith,” he continues. “We need to understand the hearts of our students and employees of other belief systems so that we can serve them appropriately.”
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For its initial activities, the William Johnsson Center for Understanding World Religions will hold meetings twice yearly, each focusing on a different religion.
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Paulien says, “These programs will not be purely theoretical but will also include practitioners of that faith who are employees or students of Loma Linda University Health, sharing what it means to them, with an Adventist then responding about how Adventism at its best encourages Loma Linda to offer an environment where individuals of different faiths peacefully learn and practice alongside each other.”
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Inaugural program — Islam
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The inaugural event will take place this Saturday, Jan. 28, with a focus on the faith of Islam.
The 3-5 p.m. program will explore the role and experience of Muslim students and faculty in the context of Loma Linda University Health’s mission and values. It will meet at the Damazo Amphitheater in the Centennial Complex, 24760 Stewart St. Free parking behind the building is plenteous.
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President Hart will offer an introduction, while Johnsson, the center’s namesake, will discuss the scope and purpose of this new enterprise. Johnsson also gave the initial donation to launch the center.
The program’s expert presenters will almost all be students and faculty at Loma Linda University Health. A steering committee comprising Muslim faculty planned the event and selected the speakers.
Nahidh Hasaniya, MD, PhD, associate professor in the School of Medicine, will offer a recitation from the Quran, followed with a translation by Shamel Abd-Allah, MD, professor in the School of Medicine.
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A special guest from Claremont School of Theology, Jihad Turk, MA, will offer a talk titled “Why I Am a Muslim.” Turk is president of Bayan Claremont, a seminary to educate Muslim scholars and religious leaders.
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Two more LLU professors, Mahmoud Torabinejad, DMD, PhD, MSD, of the School of Dentistry, and Eba Hathout, MD, of the School of Medicine, will discuss “What It’s Like to Be a Muslim at LLU.”
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Gerald Winslow, PhD, director of the LLU Center for Christian Bioethics, will then speak about Seventh-day Adventism and Islam.
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A panel discussion will follow, including Winslow, Hathout, Turk and Torabinejad as well as student Sara Haddad Tabrizi, LLU School of Public Health, and Khwaja Arsalaan Ahmed, radiology resident at Loma Linda University Medical Center.
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The choice of Islam as the first program’s focus reflects part of the impetus to start such a center at Loma Linda University Health.
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Story of the center’s founding
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The original suggestion for such a center came from Gabriela Profeta-Phillips, coordinator of Adventist-Muslim relations for the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
Phillips and other General Conference representatives met with the School of Religion dean to develop a proposal to share at LLU Deans Council on Dec. 2, 2015, unknowingly at the same time a young Muslim couple unleashed a terrorist attack on San Bernardino. In the wake of that tragic event, the Deans Council reacted very favorably to the idea, with top-level administrative commitment coming soon after.
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Paulien remembers, “A month later, we held a meeting with local Muslim leaders, engaging with them to communicate to the community that we at Loma Linda University Health want to be a center of healing, not just for our own campus but more broadly. We expressed our desire to redouble our efforts to be a partner of peace in the wider community.”
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Source
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An interview with Arturo Sosa S.J., Superior General of the Jesuits
(The following is a reprint of a Google Translate version of an article in Italian, with some minor changes for improved reading comprehension.)
Tv2000 & News
Tv2000 & News
Sunday, January 29, 2017 will be broadcast on TV2000 at 12.20 and 20:30 and at 19 on Radio InBlu the Soul episode with Father Arturo Sosa Abascal
Sunday, January 29, 2017 will be broadcast on TV2000 at 12.20 and 20:30 and at 19 on Radio InBlu the Soul episode with Father Arturo Sosa Abascal
Arturo Sosa Abascal, superior general of Compagnai the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). Born in Caracas, (Venezuela), the 49, the son of a banker, economist and finance minister. (Has a) Degree in philosophy and political science, (he) has devoted many years to teaching and research: it is a cultural and political point of reference of a country to (on) its knees, for (due to) the economic crisis and the violence ... "I do not agree, it is not a country to (on) its knees. It'(s in) a difficult situation, but (its) people are the (on their) feet, (they) work, does so many things, is (the situation has) stimulated creativity and this is (not) picked up (reported) by the media. The big problem in Venezuela is that (for more than) 100 years ago the oil has replaced agriculture, industry, as a source of wealth. We are (Venezuelans believed) convinced that having underground oil (was sufficient) meant in itself wealth and (it) was not worth it (necessary) to have a productive economy. The wealth is not (created or produced) by natural resources but (it is) human resources that transform and create jobs, (and) relationship. With a given in most (these facts), you often do not (it's not easy to) understand. The more the (Most of the) country's revenues are the oil revenues, and the state takes them all, and then distributes them. And 'so (Therefore, this phenomenon) changed the relationship between state and society (;) (It) is not the state that depends on the company (industry), but the opposite, and this is not good.
Source
Source
The Vatican has destroyed the Order of Malta’s sovereignty. What if Italy does the same to the Vatican?
by Ed Condon
posted Wednesday, 25 Jan 2017
Fra’ Matthew Festing at the Order of Malta's traditional new year audience (Order of Malta)
The curia remains a place where cliques have more authority than the law. It doesn't bode well
The most remarkable thing about the Order of Malta controversy is not that the Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Festing, has resigned. That is extraordinary enough, especially given that it was apparently on the invitation of Pope Francis. No, the most astonishing feature of the story is today’s announcement that the Pope will install an Apostolic Delegate to run the Order. In effect, this abolishes the Order as a sovereign entity. Under international law, what we are seeing is effectively the annexation of one country by another.
How did it come to this? Somehow, the small clique who rallied around the former Grand Chancellor, Albrecht Boeselager, have managed to turn a matter of the Order’s own internal governance into a full-blown diplomatic crisis between the two oldest and most prominent sovereign entities in the western world.
The clique never had much of a case. As I have written before, there is no question that, legally speaking, the commission set up on the recommendation of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State to investigate his sacking of Boeselager was and remains totally illegitimate.
It is clear that Boeselager was dismissed, following his refusal to resign, according to the approved legal process of the Order. It has been alleged that Fra’ Festing “defied” Pope Francis by dismissing Boeselager. But any opinion the Pope may have expressed before the event would have been in the much-rumoured letter on the matter from the Pope directly to Cardinal Burke, the Holy See’s envoy to the Order. This letter has not even been formally confirmed as existing, let alone leaked. Its purported contents remain the great unanswered question at the heart of this whole affair.
As far as one can tell from the various reports, the Pope actually gave no indication that he was opposed to the firing of Boeselager. In fact, the Holy Father seems to have been deeply concerned about the gravity of the allegations against Boeselager and even at the possibility of masonic infiltration of the Order’s membership and activities. The fact that the actual text of this letter has remained totally confidential speaks volumes about the discretion and respect for the Holy Father of both the Cardinal Patron and the Grand Master, even as they have been publicly accused of the opposite.
Fra’ Festing’s humility and courtesy are typical of the man. He has served the Order and the Pope well, with total devotion and respect for the obligations of the law and his position. And now, he has been forced from his position for doing his duty. Yet Boeselager – who refused to obey a direct order from his sovereign – and his allies have triumphed.
These allies have carried out a sordid campaign of leaked letters from Cardinal Parolin’s department, which served the sad and obvious end of framing a public narrative in which Fra’ Festing supposedly “defied” the explicit wishes of the Pope. In fact, even according to the confused and changeable timeline constructed by his friends, it was clear that Boeselager was dismissed well before Cardinal Parolin’s apparent (and still illegitimate) intervention.
The sad and severe consequences of this chain of events are considerable. The international legitimacy of the Order of Malta is now in ruins, its constitutional integrity and diplomatic standing now seem beyond repair.
Today’s announcement of an Apostolic Delegate to be appointed by the Pope represents, essentially, the total abrogation of the Order’s sovereignty. Yet the consequences for the Holy See itself may, in the longer term, be equally or even more severe. The disregard for the mutually sovereign relationship between the Holy See and the Order sets a precedent in international law, which will now lurk under the Secretariat of State’s dealings with other governments like an unexploded bomb.
If the Holy See can so brazenly insert itself into the internal governance of another sovereign entity whose legitimacy stems from a mutual agreement under international law, it now has no legal defence should another sovereign body, say the government of the Italian Republic, choose to view the independence of the Holy See as a similarly anachronistic formality. Cardinal Parolin should prepare to see today’s actions cited as legitimate precedent when the IOR, commonly called the Vatican Bank, finds its sovereign independence under renewed pressure from other countries or international bodies. Pope Benedict XVI said that “a society without laws is a society without rights”; the naked disregard for the law shown in recent weeks has sown a bitter harvest for the Holy See’s diplomatic corps to reap in the future.
For those less concerned with the diplomatic and legal aspects of this situation, there is one over-riding truth which has emerged from all this. It is now clear that for all the great hopes of curial reform which accompanied the election of Pope Francis, the Vatican remains a place where cliques and personal networks have more authority than the law, and where leaking and smearing remain part of the everyday business of governance.
The Pope himself is, as he has often stated, not a lawyer, nor is the law something he is known to have much interest in. Those in his curia who have prompted him to this action have deliberately served him, the office of the papacy, the international sovereignty of the Holy See, and of course the men and women of the Order of Malta, incredibly badly. I suspect it is now just a matter of when, not if, they come to regret it.
The curia remains a place where cliques have more authority than the law. It doesn't bode well
The most remarkable thing about the Order of Malta controversy is not that the Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Festing, has resigned. That is extraordinary enough, especially given that it was apparently on the invitation of Pope Francis. No, the most astonishing feature of the story is today’s announcement that the Pope will install an Apostolic Delegate to run the Order. In effect, this abolishes the Order as a sovereign entity. Under international law, what we are seeing is effectively the annexation of one country by another.
How did it come to this? Somehow, the small clique who rallied around the former Grand Chancellor, Albrecht Boeselager, have managed to turn a matter of the Order’s own internal governance into a full-blown diplomatic crisis between the two oldest and most prominent sovereign entities in the western world.
The clique never had much of a case. As I have written before, there is no question that, legally speaking, the commission set up on the recommendation of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State to investigate his sacking of Boeselager was and remains totally illegitimate.
It is clear that Boeselager was dismissed, following his refusal to resign, according to the approved legal process of the Order. It has been alleged that Fra’ Festing “defied” Pope Francis by dismissing Boeselager. But any opinion the Pope may have expressed before the event would have been in the much-rumoured letter on the matter from the Pope directly to Cardinal Burke, the Holy See’s envoy to the Order. This letter has not even been formally confirmed as existing, let alone leaked. Its purported contents remain the great unanswered question at the heart of this whole affair.
As far as one can tell from the various reports, the Pope actually gave no indication that he was opposed to the firing of Boeselager. In fact, the Holy Father seems to have been deeply concerned about the gravity of the allegations against Boeselager and even at the possibility of masonic infiltration of the Order’s membership and activities. The fact that the actual text of this letter has remained totally confidential speaks volumes about the discretion and respect for the Holy Father of both the Cardinal Patron and the Grand Master, even as they have been publicly accused of the opposite.
Fra’ Festing’s humility and courtesy are typical of the man. He has served the Order and the Pope well, with total devotion and respect for the obligations of the law and his position. And now, he has been forced from his position for doing his duty. Yet Boeselager – who refused to obey a direct order from his sovereign – and his allies have triumphed.
These allies have carried out a sordid campaign of leaked letters from Cardinal Parolin’s department, which served the sad and obvious end of framing a public narrative in which Fra’ Festing supposedly “defied” the explicit wishes of the Pope. In fact, even according to the confused and changeable timeline constructed by his friends, it was clear that Boeselager was dismissed well before Cardinal Parolin’s apparent (and still illegitimate) intervention.
The sad and severe consequences of this chain of events are considerable. The international legitimacy of the Order of Malta is now in ruins, its constitutional integrity and diplomatic standing now seem beyond repair.
Today’s announcement of an Apostolic Delegate to be appointed by the Pope represents, essentially, the total abrogation of the Order’s sovereignty. Yet the consequences for the Holy See itself may, in the longer term, be equally or even more severe. The disregard for the mutually sovereign relationship between the Holy See and the Order sets a precedent in international law, which will now lurk under the Secretariat of State’s dealings with other governments like an unexploded bomb.
If the Holy See can so brazenly insert itself into the internal governance of another sovereign entity whose legitimacy stems from a mutual agreement under international law, it now has no legal defence should another sovereign body, say the government of the Italian Republic, choose to view the independence of the Holy See as a similarly anachronistic formality. Cardinal Parolin should prepare to see today’s actions cited as legitimate precedent when the IOR, commonly called the Vatican Bank, finds its sovereign independence under renewed pressure from other countries or international bodies. Pope Benedict XVI said that “a society without laws is a society without rights”; the naked disregard for the law shown in recent weeks has sown a bitter harvest for the Holy See’s diplomatic corps to reap in the future.
For those less concerned with the diplomatic and legal aspects of this situation, there is one over-riding truth which has emerged from all this. It is now clear that for all the great hopes of curial reform which accompanied the election of Pope Francis, the Vatican remains a place where cliques and personal networks have more authority than the law, and where leaking and smearing remain part of the everyday business of governance.
The Pope himself is, as he has often stated, not a lawyer, nor is the law something he is known to have much interest in. Those in his curia who have prompted him to this action have deliberately served him, the office of the papacy, the international sovereignty of the Holy See, and of course the men and women of the Order of Malta, incredibly badly. I suspect it is now just a matter of when, not if, they come to regret it.
Knights of Malta insist on sovereign leadership
Posted January 27
The Knights' current grand master awaits Saturday's meeting of his governing council to either accept or reject his resignation.
BY NICOLE WINFIELDASSOCIATED PRESS
ROME — The Knights of Malta is still insisting on its sovereignty in its showdown with the Vatican, even after Pope Francis effectively took control of the ancient religious order and announced a papal delegate would govern it through a “process of renewal.”
The Knights’ current grand master, Fra’ Matthew Festing, was at work Friday at the order’s swanky Rome palazzo near the Spanish Steps, pending a meeting of his governing council to either accept or reject his resignation.
The Saturday meeting is evidence of the order’s sovereign status under international law, which is recognized by the more than 100 countries that have diplomatic relations with the Knights of Malta and essentially consider it a state.
Festing, a 67-year-old British aristocrat, met Tuesday with Francis and said he would resign after he lost an internal power struggle that started with a scandal over condoms. Festing sacked the Knights’ foreign minister, Albrecht von Boeselager, over the condom scandal.
But the Vatican intervened on Boeselager’s behalf and announced this week that the pope had accepted Festing’s resignation and would name a papal delegate to run the order.
The Knights of Malta is an ancient chivalric order that runs hospitals and clinics around the world. It counts 13,500 Knights, Dames and chaplains, 80,000 permanent volunteers and 25,000 employees, most of them medical personnel who lend first aid in war zones, natural disasters and conflict areas.
The Knights are questioning the pope’s right to name a delegate to govern the order, since its sovereign constitution clearly sets out the process for selecting its leadership.
Pope Francis delivers his blessing during his meeting with Grand Master of the Knights of Malta Matthew Festing at the Vatican in June. The Knights of Malta is still insisting on its sovereignty in its showdown with the Vatican, even after Pope Francis effectively took control of the ancient religious order and announced a papal delegate would govern it through a "process of renewal." Gabriel Bouys/ Pool Photo via AP
Pope Francis and Grand Master of the Knights of Malta Matthew Festing meet at the Vatican last June. Gabriel Bouys/ Pool photo via
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Friday, January 27, 2017
Fr. General's message for World Day of Refugees 2017
(14-Jan-2017)
Rome
I wish to begin by expressing my gratitude, and how deeply moved I am, to have this opportunity to share with you this moment of reflection and prayer.
This moment presents an important invitation to the Society of Jesus to accompany, with its few resources, and to share in the anxieties and hopes of the refugees here in Italy and everywhere in the world. As you may be aware, I come from Latin America, a continent in teeming with millions of refugees and migrants for the same reasons that we have heard in the moving testimonies of Asiz, Dhurata, Mortezza, Mirvat and Edelawit.
I have encountered similar situations on the border between Colombia and Venezuela, where I lived for ten years before being called to Rome. I met entire families that had been forced to abandon everything to save lives threatened by injustice and violence that has taken hold of our societies. I met children and young people who had been forced to become soldiers and to participate in wars so far away from their dreams, thoughts and desires. But importantly, I also encountered the generosity of many families who welcomed the refugees as brothers and sisters in search of a new life. I came across some schools, teachers, Christian communities willing to lend a hand to the new arrivals. Through these encounters, I became more and more aware of the challenges states face in facilitating the legal integration for refugees, which would grant the refugees access to job opportunities and personal development. I have witnessed the human pain resulting from abuse by police bodies and human traffickers.
Therefore, the efforts of closely accompanying the refugees and migrants, particularly the young and vulnerable, are close to my heart. I wish to encourage and promote efforts that ensure the protection of life and the hope of the child and adolescent refugees, especially those recruited by traffickers to convert them into the so-called baby-traffickers.
It is necessary to promote citizens' movements that put pressure on states and governments of Europe and other parts of the world in order to create safe access to legal channels for children and teenagers forced to leave their homes, their countries, and many times, even their families to make a future elsewhere. The absence of these channels adds new dangers to the path of migrants and increases the injustice suffered by those who have had to flee their homeland. The absence of adequate protection, the difficulty of access to humanitarian visas and efficient policies of social inclusion nourishes one of the greatest scourges of humanity in our times: human trafficking. And that is what we heard in the testimonies of young people today.
The political development of Europe has created multiplicity of public institutions that aim at protecting the rights of people, especially children and young people. The increasing flow of migration challenges these institutions to ensure that there is reliable and adequate protection for many who arrive each day to knock on the doors of European countries seeking to be included and not excluded. Europeans, children of a culture that claims human rights as a sign of human and social progress, are invited by migrants to deepen their human and political conscience to demand that governments create reception systems, with facilities adequate and conveniently located throughout their territories to ensure a humane reception of migrants, especially to young people.
Europe and all other migrant receiving countries should become a source of pride by creating the circumstances in which those who come find human conditions to rebuild their lives and young people can dream about their future with the ability to make it happen if they too will put in the necessary effort.
Dear friends, we are gathered here today in Gesù Church in honour of so many migrants and refugees who are struggling to rediscover the worthiness of their human life. I invite you all to step up your effort to make our societies places of genuine welcome to those who are suffering because of the need to migrate.
Thank you so much.
Arturo Sosa, S.I.
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Thursday, January 26, 2017
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Christian unity requires learning from each other, pope says
News
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
1.25.2017 1:00 PM ET
CNS/Paul Haring
Pope Francis gestures as he stands with Orthodox Archbishop Gennadios of Italy and Malta and Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, the archbishop of Canterbury's representative to the Vatican, during an ecumenical evening prayer service to conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome Jan. 25. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) See POPE-UNITY-PRAYER Jan. 25, 2017.
PHOTO GALLERIES
RELATED ITEMS
Catholic schools should promote selling points, says bishop
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Divided Christians need to recognize the gifts God has given to other communities and learn from them "without waiting for the others to learn first," Pope Francis said.
Leading an ecumenical evening prayer service Jan. 25 for the close of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Francis said Christians must overcome the "temptations of self-absorption that prevent us from perceiving how the Holy Spirit is at work outside our familiar surroundings," including in the lives of other Christian communities.
The Vatican's Sistine Chapel Choir and the Anglican Westminster Abbey Choir sang at the service at Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
Pope Francis walked to the tomb of St. Paul, under the basilica's main altar, and prayed there with Orthodox Metropolitan Gennadios of Italy, the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and with Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, the representative of the archbishop of Canterbury.
At the end of the service, the two took turns with Pope Francis in reading segments of the solemn blessing and in blessing the congregation with the sign of the cross.
In his homily, Pope Francis said St. Paul, who was persecuting the Christians, went from being a person who trusted "his own ability to observe the law strictly" to conversion and "cleaving with his whole being to the gracious and unmerited love of God: to Jesus Christ, crucified and risen."
Like St. Paul, he said, "each person, forgiven and loved, is called in turn to proclaim the Gospel of reconciliation in word and deed, to live and bear witness to a reconciled life."
"Authentic reconciliation between Christians will only be achieved when we can acknowledge each other's gifts and learn from one another, with humility and docility, without waiting for the others to learn first," he said.
In the year marking the fifth centenary of the Protestant Reformation, Pope Francis said Christians must acknowledge the past but not allow themselves to be fixated on it and on the injuries suffered at the hands of the other.
Christians must allow God, "who makes all things new, to unveil before our eyes a new future, open to the hope that does not disappoint, a future in which divisions can be overcome and believers, renewed in love, will be fully and visibly one," he said.
Praying for Christian unity, the pope said, is sharing in Jesus' own prayer for the unity of his disciples.
"With patient and trusting hope that the Father will grant all Christians the gift of full visible communion," he said, "let us press forward in our journey of reconciliation and dialogue, encouraged by the heroic witness of our many brothers and sisters, past and present, who were one in suffering for the name of Jesus."
Echoing a call he made during major ecumenical meetings in 2016 with Lutheran and with Anglican leaders, Pope Francis prayed that Christians would "take advantage of every occasion that providence offers us to pray together, to proclaim together and together to love and serve, especially those who are the most poor and neglected in our midst."
Speaking at the end of the service, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said, "We must commit ourselves to promoting reconciliation among Christians, and we must let ourselves be compelled by the love of Christ.
"In fact," he said, "love is the motor of any ecumenical effort. True love does not erase the legitimate differences among Christian churches, but leads them together, reconciled, to a deeper unity."
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
1.25.2017 1:00 PM ET
CNS/Paul Haring
Pope Francis gestures as he stands with Orthodox Archbishop Gennadios of Italy and Malta and Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, the archbishop of Canterbury's representative to the Vatican, during an ecumenical evening prayer service to conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome Jan. 25. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) See POPE-UNITY-PRAYER Jan. 25, 2017.
PHOTO GALLERIES
RELATED ITEMS
Catholic schools should promote selling points, says bishop
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Divided Christians need to recognize the gifts God has given to other communities and learn from them "without waiting for the others to learn first," Pope Francis said.
Leading an ecumenical evening prayer service Jan. 25 for the close of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Francis said Christians must overcome the "temptations of self-absorption that prevent us from perceiving how the Holy Spirit is at work outside our familiar surroundings," including in the lives of other Christian communities.
The Vatican's Sistine Chapel Choir and the Anglican Westminster Abbey Choir sang at the service at Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
Pope Francis walked to the tomb of St. Paul, under the basilica's main altar, and prayed there with Orthodox Metropolitan Gennadios of Italy, the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and with Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, the representative of the archbishop of Canterbury.
At the end of the service, the two took turns with Pope Francis in reading segments of the solemn blessing and in blessing the congregation with the sign of the cross.
In his homily, Pope Francis said St. Paul, who was persecuting the Christians, went from being a person who trusted "his own ability to observe the law strictly" to conversion and "cleaving with his whole being to the gracious and unmerited love of God: to Jesus Christ, crucified and risen."
Like St. Paul, he said, "each person, forgiven and loved, is called in turn to proclaim the Gospel of reconciliation in word and deed, to live and bear witness to a reconciled life."
"Authentic reconciliation between Christians will only be achieved when we can acknowledge each other's gifts and learn from one another, with humility and docility, without waiting for the others to learn first," he said.
In the year marking the fifth centenary of the Protestant Reformation, Pope Francis said Christians must acknowledge the past but not allow themselves to be fixated on it and on the injuries suffered at the hands of the other.
Christians must allow God, "who makes all things new, to unveil before our eyes a new future, open to the hope that does not disappoint, a future in which divisions can be overcome and believers, renewed in love, will be fully and visibly one," he said.
Praying for Christian unity, the pope said, is sharing in Jesus' own prayer for the unity of his disciples.
"With patient and trusting hope that the Father will grant all Christians the gift of full visible communion," he said, "let us press forward in our journey of reconciliation and dialogue, encouraged by the heroic witness of our many brothers and sisters, past and present, who were one in suffering for the name of Jesus."
Echoing a call he made during major ecumenical meetings in 2016 with Lutheran and with Anglican leaders, Pope Francis prayed that Christians would "take advantage of every occasion that providence offers us to pray together, to proclaim together and together to love and serve, especially those who are the most poor and neglected in our midst."
Speaking at the end of the service, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said, "We must commit ourselves to promoting reconciliation among Christians, and we must let ourselves be compelled by the love of Christ.
"In fact," he said, "love is the motor of any ecumenical effort. True love does not erase the legitimate differences among Christian churches, but leads them together, reconciled, to a deeper unity."
North Dakota mulls lifting its Sunday morning shopping ban
USA POLITICS FIRST LOOK
North Dakota legislators are considering lifting the longstanding ban on Sunday morning shopping, a move that critics worry would erode time to rest.
Ernest Scheyder/Reuters/File | Caption
Mengqi Sun
Staff | @mitchiesun
JANUARY 24, 2017 —North Dakota residents might soon be legally allowed to shop on Sunday mornings.
On Monday, state legislators began considering a proposal asking to strike North Dakota's Sunday morning sales ban from the books. Advocates hope that lifting the ban, which is rooted in religious tradition, will help increase local retailers' competitiveness.
Citing tax revenue, lawmakers who oppose the so-called blue laws believe ending this prohibition will also bring more jobs.
"I'm annoyed that I have to wait until Sunday afternoon to shop," state Rep. Pam Anderson (D) of Fargo, who has introduced legislation to abolish the shopping restrictions, told the Associated Press.
Though still in the process of consideration by a House committee, the new bill aims to lift the prohibition on most sales on Sundays, while leaving in place North Dakota’s all-day ban on vehicle sales and its half-day ban on alcohol sales.
While North Dakota has relaxed its blue laws over the years – until 1991, the state required most businesses to stay closed all day on Sundays – the new legislation is proposed mainly to increase opportunities for local retailers to retain their shoppers.
Proponents of the new bill believe that opening late puts cities that border other states at a disadvantage, similar to arguments used to back the proposal to allow alcohol sales at restaurants and bars after 11 a.m. on Sundays, which was passed in 2015.
As North Dakota is the only state in the country that prohibits Sunday-morning shopping, supporters said such restrictions hurt business in the state, especially in the eastern cities of Fargo and Grand Forks, when shoppers can just go across the Minnesota border.
The proposed legislation would loosen restrictions that have existed since the state was formed in 1889, amidst worries that visiting a retail store on Sunday morning would compete with church, erode family values, and leave people with even less time to rest.
The purpose of the Sunday-closing law is "not to impose times of worship, nor is it to demand adherence to religious doctrine," North Dakota Catholic Conference director Christopher Dodson told lawmakers.
"It is to provide a common period of rest and relaxation to the benefit of families and communities," he said.
The state Supreme Court has twice upheld the ban: first in the mid-1960s and again in the early 1990s.
But Anderson believes allowing Sunday morning shopping would not impact the number of people in the pews, calling it a "falsehood." Other advocates also think it simply impacted their freedom to choose.
"North Dakota doesn't dictate to farmers when to farm, hospitals when to practice medicine, or restaurants when to feed people," Brandon Mendenwald, who owns a software company in Fargo, told lawmakers. "Allow people to choose how to spend their own time ... Why does the state government not trust people to make this decision for themselves?"
The story contains material from the Associated Press.
Source
P S.
This topic and the words expressed in this article bring this statement to my mind:
When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near.
Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, p.451.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Meditation, meetings and more about what's on the agenda for California House members skipping the inauguration
JAN. 20, 2017, 3:30 A.M.
REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON
Sarah D. Wire
(Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call)
Fifteen California members of Congress are missing from the platform for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration today , with many saying their constituents asked them not to attend or that they couldn’t stomach celebrating an incoming president they don’t respect.
Some members are using the time to be active in their home districts.
While Trump is speaking, Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) will be visiting with constituents at the ChapCare community health center in Pasadena, talking about the Affordable Care Act and how to save it. Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Palm Desert) will be getting ready for a veterans event Saturday.
Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk) will be at a laborers training school, while Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) will be assembling care kits for homeless people.
Some members are using the time to reflect.
Rep. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), a former Jesuit missionary, is staying home to pray for the country and for Trump. Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Los Angeles) has asked Americans to join him in an hour of meditation during the ceremony.
“While Donald Trump is being sworn in, I think a good use of my time is to promote positivity,” Cardenas said in a statement.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Los Angeles) originally expected to watch the inauguration on television after completing his Air Force Reserve service days early in the week, but the now-colonel moved his service days around and will be working on base instead.
Source
Monday, January 23, 2017
Saturday, January 21, 2017
The Media Have Rendered Its Verdict: Obama Had ZERO Scandals [Montage]
‘When you rank presidents on ethical standards, Barack Obama is the highest’
Jan 20, 2017
0:00 / 2:22
President Obama began saying toward the end of his presidency that he's "extremely proud" to be leaving without any major scandals.
We've noted claim is far from true, documenting hundreds of scandals.
The major media, however, is only too happy to help create Obama's preferred narrative of leaving with a squeaky clean record.
In the last week of his presidency, pundits on CNN and MSNBC were in total agreement: Obama is perhaps the most ethical and upright and scandal-free president in modern American history.
"It's very hard to meet the Barack Obama standard," presidential historian, Douglas Brinkley, said. "In my mind, he's like Dwight Eisenhower. He's almost unimpeachable. He has governed with such honesty and integrity ... and the legacy of having eight scandal-free years is going to look larger and larger in history."
Many of these commentators argued that Donald Trump -- before taking office -- already has more scandals than Obama is leaving with.
"They didn't have a big scandal in eight years," David Gergen said. "It's very rare."
"Isn't it amazing?" agreed CNN's Don Lemon. "It's class. A very classy family."
"There's not a bit of scandal," Chris Matthews said. "His family is ... completely perfect."
"He's been scandal-free in the White House," Tom Brokaw said. "We haven't had that in awhile."
Check out the montage above to see how curiously in sync these talking heads are.
Embed/download this news clip
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Obama’s Chief of Staff Must Be High (Obama too)
Posted on January 15, 2017 by webmaster
“I will say that the thing I’m most proud of, Jake, is an administration now acknowledging that we will have 6 days left or 5 days left, that has been historically free of scandal,” McDonough told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The man must be taking some very strong drugs. That is the only acceptable excuse to tell such an outrageous lie.
Just a few of the Obama administration scandals in no particular order off the top of my head:
- Making endless Pigford Payoffs;
- Gunrunning aka Operation Fast and Furious;
- Eric Holder being held in contempt of Congress;
- Weaponizing the IRS to target conservative organizations;
- Seizing Associated Press phone records;
- Accessing phone and email records of Fox News reporter James Rosen;
- Unconstitutional NSA mass surveillance of American citizens without a warrant;
- SCOTUS unanimously ruling against more than a dozen of Obama’s unconstitutional actions, and unanimously ruling against his administration a record 44 times;
- Hillary Clinton losing $6 BILLION of State Department funds;
- Solyndra and countless other Stimulus package waste, thefts, kickbacks and cronyism;
- Trading 5 top Taliban commanders for traitor Bowe Bergdahl;
- Veterans Affairs Death List scandal, ongoing to this day;
- Bombing Libya in an undeclared war in violation of the War Powers Act while claiming the UN gave him authority;
- Surrendering to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and providing them with billions to continue status as a state sponsor of terrorism;
- Declaring a “red line” in Syria and subsequently failing to act as Syria uses chemical weapons for the next few years;
- Punishing veterans with “Barry-cades” to block access to monuments during the government shutdown he caused;
- Turning the Colorado Day-Glo orange with pollution via the EPA’s disastrous mine flush;
- Ignoring an act of war as China hacked 22 million background checks from the OPM;
- Terence Flynn forced to resign from the National Labor Relations Board for serious ethical violations;
- Head of the General Services Administration fired two top GSA officials and then resigned herself after it leaked that $822,000 had been spent in Las Vegas on a four-day bash for 300 GSA employees.
- Abandoning Americans to die at the Benghazi Special Mission, Libya;
- Trying to redefine the 2,000 year old worldwide definition of marriage;
- Droning American citizens without due process, aka murder;
- Threatening to take federal funds away from schools unless they allow men into the girls’ showers, locker rooms and bathrooms;
- And because my fingers are getting tired, we’ll just end it here with Barack Obama’s notorious LIE OF THE YEAR: “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”
Barack Obama is also apparently back on the choom (his word for the marijuana he habitually and illegally smoked growing up, by his own admission). That, or he’s trying his hand at revising history yet again. “I’m extremely proud of the fact that over eight years we have not had the kinds of scandals that have plagued other administrations,” he falsely claimed last month.
Stoner in Chief
The man has no shame. Nor do the sycophants he employs as his echo chamber.
***UPDATE*** Here’s a video of the jackass (Obama) trying to pass off the lie one final time in his last televised interview before mandatory retirement.
Source
The Grace of God Manifested in Good Works
By Mrs. E. G. White
“By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Since we can be saved only through the grace of God, which is a free gift, why is it that man will to his own hurt, lift himself up in pride and take glory to himself for his supposed good works? The divine favor, the grace of God bestowed upon us through Jesus Christ, is too precious to be given in exchange for any supposed meritorious work on the part of finite, erring man. Man has nothing in himself. The most exalted does not originate from man, but is the endowment of his Creator, and can purchase nothing from God. Gold and silver cannot buy the favor of God; for the wealth of the world is the intrusted talent of the Lord. Let no one think that costly offerings to benevolent enterprises will elevate him in the sight of God, or purchase for him the favor of Heaven, or procure for him a place in the mansions which Jesus has gone to prepare for those who love him. The precious blood of Christ is wholly efficacious. “Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” “Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price.”
The resurrection of Christ from the dead was the Father's seal to the mission of Christ. It was a public expression of his entire satisfaction in the atoning work. He accepted the sacrifice that Jesus had made on our behalf. It was everything that God required, perfect and complete. No human being by any work of his own could piece out the work of Christ. When on the cross Jesus uttered the cry, “It is finished!” glory and joy thrilled heaven, and discomfiture fell upon the confederacy of evil. After that triumphant cry, the world's Redeemer bowed his head and died and to all appearance the Captain of our salvation was conquered; but by his death he was a conqueror, and he has opened the gates of eternal glory so that all who believe in him may not perish, but have everlasting life.
The sinner's only hope is to rely wholly upon Jesus Christ. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Our acceptance with God is sure only through his beloved Son, and good works are but the result of the working of his sin-pardoning love. They are no credit to us, and we have nothing accorded to us for our good works by which we may claim a part in the salvation of our souls. Salvation is God's free gift to the believer, given to him for Christ's sake alone. The troubled soul may find peace through faith in Christ, and his peace will be in proportion to his faith and trust. He cannot present his good works as a plea for the salvation of his soul.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan offers prayer at Inauguration Day 2017
PBS NewsHour
Published on Jan 20, 2017
Catholic archdiocese of New York Timothy Dolan offers a prayer at Inauguration Day 2017.
Proclamation of Truth Our Work
The most solemn truths ever entrusted to mortals have been given us to proclaim to the world. The proclamation of these truths is to be our work. The world is to be warned, and God's people are to be true to the trust committed to them. . . .
Shall we wait until God's judgments fall upon the transgressor before we tell him how to avoid them? Where is our faith in the Word of God? Must we see things foretold come to pass before we will believe what He has said? In clear, distinct rays light has come to us, showing us that the great day of the Lord is near at hand, "even at the door."
Testimonies, vol. 9, pp. 19, 20. (1909)
Evangelism, p. 119, 120.
Friday, January 20, 2017
Times have changed: Never on Sunday!
Friday
Posted Jan 20, 2017 at 8:57 AM
Oh, how times have changed. I can remember back in the not-so-distant past, that Sunday was considered "sacred."By Dan Van Ommen
Oh, how times have changed. I can remember back in the not-so-distant past, that Sunday was considered "sacred." God rested on the seventh day and declared (in the Ten Commandments no less) that his followers do the same. No work was to be done on the Sabbath day by man or animal. The penalty for breaking the law of the Sabbath was more than a little harsh ... it was death by stoning.
Thank goodness the penalty for "breaking" the Lord's day, even 50 or 60 years ago was not quite that severe. Maybe that's because the Sunday "rules" as set forth, were basically idiotic.
Nancy Pelosi Trashes Pro-Life People: “They Pray on Sunday and Prey on People the Rest of the Week”
Nancy Pelosi Trashes Pro-Life People: “They Pray on Sunday and Prey on People the Rest of the Week”: The Democratic Party has problems. Ever since Democrats suffered major, unexpected losses in the November election, political commentators have been speculat
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